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RISING IN FLAMES
SHERMANS MARCH AND THE FIGHT FOR A NEW NATION
J. D. DICKEY
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Empire of Mud
RISING IN FLAMES
Pegasus Books Ltd.
148 W 37th Street, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10018
Copyright 2018 by J. D. Dickey
First Pegasus Books edition June 2018
Interior design by Maria Fernandez
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
ISBN: 978-1-68177-757-3
ISBN: 978-1-68177-825-9 (e-book)
Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company
To Teresa
CONTENTS
I spent the majority of my childhood in the South. My father worked for a textile manufacturer and my mother taught school. Typical for the time, my family followed my dad where his job led him, from Birmingham, Alabama, to Greenville, South Carolina. It was an itinerant work life, but a good and productive one, and when it ended, as so many careers in the textile industry did in the 1980s, he moved us to a distant corner of the country to find new opportunities. Yet though Ive lived away from the region for decades, Ive never forgotten the South, with its deep woods and sublime mountains, its unforgettable food and rich storytelling, and its many legends, ghosts, and phantoms.
One of the earliest field trips I remember was visiting Fort Sumter. It didnt mean much to me as a childan old fort by the sea guarded by antique cannonsbut my schoolteacher couldnt help but remind us students that this was where the Civil War started (or more likely she called it The War Between the States). The fort seemed like a poignant relic from a distant era, and was South Carolinas principal claim to wartime importance, or so it seemed. I learned much later that the state played another significant role during the war, with large parts of it looted, pillaged, and set on fire.
The figure responsible for this violence was, of course, William Sherman. During his Atlanta, Savannah, and Carolinas campaigns, the general ensured he would never be forgotten by the South and would leave a permanent mark on its history, landscape, and psyche. His military actions remain rich and vivid to the Southern mind, despite being more than six generations in the past.
Though I was partly raised in the region, this book is not about Shermans invasion from the perspective of the South. That view has been covered well and near-exhaustively by onlookers, critics, and aggrieved parties for more than a century now, and anyone with a passing interest in the subject need go no further than a perusal of Gone with the Wind to learn the feelings of those who resisted the march of Northern armies and were duly overwhelmed by them. Rather, this volume concerns the perspective of the marchers themselvesthe invading troops who did so much to cripple the Confederate economy, damage its landscape, and sap its people of the will to fight and hasten the end of the war.
The effect of William Sherman on the South may be well known, but much less familiar is his effect on the North, and how his invasion of Georgia and the Carolinas helped to transform the Union, and especially the western states, during and after the conflict. From engendering new perspectives on the role of women and African Americans in U.S. society, to helping flower movements for temperance and spiritual revival, Shermans campaigns had a stark and dramatic effect on long-held social beliefs and political ideologies, as well as what it meant to be an American.
Paradoxically, the general himself wanted none of these things. He was one of the most stubborn reactionaries in the U.S. military, yet ended up as one of its most transformative figuresa looming presence that today still excites angry passions and vigorous debates. And its easy to understand why. Sherman devastated large swaths of the South, and many of the regions his troops passed over remain impoverished, desolate, demoralized. This book spares none of the violence of his campaigns or their targeted horror. But history like life can be rich with dualitiesnamely, how something so destructive, so fearsome as a mass invasion can have unplanned consequences for both the invaded and the invaders.
Through journals, letters, and official records, we can learn what it meant to be a part of those brazen Union armies, and how Shermans marchers (to the sea and elsewhere) were forced to reconcile their firmly held beliefs with the reality of war, and how so many of them ended up reinvented and otherwise changed by it. And it is this transformation this book is about: the alterations to the social and cultural fabric of the North wrought by the damage to the physical landscape of the South. The galvanizing and metamorphic effect of violence on both its perpetrators and its victims. And the way a military genius, unhinged madman, unexpected liberator, and lawless tyrant can all exist in the reputation of the same legendary figure.
A t 9 A.M. on May 23, 1865, Washington, D.C., awoke to the roar of a cannon. The blast wasnt an act of aggression, for the great Civil War had concluded a month before. Instead, it marked the start of the Grand Review of the Armies, a colossal military parade that would present 150,000 Union soldiers who had won that war, in all their splendor and glory.
The national capital had been transformed for the event. While much of it was still an eyesorea hodgepodge of unfinished buildings, rutted dirt roads, ramshackle brothels, and an open sewerfederal leaders had worked for weeks to make the town look its best. Red, white, and blue flags and bunting hung from the public buildings, and black crepe honored the memory of the recently martyred president, Abraham Lincoln. Huge banners offered messages like The only national debt we can never pay is the debt we owe to the victorious Union soldiers, while other signs recalled federal victories at places like Gettysburg, Shiloh, and Vicksburg. Rousing martial airs echoed through the streets, church choirs sang inspiring hymns, and two thousand children held flowers and sang patriotic songs.