Sherman's March ot the Sea

Details of men were ordered to gather rations and forage of any sort and quantity useful to their commands and could appropriate animals and conveyances without limit. Soldiers committed trespass on private dwellings and farms, used abusive or threatening language especially to the women folk left at home, and often did not leave the family enough food for to sustain themselves. Often what they could not consume on the spot or carry off, was destroyed.
<STRONG>Commanders were advised to "enforce a devastation more or less relentless, according to the measure of hostility." But some of the bummers considered silent non compliance as hostility and destroyed the property as many Southern women and children stood aside, watch in horror, and fearing for their lives.

The bummer foraging parties became bands of marauders answering to no authority. One conscientious bummer wrote to his sister about the depredations inflicted on South Carolina: “How would you like it, what do you think, to have troops passing your house constantly ... ransacking and plundering and carrying off everything that could be of any use to them? There is considerable excitement in foraging, but it is [a] disagreeable business in some respects to go into people's houses and take their provisions and have the women begging and entreating you to leave a little when you are necessitated to take all. But I feel some degree of consolation in the knowledge I have that I never went beyond my duty to pillage.”
<B>The foraging system soon would begin to show disorganization. The system was originally designed for a brigade to send out a foraging party of fifty men. This usually was inadequate to feed an entire brigade, so the practice of regiments sending a few companies of foragers each became common. The provisions collected by that detachment would then supply their particular regiment. Even this method would not satisfy the Union commanders, or the greed of the bummers, so even smaller detachments could be sent out to try their hand a plunder. Most of Sherman's men had taken part in foraging at one time or another

in this campaign.
<STRONG>Because a man can only carry so many supplies on foot, the practice of bummers confiscating mounts became not only common but also encouraged. Even the addition of a few mules however did not totally do the trick in helping carry off provisions captured, so commanders would detach wagons for service with foraging detachments.

As word spread of the tactics of the Union army, the farm families would try to hide as much food and valuables as they could. Food stuffs and supplies were already in short supply. Much of what could be raised was sent on to feed the Confederate troops in the field. What was left at home was minimal. Not only did they not wish to aid the criminal Yankee bummers, they had to try to save food for themselves to live on. Most of the civilians would not be cooperative in telling the location of their valuables and provisions. Women would often resort to placing valuables and other things worth saving under them in their chair. Sitting and refusing to move, the surmising that the Yankees wouldn't dare move the women to search. Some resorted to tying valuables under their dresses in petticoats, such as silverware. They tried to stand still so as not to clink the silverware. This worked in some cases, in others the Yankees would molest the Southern women and girls taking the goods and also taking liberties with the ladies.
Other hiding places were often discovered by Yankees who became wise to the tricks. Yankees would also resort to trickery and treats of harm to get the goods. A typically they might interrogate the women, and when the women denied they had any food stuffs, the bummers would say something like "Since you don't have anything to eat, obviously you can not continue to live on this farm as you can not sustain yourself, so the Federal government must take care of you. We will relocate you to a refugee camp and will burn the house and outbuildings." This would often scare the civilians into revealing their hiding spot. After the bummers got what they want, many times they would burn the outbuildings anyway. Another method to force the Southerners to give up their stores would be the time honored threat of violence to ladies or children.

General Howard, evidently ashamed of the manner of the marching through Georgia, claims that the "Sherman bummers" were not with his wing. He reported the capture of about 1,200 prisoners, 10,500 cattle, about $300,000 worth of subsistence, 931 horses, 1,850 mules, about 5,000,000 pounds each of corn and fodder, and the destruction of 3,500 bales of cotton and 191 miles of railroad. Slocum 'reported a similar amount of subsistence taken, 119 miles of railroad wrecked, 17,000 bales of cotton destroyed. The limits of this chapter do not permit of an adequate description of the ruin wrought throughout Georgia. The imagination, acting upon the basis of the outline here given, cannot exceed the reality.
<div align=left><B>In his message of February 17, 1865, Governor Brown, after recounting the destruction wrought by Sherman, said:

"In these misfortunes Georgia has been taunted by some of the public journals of other States because her people did not drive back and destroy the enemy. Those who do us this injustice fail to state the well-known fact that of all the tens of thousands of veteran infantry, including most of the vigor and manhood of the State, which she had furnished for the Confederate service, but a single regiment, the Georgia regulars, of about 300 effective men, was permitted to be upon her soil during the march of General Sherman from her northeast border to the city of Savannah, and that gallant regiment was kept upon one of our islands most of the time and not permitted to unite with those who met the enemy. Nor were the places of our absent sons filled by troops from other States. One brigade of Confederate troops was sent by the President from North Carolina, which reached Georgia after her capital was in possession of the enemy. For eight months the Confederate reserves, reserve militia, detailed men, exempts, and most State officers, civil as well as military, had kept the field almost constantly, participating in every important fight from Kenesaw to Honey Hill. If the sons of Georgia under arms in other States had been permitted to meet the foe upon her own soil, without other assistance, General Sherman's army could never have passed from the mountains to the seaboard.<B>

A part of this evidence is to be found in the following letter from a lieutenant, Thomas J. Myers, published in Vol. 12, Southern Historical Society Papers, page 113, with the following head note: "The following letter was found in the streets of Columbia after the Army of General Sherman had left. The original is still preserved, and can be shown and substantiated, if anybody desires. We are indebted to a distinguished lady of this city for a copy, sent with a request for publication. We can add nothing in the way of comment on such a document. It speaks for itself." The letter, which is a republication from the Alderson, West Virginia, Statesman, of October 29, 1883, is as follows:

this is really acting up....


<STRONG><EM>Camp Near Camden, S.C.,

<B><I>My Dear Wife:

"I have no time for particulars. We have had a glorious time in this State, Unrestricted license to burn and plunder was the order of the day. The chivalry have been stripped of most of their valuables. Gold watches, silver pitchers, cups, spoons, forks, &c., &c., are as common in camp as blackberries. The terms of plunder are as follows: The valuables procured are estimated by companies. Each company is required to exhibit the result of its operations at any given place. One-fifth and first choice falls to the commander-in-chief and staff, one-fifth to corps commander and staff, one-fifth to field officers, two-fifths to the company. Officers are not allowed to join in these expeditions, unless disguised as privates. One of our corps commanders borrowed a rough suit of clothes from one of my men, and was successful in his place. He got a large quantity of silver (among other things an old milk pitcher), and a very fine gold watch from a Mr. DeSaussure, of this place (Columbia). DeSaussure is one of the F. F. V.'s of South Carolina, and was made to fork out liberally. Officers over the rank of captain are not made to put their plunder in the estimate for general distribution. This is very unfair, and for that reason, in order to protect themselves, the subordinate officers and privates keep everything back that they can carry about their persons, such as rings, earrings, breastpins, &c., &c., of which, if I live to get home, I have a quart. I am not joking. I have at least a quart of jewelry for you and all the girls, and some No. 1 diamond pins and rings among them. General Sherman has gold and silver enough to start a bank. His share in gold watches and chains alone at Columbia was two hundred and seventy-five.
<I><B>

"But I said I could not go into particulars. All the general officers, and many besides, have valuables of every description, down to ladies' pocket handkerchiefs. I have my share of them, too.
<I><B>

"We took gold and silver enough from the damned rebels to have redeemed their infernal currency twice over. * * * I wish all the jewelry this army has could be carried to the Old Bay State. It would deck her out in glorious style; but, alas! it will be scattered all over the North and Middle States.
<I><B>

<I><B>"Love to grandmother and Aunt Charlotte. Take care of yourself and the children. Don't show this letter out of the family.

<STRONG><EM>"Your affectionate husband,

<STRONG><EM>"THOMAS J. MYERS,"Lieutenant, &c.

I figured it out, it only lets me paste in between quotation marks....what's up with that? anyway:




<B><I>"P. S.--I will send this by the first flag of truce, to be mailed, unless I have an opportunity of sending it to Hilton Head. Tell Lottie I am saving a pearl bracelet and earrings for her. But Lambert got the necklace and breastpin of the same set. I am trying to trade him out of them. These were taken from the Misses Jamison, daughters of the President of the South Carolina Secession Convention. We found these on our trip through Georgia.

<STRONG><EM>"T. J. M."

(<I><B>"This letter is addressed to Mrs. Thomas J. Myers, Boston, Mass." )

<B>Henry Stone Late Brevet-Colonel U. S. Volunteers, and A. A. G. Army of the Cumberland, responded in the letter to refute it. Branding it a hoax stating that "no officer in Sherman's command would ever be guilty of such wanton acts." His rebuttal was later published in the Southern Historical Society papers, which included "<I>I submit that a periodical of the character of the SOUTHERN HISTORICAL PAPERS might--as I am happy to see it does, in most instances--find better material than reprinting from obscure newspapers, matter which throws no real light on any single act or motive during the whole of the great contest.

<B>The Southern Historical Society papers responded in the following way to Stone's rebuttal: