Its crazy. Im black american my whole family is from Georgia, born from slaves then, lived as sharecroppers until WW2, and soldiers until the civil rights movement and to this day we revere General Sherman as the liberator of our family. I love my state, im proud of my Georgia clay but also burning it to the ground was necessary to free my family.
My ancestor marched with Sherman, 30th Indiana, K company. Reading posts like this make me feel proud of my heritage and proud to come from those who fought to free others.
The North at the time still had indentured servitude and child labor in factories. Literally two sides of the same coin with the way they treated black Americans.
@@AmokCanuck Ukraine is running out of Ukrainians. What are we supposed to provide after that happens? What we SHOULD have provided was a negotiated peace. We had just that, but no, some very foolish and dangerous people in Washington wanted a proxy war. Now, with 300,000 - 500,000 dead, what are we to do?
And how wrong he nearly was when the Army of the Potomac brushed with disaster on multiple occasions. Good thing my distant ancestor/kin Robert H. Milroy got whipped so bad at Winchester! Otherwise Lincoln might have never put in Meade as commander at Gettysburg. Just think, if Hooker was defeated or flushed out and forced to offer Lee terms - I wonder what could have been accomplished. What do you think about that?
@@jeffmilroy9345 he still would have been right. Even when the South was ALL in the North still hadn't stepped on the gas and fully committed. Even if the South could have penetrated into the North they didnt have the manufacturing to sustain a campaign
Yet somehow one man was able to place a mortal bullet into Lincoln's head. It's not really about manufacturing is it? It's about fighting dirty. Sherman and grant sure knew how to fight dirty. Just two or three covert and timely well placed bullets and terms might have been at hand?@@androlibre9661
My great great grandfather was at Shiloh, wounded and captured by the Confederates. Spent some time in a POW camp until he and another escaped and later rejoined his unit. Fought at the Battle of Yellow Bayou and was wounded seriously enough to be sent home. Unfortunately his time as a POW and in the war completely changed his personality, so after his return his family split, with his wife leaving to Oregon, and his children moving away. The family never spoke about him again. Probably a serious case of PTSD, but no one really knew about it or had much empathy. I found out all this information after someone contacted me who was a descendent of the other person he had escaped the POW camp with. His family had remembered him and honored him for over 100 years for saving his ancestor, where as his own family forgot him.
Unfortunately this is a story that has happened to many many men across history we protect women we fight all the wars then we come back and everyone leaves when things get hard. Forgetting all about the wars we fight and just worrying about their personal issues.
@@ThomasCranmer1959 I hate the phrase "right side of history". All that really means is "the *winner's* side of history". And even that is just a chance occurrence, depending only on where you were born, and who your parents were. People should show a lot more humility when judging people from the past (and should also recognize they themselves are no better and no worse than any of them - the only ones I really fear are the ones who believe they are somehow morally superior).
"till those who appealed to it are sick and tired of it, and come to the emblem of our nation, and sue for peace. I would not coax them, or even meet them halfway, but make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it". - William T. Sherman
It makes sense, think about it. Sherman took a dagger to the elite of the south, looted and pillaged the rich plantation owners who started it. And nobody had really done that before. He unleashed total war upon the influential population who had the power in the south. A first in many ways. That will make anyone a controversial figure.
Even ignoring the war against civilians during the march, his treatment of the Nez Perce alone is enough to call him evil. He commended them, while still putting them on trains to unsanitary reservations where many more died. All because we violated our own treaties against a tribe that saved Louis and Clark and vowed never to war against the US. You can respect his military achievements but Sherman's character deserves no ones respect.
Sherman and Grant met in Cincinnati and planned out in a hotel room the plan for ending the war. No notes were taken, and Sherman and Grant had no staff officers were with them. But what Grant started at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, would be finished by both men.
@@danmorris8594 The Union was saved a great deal of heartache- and Thomas' career was saved- by the short- sighted determination of Hood to fight yet another battle with his demoralized and repeatedly defeated army. Thomas' superiors were concerned by the prospect of a Confederate army raiding Union territory in an election year- while Thomas was only concerned about properly fighting a battle.
Something much forgotten was Sherman's March north, into the Carolinas, after his march to the sea. He was even more ruthless in South Carolina as it was the state that started the war. Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, was burned to the ground. This entire campaign impressed Joseph E. Johnston so much that the two of them became friends after the war. So much, that Johnston was one of Sherman's pallbearers at his funeral. Johnston actually contracted pneumonia at the funeral and died a few weeks later. All because Johnston didn't want to wear his hat in respect of his deceased friend; knowing Sherman would do the same.
Many of the generals and officers of both sides were educated at West Point together. No surprise that they mended relationships after the war. But why was Bobby Lee denied his citizenship even after he signed an oath to be loyal to the Union?
@@ThomasCranmer1959 The idea of war crimes is a joke unto itself. It implies that there is some code by which war is conducted. That is foolish and completely asinine. War is atrocious and should be else human beings might grow too fond of it. If you believe in limited war you believe in losing said war.
@@ThomasCranmer1959 Because he wasn't, and that's pure propaganda. Robert E. Lee, like all Confederates, had his full rights and privileges as a U.S. citizen restored by the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction issued by Andrew Johnson in 1865. He was then double pardoned, again, in 1868 when Andrew Johnson pardoned ALL Confederates who fought against the United States. All is totally inclusive. Furthermore, there is no record of any formal action by the U.S. government leveraged against Robert E. Lee in particular. It is PURE lost cause revisionism and romanticism that Robert E. Lee was persecuted or singularly denied or received any special punishment. That he was treated badly by citizens was because he was a traitor and a rebel. And many private citizens treated him as such. Robert E. Lee was not very popular, because he was an aristocratic 'better-than-thou' asshole. The 1975 pardoning by Gerald Ford was political. A sign of reconcilation after Vietnam, Nixon, and Watergate. It was wholly unnecessary.
Given Sherman's prophetic pronouncement at the beginning of the war, and the eventual size that the union army grew to by the end of the war. I think Sherman was actually a genius, and was not only not insane, but actually correct when he requested 200k men.
Any sufficiently advanced idea is indistinguishable from insanity. A technology, the proof of concept, is magic, but the claim is insanity, without the proof of concept.
Sherman was adamant he didn't want to be in charge of the Department of the Cumberland, in Kentucky, but his chief there, Robert Anderson, was moved anyway. Sherman was unsuited to be solely in charge, and his behaviour became erratic. His political connections gave him another chance, which he seized with both hands. Grant was the boss he needed, and they became the winning-est partnership of the war. Sherman's imagination needed dampening down, and Grant projected serene calmness. They were perfect for each other.
Texan legend Sam Houston made a similar prophecy "They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction...they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche; and what I fear is, they will overwhelm the South."
I suppose so. I don't know if he was polarizing, though. I think he was mainly just deeply hated by one side. And the other side didn't have that strong an opinion one way or the other.
I pretty much have already heard everything that has been reported on Sherman. But how y’all narrated this video, I honestly couldn’t stop watching/Listening to.. I loved it!!..
Sherman is one of the Great Americans.... Have you read BH litddel Harts biography and an analysis of the Georgia campaign? If you haven't, I highly recommend it.
Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln had 4 sons. 1 died at 4 years, 1 at 11 and 1 at 18. The eldest, Robert Todd Lincoln, lived until 82 years old, in 1926 but was personally connected to all three Presidential assassinations that occurred in his lifetime. After McKinley's murder, in 1901, RTL considered himself cursed and avoided all connection to presidents.
That is the point. Sherman did not slaughter men, women and children in the Civil War. Okay, he did later in the Indian wars, but in the Civil War he substituted property destruction for killing people. He also killed relatively few Confederate soldiers.
@@JedRothwell There are three sides to every coin. Countless houses were fired with family members inside and people who resisted the unlawful and disgusting practices were put to the sword. Anyone who will only take the official account has their head in the sand where it looks nice and safe. Personally, I like to imagine an average between the kindest and most egregious accounts. Although I'll admit that it's hard not to lean toward the more egregious accounts when the kindest accounts are exceedingly egregious.
@@goodcitizen3780You really can't. And I'd question the "innocent" part of that. The children were certainly innocent (though not very many children were actually killed on the march), but the adults were all members of a society which OWNED PEOPLE AS PROPERTY. As far as I'm concerned, letting them live at all was mercy.
@@Frommerman That's your opinion because you are a crazed fanatic. Do keep in mind that the war and the march had absolutely nothing to do with slavery. Also keep in mind that the northern states had slaves even well after the war was over. And you can wage wage war without INTENTIONALLY slaughtering innocent noncombatants. You just don't have to. You would, and would support that, if you valued your ideals above all else, but then you'd be worse than the enemy.
Rhett Butler's monologue at Tara in Gone With The Wind scolding all the southern men right before the war starts is almost word for word Sherman's pre-war letter.
Great video, as an employee who works in the Battle Of Atlanta Cyclorama, this is everything I try to educate people on. The vast importance of this miraculous and controversial period of the Civil War is what i always try to drive through to people. Gordon Jones, one of the voices used in this video, is a remarkable historian who I have had the pleasure to work alongside.
WOW! That was one of the most compelling videos that I have ever watched. Beautifully constructed with the combination of audio, video, and the painting of Sherman's portrait. Fantastic! If this was the way that history was taught in schools ...
At first I wondered what that orange was behind Sherman in the portrait. Then it dawned on me that it was flames. Sherman had two armies under his command on the march to the sea. One was the Army of the Ohio. The other was the Army of the Tennessee. One acted as his left flank force. The other operated some 20 to 40 miles away and was his right flank force.
A great hour of a good but simplified history of Sherman. A relaxed talk about a quick view of Sherman's part in the Civil War. Well worth the time for many Americans who stopped their investigation of American history after high school. There are some problems with this cursory analysis though. The biggest of which is the perception of the narrator that Sherman had more to do with successfully concluding the insurrection against the United States than his Commander, U.S. Grant. It was Grant's strategic genius that accomplished the rebel's surrender. Unlike all his predecessors back east, Grant understood that disjointed tactical battlefield victories were going to allow the confederates to keep on fighting on other fronts and continue the butchery of that rebellion till it seemed like it would never end. Grant understood that only combined multiple and, most importantly, simultaneous assaults by Union armies upon all the major rebel armies would overstretch the enemy's' capacity to continue. It was Grant's Plan to attack in 3 campaigns at the same time. 1. He directed Sherman's Western armies to attack through the industrial center of the rebel states after Grant's victory at Chattanooga. 2. He ordered a union thrust through the "breadbasket" Shenandoah Valley by a commander of Grant's choosing, Sheridan and 3. He sent (and accompanied) Meade's Army of the Potomac to defeat Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and capture Richmond. To say that Sherman was more important than Grant in subduing the south is frankly ridiculous, as Sherman, himself, said many times during and after the war whenever that notion was put forth. Yes, Sherman played an indispensable part and was the only subordinate commander that Grant fully trusted. To the point of allowing Sherman's army to cut itself off of communications and supplies. To allow it to (for that time).....simply "disappear". Sherman did what Grant told him to do and "make Georgia howl". Also, Grant's "problem" with alcohol was greatly exaggerated, then and now. The only instance that has any validity was during Grant's stationing in California after the Mexican War. Grant wrote, in his auto-biography, that his drinking was a symptom of his "melancholy" due to years of separation from his wife and family while out in the wilds of the West Coast. Ultimately, he left the army because of his unhappiness, only to rejoin years later when the south seceded. This rumor was spread again and again during the Civil War by those who thought that they should have his job and by newspapermen that wanted to see their papers sell more copies. Or would you rather believe that a "drunkard" defeated Lee and the south? Doesn't make much sense to me. Semper Fi
💯!!! The single most successful disinformation campaign in American history...the Lost Cause, war forced on the South by northern aggression, that it was honorable, not about the spread of slavery and the 3/5th of a person guaranteeing disproportionate political representation and power they had gotten used to, the noble but hopeless war of self defense won by an incompetent drunk and Sherman's dishonorable strategy. I have a friend who's southern; he still insists it was a "war of northern aggression." We agree to change the subject so we remain friends.
An additional criticism I have is perpetuating the myth that Fort Sumter was the first shot of the war. The south had spent the entire spring leading up to that capturing forts and armories. Sumter was the first place they met determined resistance, resulting in a seige and bombardment. Lincoln had inherited a policy of dithering from Buchanan and this was the first time federal property could be defended.
A drunkard nearly conquered all of the known world. Ogedei Khan (son of Genghis Khan) sent an army to Europe with the intent of conquering all the way to the Atlantic. They wiped out the armies of Poland and Hungary on successive days (90% casualty rate). Europe was in the midst of the medieval period, was disorganized, and despite the knights of the time being great individual fighters, they didn't understand how to fight as a large cohesive unit. The medieval system precluded such large scale cooperation. Jebe and Subutai (Genghis Khan's greatest general) were leading that excursion when Ogedei died of alcohol poisoning. Dude was a chronically bad alcoholic. The rest of the world got lucky as the Mongols vicitimized themselves via infighting for succession. Another chronically alcoholic conquerer was Atilla the Hun. Drove all the barbarian tribes out of Germania and into Roman territory. Would have ended the Roman Empire if the Visigoths and Romans hadn't formed a temporary alliance and defeated the Huns at the Battle of the Catalunayan Plains. Atilla was a chronic alcoholic who died after vomiting from excessive drinking and drowning in his own vomit. Alcoholism is definitely bad for performance in general, but these examples show that alcoholics can be effective military leaders if they possess and understanding of war which is superior to that of their opponents. BTW, I don't place Lee on a pedestal as some are wont to do. He ordered that charge at Cemetery Ridge. A truly great general doesn't make that attack over a mile and a half of open ground, uphill, against fortified positions firing cannons loaded with grapeshot. Those Southern men fought bravely, filling in the yawning gaps created by the blasts of grapeshot, but they had no chance. Lee sent those boys to die.
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.
The man obviously had survivors guilt which can trigger PTSD. The symptons described are almost textbook. This is the war that christened the infantry as "cannon fodder".
This channel is criminally underviewed. To the individuals who are making these videos give it time the quality of these videos will pay off. Very excited for the next video. If you take suggestions I would love for people to know more about Thomas Francis Meagher. His story is fascinating from Irish revolution to the civil war and everything in between.
Sherman was the first modern general to use total war tactics against the civilian population. Those tactics would be used in WW1 and WW2 to greater effects.
@@nanouli6511 Technically no. There was no Geneva Convention that prohibited such things. But 80 years later when the US and British both targeted civilians in German cities, even purposefully causing firestorms that killed thousands, there absolutely was.
Sherman in 1860 wrote a prophecy to his neighbors in Louisiana about their desire for Southern Succession: Has any soothsayer ever been more accurate about foolhardy ventures? About the course of future events? Sherman nailed it. The South was destroyed. Sherman had a major hand in it.
Detaching from the supply line and marching through enemy territory is not only bold but gusty. This makes him one of the greatest generals in the world.
Sherman: "I need 200000 men!" War department: "This man is insane!" *Meanwhile at the Camp of the Man the War Department put in control of the entire Army* McCellan: "I NEED 1 Million more men!"
-But what if they have 40 thousands men, I'll need 50! -Okay, we'll give you 50. -But what if they have 50, I'll need 60! *facepalming so hard he almost finished JWB's job pre-emptively*
This was a terribly entertaining episode…worth a like and subscribe and then some! 👍 I reckon it doesn’t hurt your main character is straight out of central casting. Those eyes and deep crevices on the face were well earned.
Also Confederate control had an additional importance for Lincoln that I didn’t learn about until today.. The Midwest couldn’t export agricultural, and to a lesser extent industrial, production east-or overseas because the new railroads were choked because of the war. The Mississippi was the route to the markets east and to an extent to Europe circling around the Appalachian mts.
Compared to what happened to civilians in wars in Europe prior to and after Sherman’s March, this was extremely mild. If you want to see war as hell, look at the 30 Years War or World War II.
Good point. Look at leningrad. More civilian deaths in one city than the entire death toll of the American Civil War, including the military deaths on both sides.
@@nanouli6511I mean that's kind of a misnomer since I could name you a handful of civil wars that were just as brutal if not even more so than the American one like the three kingdoms, taiping rebellion (if you want to consider that a civil war), and the Russian one especially.
In 1973 I was given a certificate for playing the calliope on the Delta Queen. The certificate states that it can be revoked if I am ever caught playing "Marching Through Georgia".
I have no clue how I just found out about this channel. More importantly and don’t know how the fuck this channel doesn’t have more subscribers with such EXCELLENT content. Keep up the great work seriously great episode on one of the most fascinating people of the 1800s .
Sherman's story really sounds like some fable about a man who is made absolutely miserable by something, but people keep wanting him to do this thing, so he decides to inflict so much suffering by doing this thing that people will want him to stop doing said thing. But like a cursed twist on Sisyphus it actually just makes people want him to do the thing even more.
If you drive from Atlanta to Savanah, Ga, on I 75 & I 16 you can tell you are on Sherman's path of destruction. The trees are smaller, more erosion etc., than the surrounding areas of thick pine forest.
I'm not an expert on the logging industry, but that might also have something to do with the 1.5 trillion acres of land Union Bag/Camp paper company owned and how its probably more cost effective to plant and harvest trees closer to the interstate. When I was young I roamed alot in several forested areas between Savannah and Statesboro and found places where pine tree farming was occurring, but just not at the rates you typically see near the interstates. I didn't see much of what I would call true older growth forest except in historic places like Wormsloe plantation, Bonaventure Cemetery and near Fort Pulaski.
We were taught in school that the war was all but decided by 3 July 1863. But that tends to minimize developments on the home front, the Copperhead movement, overall tiring of war. I don't think we can know the effect of a significant setback in 64, even as late as Franklin, although I tend to see the deadline for such to have been the election earlier in the month.
The ability of the South to take the fight to the North disappeared at Gettysburg & Vicksburg. From that time forward the only "hope" the South had was to last long enough for political support of the war in the north to erode to the point that they'd give up and go home.
Too little noted by historians: until the Germans invented the fixation of nitrogen, in about 1918 but perhaps a little earlier, every artillery shell consumed nine pounds of cotton: gun-cotton was the main explosive.
This is false. Yes guncotton (nitrocellulose) was made from cotton at that time, but guncotton, while it was used, didn't become the standard propellant until after the Abel process was invented in 1865. Furthermore, the statement "every artillery shell consumed nine pounds of cotton" is ludicrous. It would mean that all guns must have the same volume of propellant.
Really great to bring out Sherman's role in the war. Mostly we only hear about Grant vs Lee. The final moments where you tell Sherman's thoughts on war in general, followed by his actions against the Sioux, really show a man who embraced the dichotomy between how he wanted the world to be, and what he thought he had to do to discharge his duty. Was he a vicious war-monger, or was he philosopher-general who simply realized the brutality the job required? It's hard to call him a good guy. In the end, maybe it's more realistic to understand that sometimes in war, there may be winners and losers, there aren't any good guys.
As I remember it he told the secretary of War that he needed 200,000 men to take the war South. In the end, a year or so later, the north was taking armies about that size in two major thrusts, one in the west central South towards, eventually, Vicksburg and the other in central Tennessee eventually headed towards Chattanooga. One reason Sherman was so upset was that he apprehended a truth that he couldn’t communicate well, confusing immediate tactics and long-term strategy. and felt he had little effective support to accomplish the ends his superiors were asking for. On another note, I think that Shiloh was the first significant battle, as opposed to a little skirmishing, that he had ever participated in, much last been a commander in. That’s why Sherman had told Lincoln he didn’t want senior command in late summer 1861. He felt he wasn’t ready. At that point, it seems Sherman may have been right. Finally Sherman was probably not a classic bipolar, definitely tendency to depression, and able to sometimes bounce out of it. Doesn’t sound full fledged to me, there are types in which personal relationships/friendships can pull a person fairly quickly out of a depression. Ever after Sherman always had persons he was close with, supportive, and competent to work with to achieve common ends. Overalll it seems he was fairly well liked, though a bit “hi strung”. The Atlanta campaign was genius and very innovative against a very competent opposing general. The textbook example of the “Indirect approach” (before the term was invented, I believe) in encounters after encounter until he had maneuvered, with some fighting, into the trenches around Atlanta. There were three other phases of his campaign, Hood’s attacks, then tightening the noose around Hood until he flees Atlanta. Then after Hood looped around through Alabama he effectively thought with difficulty fended Hood off cutting his supply line to Tennessee. After this, he divided up his Army into two parts, taking the healthiest 60,000 South to the Sea, sending the rest of The army to Tennessee to retrain, refit, and to defend against and destroy Hood as things developed. It IS an incredible story, especially recounted in all its complexity. Sherman could never have accomplished this without a core of seasoned, talented officers, with Thomas the most important, but Ten more of high caliber could be added easily) as well as consistently competent and supportive superiors such as Grant, Lincoln, and yes, I include Halleck. A fascinating, talented, and in so many ways, very strange man.
Yours is the only comment I've seen so far to even mention George H. Thomas. Honestly, I think he's what saved Sherman, the Atlanta campaign, and ultimately Lincoln's reelection and thus the war. Sherman had his moments, but I think they were few and far between. I mostly regard him as a POS who played politics more than he and maybe others would care to admit (his brother, a sitting senator at the time, basically got him his command). However, he did defend Thomas at the beginning of the war since Thomas was a native Virginian who sided with the Union and had no political support around Lincoln. For that alone, Sherman helped save a lot of lives. With superior numbers, tactics, and logistics, Thomas helped ensure that headlong charges into fixed positions wasn't normally necessary and that turning the enemy's flank was the surest way to save Union soldiers' lives and defeat the South. Ultimately, the grand strategy was just that. A slow turning of the Confederate flank until Richmond was surrounded. This video should rightly focus on how Thomas, not Sherman, helped save us during these crucial weeks in American history.
There's never been any evidence of any rape or murder during the March to the Sea. If there had been, trust me, growing up in Savannah, Georgia, I would have heard of every incident. None were ever cited.
I’m also surprised they didn’t mention that the Confederates also burned large swathes of Atlanta when they retreated, and the Union soldiers had to be firefighters when they first arrived.
>Grow up in a historically unionist-sympathetic city in the South that was spared by Sherman's March >"bro there was never any rape or murder trust I woulda heard of it" lmfao
I too am from Savannah and have heard vague accusations against Sherman from people who still hold a grudge against what he and the Union army did. But in the 1980s and 90s people still didn't want to discuss rape very much. I was a history major in college and although I concentrated on European history because it was an area I knew less about, I still read a good bit of civil war history and rape was not something that made it into most history books. But things have changed since then and more historians are trying to tease information from the incomplete records we have. The consensus right now seems to be that there wasn't much rape of white women during Sherman's march, but the rate for slaves and former slaves were much higher. One interesting statistic I saw was that Sherman's men had rates of four times less sexually transmitted diseases than those in other Union forces. Part of that could be because they were on the move so much they had less time to come info contact with females than more stationary forces that were near stable towns and cities. As for murder, that's probably even harder to figure out because it would be so easy to say that any southern white men killed were acting as enemy combatants. My personal belief is that bad things can and will happen on all sides in war. But its hard to draw a conclusion that Sherman's march was especially brutal for its time period despite all the material damage that occurred. Savannah was lucky that the defending Confederate forces withdrew without fighting and that Sherman could use the whole "Christmas present for Lincoln" PR angle.
@@ThePrader Thats interesting but it makes sense, because I don't think they had their falling out until right after the war, around the spring or summer of '65.
It' s a good doc but they make a quite a few errors like that. At Shiloh the Union soldiers weren't drilling they were disembarking at Pittsburgh landing in preparation for a campaign to actually take Corinth. Ultimately why there were caught out is less important information then that they were caught out. Not that important but still enough to nag at me. Also the "explainer" goes onto say guess he did a good job or whatever. Sherman both contributed to the peril the Army of Tennessee was in and likely saved the Army of the Tennessee with his actions, especially on the 6th. His command turned a near certain disaster into a stalemate as Buell didn't arrive til the second day. Also they did my man Meade dirty and while they only dedicate like 3 sentences to Chattanooga they get like 3 things wrong. Including the fact that the Confederates held Chattanooga during the siege of Chattanooga and Rosecrans got into trouble for what Grant perceived as cowardice after he left Thomas to defend at Chickamauga even though Rosecrans was rightly concerned about a possible (which turned out to be an actual ) Confederate flanking maneuver that would have trapped the Army of the Cumberland. I don't really think Vicksburg needed more then it got because that was a Grant masterclass, Sherman didn't really factor into Vicksburg on a tactical level, The actual subject matter of the doc borrows heavily from the State of Georgia's doc When Georgia Howled.
As a native Georgian who's well acquainted with the area that Sherman marched through, I'm forced to admit that tales of the destruction he wrought along the way are greatly exaggerated. To this day If you visit many of the small towns along his line of march you will find no shortage of antebellum homes and structures. This simply doesn't support the claim of indiscriminate devastation on his march to the sea.
Indeed, the destruction was focused on infrastructure and means of production. Fields and supplies were destroyed, factories, roads, bridges and tracks. Houses were a waste of time when his focus was ending the war by destroying the ability for his enemy to wage it.
@@chrisg4305 Someone from Georgia once told me she was from some town in Georgia that sherman spared because he dated a girl from that town once. Can't remember the town. Maybe it was Madison
Lee's record was comparatively much better than George Washington. In a war of attrition, individual victories don't matter, the results of the campaigns do. In the end Washington won his war and Lee lost his.
I think there is a reason the largest tree in the world the General Sherman tree in Sequoia National Park is named what it is, besides the California connection
One of my GG Grandpa served in the 39th Iowa Infantry, fought in the Atlanta camaign, marched to the sea and up the Carolinas and finally in the Grand Review in Washington DC. What a glorious day he must have had at the Grand Review!
Sherman once said "f they want eternal war, well and good; we accept the issue, and will dispossess them and put our friends in their place. I know thousands and millions of good people who at simple notice would come to North Alabama and accept the elegant houses and plantations there. If the people of Huntsville think different, let them persist in war three years longer, and then they will not be consulted. Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late. All the powers of earth cannot restore to them their slaves, any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences. Many, many peoples with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence." Letter to Major R.M. Sawyer (31 January 1864), from Vicksburg. The there is the thing he was to have said "war is hell I intent to make it that for the ppl of GA" Dont know if he ever said this or not or in these words but... It is Sherman...
Sherman made the slave owning plantation aristocrats pay the price for their reaping huge benefits derived from owning people whose hard work sent untold millions into the pockets of the slave owners. The southern ruling elite had everything their own way for over a century. In the end justice caught up with them and they could no longer steal the fruit of the labors from their slaves. best Bruce Peek
Sherman is the definition of the quote “Standing On Buisness” , he completely embarrassed Johnston & Hood🤣😂 Absolute disgrace & disrespect to the American 🇺🇸 flag to name Army bases & street names after those scum
I am a relative of Sherman (my Grandfather was a Sherman), I like to think he made positive change and did what was needed to end a horrible war. My family doesn't like the fact of the relation grandmother took it as her middle name and has always worried of being shunned. I am glad facts have come to light in past years of what truly happened then I am tired of Sherman being used as a scapegoat for most of the torching.
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Its crazy. Im black american my whole family is from Georgia, born from slaves then, lived as sharecroppers until WW2, and soldiers until the civil rights movement and to this day we revere General Sherman as the liberator of our family. I love my state, im proud of my Georgia clay but also burning it to the ground was necessary to free my family.
My ancestor marched with Sherman, 30th Indiana, K company. Reading posts like this make me feel proud of my heritage and proud to come from those who fought to free others.
@@prussia1557definitely something to be proud of, my fam is from Pennsylvania but I have no info on anyone who may have fought in anything before ww2
@@prussia1557 Do you revere Sherman for leaving slaves to drown in the river crossings when they followed his army to freedom?
By the way, I was born in Georgia, and the vast majority of my family is from Appling County or Jeff Davis County.
@@prussia1557 They did no such thing. They fought to keep the union together.
The South: "we want to own people as property!"
Also the South: "why's Sherman so meaaaan??"
The North at the time still had indentured servitude and child labor in factories. Literally two sides of the same coin with the way they treated black Americans.
This is a ridiculously shallow understanding of the Civil War good god...
@@440SixPackEFI for two sentences I think it does pretty well, can you do better?
@@440SixPackEFIif you're a lost causer trying to rewrite history
@@DonMega888 Is this the go-to whenever an internet yankee fanboy is told the most one-sided bullshit ever?
"At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail ... you will surely fail"
Prophetic
Applies to so many military campaigns throughout history.
@@rerite2 yep, sadly I think this is how ukraine will go if the US keeps withholding their vital aid.
Not prophetic at all.
Sherman was a student of military history.
The Civil War couldn't have ended any differently.
@@maryann7619 My man spat straight facts, and it happened, and Georgia howled.
@@AmokCanuck Ukraine is running out of Ukrainians. What are we supposed to provide after that happens? What we SHOULD have provided was a negotiated peace. We had just that, but no, some very foolish and dangerous people in Washington wanted a proxy war. Now, with 300,000 - 500,000 dead, what are we to do?
Wow… that letter Sherman wrote pre-war was incredible. Never knew about that. Thank you!
And how wrong he nearly was when the Army of the Potomac brushed with disaster on multiple occasions. Good thing my distant ancestor/kin Robert H. Milroy got whipped so bad at Winchester! Otherwise Lincoln might have never put in Meade as commander at Gettysburg. Just think, if Hooker was defeated or flushed out and forced to offer Lee terms - I wonder what could have been accomplished. What do you think about that?
@@jeffmilroy9345 he still would have been right. Even when the South was ALL in the North still hadn't stepped on the gas and fully committed. Even if the South could have penetrated into the North they didnt have the manufacturing to sustain a campaign
Yet somehow one man was able to place a mortal bullet into Lincoln's head. It's not really about manufacturing is it? It's about fighting dirty. Sherman and grant sure knew how to fight dirty. Just two or three covert and timely well placed bullets and terms might have been at hand?@@androlibre9661
Sherman was a murder and has suffered the consequences
@@cchenishcomplete victory? Lol😊
My great great grandfather was at Shiloh, wounded and captured by the Confederates. Spent some time in a POW camp until he and another escaped and later rejoined his unit. Fought at the Battle of Yellow Bayou and was wounded seriously enough to be sent home. Unfortunately his time as a POW and in the war completely changed his personality, so after his return his family split, with his wife leaving to Oregon, and his children moving away. The family never spoke about him again. Probably a serious case of PTSD, but no one really knew about it or had much empathy. I found out all this information after someone contacted me who was a descendent of the other person he had escaped the POW camp with. His family had remembered him and honored him for over 100 years for saving his ancestor, where as his own family forgot him.
Unfortunately this is a story that has happened to many many men across history we protect women we fight all the wars then we come back and everyone leaves when things get hard. Forgetting all about the wars we fight and just worrying about their personal issues.
Good stuff. Tragic. Your grandfather was on the right side of history. He fought for our Union and gave everything. Literally. 🫡
@@kevinvilmont6061 My ancestors were on the right side if history. They fought for Southern independence. None of them even owned slaves.
@@ThomasCranmer1959 I hate the phrase "right side of history". All that really means is "the *winner's* side of history". And even that is just a chance occurrence, depending only on where you were born, and who your parents were. People should show a lot more humility when judging people from the past (and should also recognize they themselves are no better and no worse than any of them - the only ones I really fear are the ones who believe they are somehow morally superior).
@@ThomasCranmer1959 Sure. Just because they didn't have slaves makes it honorable to commit treason against your country.
Props to the painter. It was lovely watching the process and it was a nice result!
That’s 🤖
"till those who appealed to it are sick and tired of it, and come to the emblem of our nation, and sue for peace. I would not coax them, or even meet them halfway, but make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it". - William T. Sherman
Yeah, well… generations have passed away, so…?
Are you asking for another Sherman? 😂@@q.e.d.9112
@@q.e.d.9112So try something lol
@@powerthirst1478
Not me, pal.
💙VOTE BLUE, as if your life depends on it. It quite possibly does. VOTE BLUE💙
@@q.e.d.9112Vote red ;)
It’s pretty… interesting… that Sherman is still considered maybe the most polarizing figure at a time when people owned people.
I agree! That my friend are words that have profound meaning!
It makes sense, think about it. Sherman took a dagger to the elite of the south, looted and pillaged the rich plantation owners who started it. And nobody had really done that before. He unleashed total war upon the influential population who had the power in the south. A first in many ways. That will make anyone a controversial figure.
Even ignoring the war against civilians during the march, his treatment of the Nez Perce alone is enough to call him evil. He commended them, while still putting them on trains to unsanitary reservations where many more died. All because we violated our own treaties against a tribe that saved Louis and Clark and vowed never to war against the US. You can respect his military achievements but Sherman's character deserves no ones respect.
Just like google & like ilk owns us?
him and john brown both
People who talk about Civil War today have NO IDEA what they are wishing for.
i just think if spiderman backs captain america it all works out
Very true
Yes it is dangerous to pick a side but there is nothing more dangerous for those caught in the middle.....
Especially when the South has all the guns
no chance. people cant get behind our 2 pres nominees much less a cause like cival war.
Sherman and Grant met in Cincinnati and planned out in a hotel room the plan for ending the war. No notes were taken, and Sherman and Grant had no staff officers were with them. But what Grant started at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, would be finished by both men.
And General George Thomas. Destroyed the Army of the Tennessee
@@danmorris8594 The Union was saved a great deal of heartache- and Thomas' career was saved- by the short- sighted determination of Hood to fight yet another battle with his demoralized and repeatedly defeated army. Thomas' superiors were concerned by the prospect of a Confederate army raiding Union territory in an election year- while Thomas was only concerned about properly fighting a battle.
As William Tecumseh Sherman said "War is the remedy our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want."
Something much forgotten was Sherman's March north, into the Carolinas, after his march to the sea. He was even more ruthless in South Carolina as it was the state that started the war. Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, was burned to the ground. This entire campaign impressed Joseph E. Johnston so much that the two of them became friends after the war. So much, that Johnston was one of Sherman's pallbearers at his funeral. Johnston actually contracted pneumonia at the funeral and died a few weeks later. All because Johnston didn't want to wear his hat in respect of his deceased friend; knowing Sherman would do the same.
Many of the generals and officers of both sides were educated at West Point together. No surprise that they mended relationships after the war. But why was Bobby Lee denied his citizenship even after he signed an oath to be loyal to the Union?
The story about him leaving Savannah alone is absolutely astonishing.
Apparently, total war wasn't a war crime in those days. What atrocities were committed against civilians?
@@ThomasCranmer1959 The idea of war crimes is a joke unto itself. It implies that there is some code by which war is conducted. That is foolish and completely asinine. War is atrocious and should be else human beings might grow too fond of it. If you believe in limited war you believe in losing said war.
@@ThomasCranmer1959 Because he wasn't, and that's pure propaganda. Robert E. Lee, like all Confederates, had his full rights and privileges as a U.S. citizen restored by the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction issued by Andrew Johnson in 1865. He was then double pardoned, again, in 1868 when Andrew Johnson pardoned ALL Confederates who fought against the United States. All is totally inclusive.
Furthermore, there is no record of any formal action by the U.S. government leveraged against Robert E. Lee in particular. It is PURE lost cause revisionism and romanticism that Robert E. Lee was persecuted or singularly denied or received any special punishment.
That he was treated badly by citizens was because he was a traitor and a rebel. And many private citizens treated him as such. Robert E. Lee was not very popular, because he was an aristocratic 'better-than-thou' asshole.
The 1975 pardoning by Gerald Ford was political. A sign of reconcilation after Vietnam, Nixon, and Watergate. It was wholly unnecessary.
My great great grandfather was with Sherman, and his famous March to the sea.. survived over 100 battles in the civil war.
Used all his 9 lives.
Musta had a lime colored stomach to survive that many battles without wounds that would get him sent home, or death
Might fought in 11 with Sherman! Got his discharge papers with the battles listed.
image being proud your ancestor fought for a tyrant and believing the lie it was about slavery.
Given Sherman's prophetic pronouncement at the beginning of the war, and the eventual size that the union army grew to by the end of the war. I think Sherman was actually a genius, and was not only not insane, but actually correct when he requested 200k men.
Any sufficiently advanced idea is indistinguishable from insanity. A technology, the proof of concept, is magic, but the claim is insanity, without the proof of concept.
Sherman was adamant he didn't want to be in charge of the Department of the Cumberland, in Kentucky, but his chief there, Robert Anderson, was moved anyway. Sherman was unsuited to be solely in charge, and his behaviour became erratic. His political connections gave him another chance, which he seized with both hands. Grant was the boss he needed, and they became the winning-est partnership of the war. Sherman's imagination needed dampening down, and Grant projected serene calmness. They were perfect for each other.
Texan legend Sam Houston made a similar prophecy
"They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction...they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche; and what I fear is, they will overwhelm the South."
I suppose so. I don't know if he was polarizing, though. I think he was mainly just deeply hated by one side. And the other side didn't have that strong an opinion one way or the other.
I pretty much have already heard everything that has been reported on Sherman. But how y’all narrated this video, I honestly couldn’t stop watching/Listening to.. I loved it!!..
Sherman is one of the Great Americans....
Have you read BH litddel Harts biography and an analysis of the Georgia campaign? If you haven't, I highly recommend it.
Agree
Sherman overcomes his mental illness, rises in command, then his Son, 9 year old Willie dies. Life was harder then.
Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln had 4 sons. 1 died at 4 years, 1 at 11 and 1 at 18.
The eldest, Robert Todd Lincoln, lived until 82 years old, in 1926
but was personally connected to all three Presidential assassinations that occurred in his lifetime.
After McKinley's murder, in 1901, RTL considered himself cursed and avoided all connection to presidents.
Life was hard then...fixed it for you
@@snakeplissken1087he won didn’t he?
@@jacobsnapp They're just grasping at any straw lol
@@jacobsnappwe don't win if we're burning in hell
Sherman hatred is just a form of lost cause nonsense. Very interesting and well done documentary!
I can't imagine a world where this channel doesn't take off.
Outstanding. Perhaps the best history lesson I've' ever received.
He wanted to end the war as quickly as possible. Kudos to him. “War is cruelty, and it cannot be refined “.
I mean, you can totally make war without slaughtering innocent men, women and children intentionally.
That is the point. Sherman did not slaughter men, women and children in the Civil War. Okay, he did later in the Indian wars, but in the Civil War he substituted property destruction for killing people. He also killed relatively few Confederate soldiers.
@@JedRothwell
There are three sides to every coin.
Countless houses were fired with family members inside and people who resisted the unlawful and disgusting practices were put to the sword.
Anyone who will only take the official account has their head in the sand where it looks nice and safe.
Personally, I like to imagine an average between the kindest and most egregious accounts. Although I'll admit that it's hard not to lean toward the more egregious accounts when the kindest accounts are exceedingly egregious.
@@goodcitizen3780You really can't.
And I'd question the "innocent" part of that. The children were certainly innocent (though not very many children were actually killed on the march), but the adults were all members of a society which OWNED PEOPLE AS PROPERTY. As far as I'm concerned, letting them live at all was mercy.
@@Frommerman
That's your opinion because you are a crazed fanatic.
Do keep in mind that the war and the march had absolutely nothing to do with slavery.
Also keep in mind that the northern states had slaves even well after the war was over.
And you can wage wage war without INTENTIONALLY slaughtering innocent noncombatants. You just don't have to. You would, and would support that, if you valued your ideals above all else, but then you'd be worse than the enemy.
Rhett Butler's monologue at Tara in Gone With The Wind scolding all the southern men right before the war starts is almost word for word Sherman's pre-war letter.
Great video, as an employee who works in the Battle Of Atlanta Cyclorama, this is everything I try to educate people on. The vast importance of this miraculous and controversial period of the Civil War is what i always try to drive through to people. Gordon Jones, one of the voices used in this video, is a remarkable historian who I have had the pleasure to work alongside.
WOW! That was one of the most compelling videos that I have ever watched. Beautifully constructed with the combination of audio, video, and the painting of Sherman's portrait. Fantastic! If this was the way that history was taught in schools ...
One of the best Civil War doc’s I’ve seen on TH-cam. Stellar work
🤝
At first I wondered what that orange was behind Sherman in the portrait. Then it dawned on me that it was flames.
Sherman had two armies under his command on the march to the sea. One was the Army of the Ohio. The other was the Army of the Tennessee. One acted as his left flank force. The other operated some 20 to 40 miles away and was his right flank force.
A great hour of a good but simplified history of Sherman. A relaxed talk about a quick view of Sherman's part in the Civil War. Well worth the time for many Americans who stopped their investigation of American history after high school.
There are some problems with this cursory analysis though.
The biggest of which is the perception of the narrator that Sherman had more to do with successfully concluding the insurrection against the United States than his Commander, U.S. Grant.
It was Grant's strategic genius that accomplished the rebel's surrender. Unlike all his predecessors back east, Grant understood that disjointed tactical battlefield victories were going to allow the confederates to keep on fighting on other fronts and continue the butchery of that rebellion till it seemed like it would never end.
Grant understood that only combined multiple and, most importantly, simultaneous assaults by Union armies upon all the major rebel armies would overstretch the enemy's' capacity to continue.
It was Grant's Plan to attack in 3 campaigns at the same time. 1. He directed Sherman's Western armies to attack through the industrial center of the rebel states after Grant's victory at Chattanooga. 2. He ordered a union thrust through the "breadbasket" Shenandoah Valley by a commander of Grant's choosing, Sheridan and 3. He sent (and accompanied) Meade's Army of the Potomac to defeat Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and capture Richmond. To say that Sherman was more important than Grant in subduing the south is frankly ridiculous, as Sherman, himself, said many times during and after the war whenever that notion was put forth.
Yes, Sherman played an indispensable part and was the only subordinate commander that Grant fully trusted. To the point of allowing Sherman's army to cut itself off of communications and supplies. To allow it to (for that time).....simply "disappear". Sherman did what Grant told him to do and "make Georgia howl".
Also, Grant's "problem" with alcohol was greatly exaggerated, then and now. The only instance that has any validity was during Grant's stationing in California after the Mexican War. Grant wrote, in his auto-biography, that his drinking was a symptom of his "melancholy" due to years of separation from his wife and family while out in the wilds of the West Coast.
Ultimately, he left the army because of his unhappiness, only to rejoin years later when the south seceded.
This rumor was spread again and again during the Civil War by those who thought that they should have his job and by newspapermen that wanted to see their papers sell more copies.
Or would you rather believe that a "drunkard" defeated Lee and the south? Doesn't make much sense to me.
Semper Fi
💯!!! The single most successful disinformation campaign in American history...the Lost Cause, war forced on the South by northern aggression, that it was honorable, not about the spread of slavery and the 3/5th of a person guaranteeing disproportionate political representation and power they had gotten used to, the noble but hopeless war of self defense won by an incompetent drunk and Sherman's dishonorable strategy. I have a friend who's southern; he still insists it was a "war of northern aggression." We agree to change the subject so we remain friends.
An additional criticism I have is perpetuating the myth that Fort Sumter was the first shot of the war. The south had spent the entire spring leading up to that capturing forts and armories. Sumter was the first place they met determined resistance, resulting in a seige and bombardment. Lincoln had inherited a policy of dithering from Buchanan and this was the first time federal property could be defended.
I got the Commie vibe from the verbiage in this post and was gratified when I took a look at your playlists and discovered I was correct.
A drunkard nearly conquered all of the known world. Ogedei Khan (son of Genghis Khan) sent an army to Europe with the intent of conquering all the way to the Atlantic. They wiped out the armies of Poland and Hungary on successive days (90% casualty rate). Europe was in the midst of the medieval period, was disorganized, and despite the knights of the time being great individual fighters, they didn't understand how to fight as a large cohesive unit. The medieval system precluded such large scale cooperation. Jebe and Subutai (Genghis Khan's greatest general) were leading that excursion when Ogedei died of alcohol poisoning. Dude was a chronically bad alcoholic. The rest of the world got lucky as the Mongols vicitimized themselves via infighting for succession.
Another chronically alcoholic conquerer was Atilla the Hun. Drove all the barbarian tribes out of Germania and into Roman territory. Would have ended the Roman Empire if the Visigoths and Romans hadn't formed a temporary alliance and defeated the Huns at the Battle of the Catalunayan Plains. Atilla was a chronic alcoholic who died after vomiting from excessive drinking and drowning in his own vomit.
Alcoholism is definitely bad for performance in general, but these examples show that alcoholics can be effective military leaders if they possess and understanding of war which is superior to that of their opponents.
BTW, I don't place Lee on a pedestal as some are wont to do. He ordered that charge at Cemetery Ridge. A truly great general doesn't make that attack over a mile and a half of open ground, uphill, against fortified positions firing cannons loaded with grapeshot. Those Southern men fought bravely, filling in the yawning gaps created by the blasts of grapeshot, but they had no chance. Lee sent those boys to die.
@@connorperrett9559 "Vibe"? Running on emotion, not logic?
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.
Take a drink every time dude says "and everything like that". I dare ya!
“There was a financial crash or something like that.”
right like it seemed very unprofessional, very disappointing
At 31:38..the expression is "for all intents and purposes", not "intensive purposes"
I was coming here to make this correction. Good call.
@@andrewjhollinsAs was I. Saw it and felt real pain.
It’s a great malaprop though. I unironically used it until I was about 30 years old, out of ignorance to the proper phrase
I hate that a well-made, serious video would have such a stupid and careless error. So distracting.
The production value of this is insane. Great video.
"We can make this march, and make Georgia howl!"
Absolutely loved this documentary, thank you so very much for making this. God bless
The man obviously had survivors guilt which can trigger PTSD. The symptons described are almost textbook. This is the war that christened the infantry as "cannon fodder".
Illustrious documentary. Informational, artful, narrational - all excellence.
This channel is criminally underviewed. To the individuals who are making these videos give it time the quality of these videos will pay off. Very excited for the next video. If you take suggestions I would love for people to know more about Thomas Francis Meagher. His story is fascinating from Irish revolution to the civil war and everything in between.
"We're no longer gonna try to win by invading the north or anything like that, we're gonna win the war by not losing" - Gen. Robert E. Lee
Love him or hate him, Sherman is a total badass.
I love the subtle 'Something in the Way', Nirvana undertones when describing Sherman's internal conflicts! That was tight!
Sherman was the first modern general to use total war tactics against the civilian population. Those tactics would be used in WW1 and WW2 to greater effects.
And to greater destruction...
War criminal for sure.
Just to clarify, where was 'total war' used extensively during WW1?
@@nanouli6511 Technically no. There was no Geneva Convention that prohibited such things. But 80 years later when the US and British both targeted civilians in German cities, even purposefully causing firestorms that killed thousands, there absolutely was.
@1000 Yes but not as extensively as in World War 2. In World War 1 Germans bombed London indiscriminately and Britain blockaded and starved Germany
Awesome video, just found this channel and wow, never heard the full letter just snippets as quotes. Well done all , cant wait to see the next one.
West Point is not the "West Point Military Academy," as the map has it at 3:02. It is the United States Military Academy.
Sherman in 1860 wrote a prophecy to his neighbors in Louisiana about their desire for Southern Succession: Has any soothsayer ever been more accurate about foolhardy ventures? About the course of future events? Sherman nailed it.
The South was destroyed. Sherman had a major hand in it.
Detaching from the supply line and marching through enemy territory is not only bold but gusty. This makes him one of the greatest generals in the world.
I grew up in the town where he was born. People in the south will still give you weird looks if you say you're from Lancaster OH. Great documentary.
Sherman: "I need 200000 men!"
War department: "This man is insane!"
*Meanwhile at the Camp of the Man the War Department put in control of the entire Army*
McCellan: "I NEED 1 Million more men!"
Nathaniel P. Banks was the ranking general.
-But what if they have 40 thousands men, I'll need 50!
-Okay, we'll give you 50.
-But what if they have 50, I'll need 60!
*facepalming so hard he almost finished JWB's job pre-emptively*
This documentary was outstanding. By far one of the best I've ever seen.
As a diagnosed bipolar man, the description is pin perfect. Great and inspiring content.
This was a terribly entertaining episode…worth a like and subscribe and then some! 👍 I reckon it doesn’t hurt your main character is straight out of central casting. Those eyes and deep crevices on the face were well earned.
Also Confederate control had an additional importance for Lincoln that I didn’t learn about until today.. The Midwest couldn’t export agricultural, and to a lesser extent industrial, production east-or overseas because the new railroads were choked because of the war. The Mississippi was the route to the markets east and to an extent to Europe circling around the Appalachian mts.
Brilliant Production, mesmerizing narration and script.
The ongoing portrait of Sherman is Captivating.
BRAVO to all !
Tell that to the Indians out West.
Compared to what happened to civilians in wars in Europe prior to and after Sherman’s March, this was extremely mild. If you want to see war as hell, look at the 30 Years War or World War II.
Good point. Look at leningrad. More civilian deaths in one city than the entire death toll of the American Civil War, including the military deaths on both sides.
Oh, were those Americans killing Americans?
@@nanouli6511I mean that's kind of a misnomer since I could name you a handful of civil wars that were just as brutal if not even more so than the American one like the three kingdoms, taiping rebellion (if you want to consider that a civil war), and the Russian one especially.
they need to make a movie about Sherman's western campaign
In 1973 I was given a certificate for playing the calliope on the Delta Queen. The certificate states that it can be revoked if I am ever caught playing "Marching Through Georgia".
I hope that was how you ultimately left that position
I have no clue how I just found out about this channel. More importantly and don’t know how the fuck this channel doesn’t have more subscribers with such EXCELLENT content. Keep up the great work seriously great episode on one of the most fascinating people of the 1800s .
Keep up the great work guys! You should do a video on Cormac McCarthy.
Sherman's story really sounds like some fable about a man who is made absolutely miserable by something, but people keep wanting him to do this thing, so he decides to inflict so much suffering by doing this thing that people will want him to stop doing said thing. But like a cursed twist on Sisyphus it actually just makes people want him to do the thing even more.
If you drive from Atlanta to Savanah, Ga, on I 75 & I 16 you can tell you are on Sherman's path of destruction. The trees are smaller, more erosion etc., than the surrounding areas of thick pine forest.
I'm not an expert on the logging industry, but that might also have something to do with the 1.5 trillion acres of land Union Bag/Camp paper company owned and how its probably more cost effective to plant and harvest trees closer to the interstate. When I was young I roamed alot in several forested areas between Savannah and Statesboro and found places where pine tree farming was occurring, but just not at the rates you typically see near the interstates. I didn't see much of what I would call true older growth forest except in historic places like Wormsloe plantation, Bonaventure Cemetery and near Fort Pulaski.
Your artist is fantastically talented, and has the most beautiful hands I've ever seen.
We were taught in school that the war was all but decided by 3 July 1863. But that tends to minimize developments on the home front, the Copperhead movement, overall tiring of war. I don't think we can know the effect of a significant setback in 64, even as late as Franklin, although I tend to see the deadline for such to have been the election earlier in the month.
The ability of the South to take the fight to the North disappeared at Gettysburg & Vicksburg. From that time forward the only "hope" the South had was to last long enough for political support of the war in the north to erode to the point that they'd give up and go home.
@@michaelclark9762 Indeed and that hope evaporated with the election of Lincoln for a second term.
Great production. Very creative how you essentially turned a podcast into something visually compelling.
The Sherman tank was named after him!!! Running over lands with no remorse
Based
“There was a panic or summting,” really articulate narration
As Sherman himself so aptly put it, “war is hell”. What is often required is so heinous to observers. But Sherman knew exactly what was required.
Dude sweet video this was super information dense and compelling format. Very nice. Even some good references with the dawgs in the beginning
Too little noted by historians: until the Germans invented the fixation of nitrogen, in about 1918 but perhaps a little earlier, every artillery shell consumed nine pounds of cotton: gun-cotton was the main explosive.
This is false. Yes guncotton (nitrocellulose) was made from cotton at that time, but guncotton, while it was used, didn't become the standard propellant until after the Abel process was invented in 1865. Furthermore, the statement "every artillery shell consumed nine pounds of cotton" is ludicrous. It would mean that all guns must have the same volume of propellant.
Really great to bring out Sherman's role in the war. Mostly we only hear about Grant vs Lee. The final moments where you tell Sherman's thoughts on war in general, followed by his actions against the Sioux, really show a man who embraced the dichotomy between how he wanted the world to be, and what he thought he had to do to discharge his duty.
Was he a vicious war-monger, or was he philosopher-general who simply realized the brutality the job required?
It's hard to call him a good guy. In the end, maybe it's more realistic to understand that sometimes in war, there may be winners and losers, there aren't any good guys.
As I remember it he told the secretary of War that he needed 200,000 men to take the war South. In the end, a year or so later, the north was taking armies about that size in two major thrusts, one in the west central South towards, eventually, Vicksburg and the other in central Tennessee eventually headed towards Chattanooga. One reason Sherman was so upset was that he apprehended a truth that he couldn’t communicate well, confusing immediate tactics and long-term strategy. and felt he had little effective support to accomplish the ends his superiors were asking for. On another note, I think that Shiloh was the first significant battle, as opposed to a little skirmishing, that he had ever participated in, much last been a commander in. That’s why Sherman had told Lincoln he didn’t want senior command in late summer 1861. He felt he wasn’t ready. At that point, it seems Sherman may have been right. Finally Sherman was probably not a classic bipolar, definitely tendency to depression, and able to sometimes bounce out of it. Doesn’t sound full fledged to me, there are types in which personal relationships/friendships can pull a person fairly quickly out of a depression. Ever after Sherman always had persons he was close with, supportive, and competent to work with to achieve common ends. Overalll it seems he was fairly well liked, though a bit “hi strung”.
The Atlanta campaign was genius and very innovative against a very competent opposing general. The textbook example of the “Indirect approach” (before the term was invented, I believe) in encounters after encounter until he had maneuvered, with some fighting, into the trenches around Atlanta. There were three other phases of his campaign, Hood’s attacks, then tightening the noose around Hood until he flees Atlanta. Then after Hood looped around through Alabama he effectively thought with difficulty fended Hood off cutting his supply line to Tennessee. After this, he divided up his Army into two parts, taking the healthiest 60,000 South to the Sea, sending the rest of The army to Tennessee to retrain, refit, and to defend against and destroy Hood as things developed.
It IS an incredible story, especially recounted in all its complexity. Sherman could never have accomplished this without a core of seasoned, talented officers, with Thomas the most important, but Ten more of high caliber could be added easily) as well as consistently competent and supportive superiors such as Grant, Lincoln, and yes, I include Halleck.
A fascinating, talented, and in so many ways, very strange man.
Yours is the only comment I've seen so far to even mention George H. Thomas. Honestly, I think he's what saved Sherman, the Atlanta campaign, and ultimately Lincoln's reelection and thus the war. Sherman had his moments, but I think they were few and far between. I mostly regard him as a POS who played politics more than he and maybe others would care to admit (his brother, a sitting senator at the time, basically got him his command). However, he did defend Thomas at the beginning of the war since Thomas was a native Virginian who sided with the Union and had no political support around Lincoln. For that alone, Sherman helped save a lot of lives. With superior numbers, tactics, and logistics, Thomas helped ensure that headlong charges into fixed positions wasn't normally necessary and that turning the enemy's flank was the surest way to save Union soldiers' lives and defeat the South. Ultimately, the grand strategy was just that. A slow turning of the Confederate flank until Richmond was surrounded. This video should rightly focus on how Thomas, not Sherman, helped save us during these crucial weeks in American history.
"There was a panic or something." Great documentary.
yea its really drunk history-esque, I like this casual take to documentaries
I was listening to this in the background as i was cleaning my apartment and doing other chores and came back to see how more the painting was done
There's never been any evidence of any rape or murder during the March to the Sea. If there had been, trust me, growing up in Savannah, Georgia, I would have heard of every incident. None were ever cited.
I’m also surprised they didn’t mention that the Confederates also burned large swathes of Atlanta when they retreated, and the Union soldiers had to be firefighters when they first arrived.
There’s plenty of evidence actually. There’s eyewitness testimony as well, it’s just not shown in museums.
>Grow up in a historically unionist-sympathetic city in the South that was spared by Sherman's March
>"bro there was never any rape or murder trust I woulda heard of it"
lmfao
I too am from Savannah and have heard vague accusations against Sherman from people who still hold a grudge against what he and the Union army did. But in the 1980s and 90s people still didn't want to discuss rape very much. I was a history major in college and although I concentrated on European history because it was an area I knew less about, I still read a good bit of civil war history and rape was not something that made it into most history books.
But things have changed since then and more historians are trying to tease information from the incomplete records we have. The consensus right now seems to be that there wasn't much rape of white women during Sherman's march, but the rate for slaves and former slaves were much higher. One interesting statistic I saw was that Sherman's men had rates of four times less sexually transmitted diseases than those in other Union forces. Part of that could be because they were on the move so much they had less time to come info contact with females than more stationary forces that were near stable towns and cities.
As for murder, that's probably even harder to figure out because it would be so easy to say that any southern white men killed were acting as enemy combatants. My personal belief is that bad things can and will happen on all sides in war. But its hard to draw a conclusion that Sherman's march was especially brutal for its time period despite all the material damage that occurred. Savannah was lucky that the defending Confederate forces withdrew without fighting and that Sherman could use the whole "Christmas present for Lincoln" PR angle.
Buddy, amazing video eh! I learnt more about American History from this video than in the last 10 years of Main Stream TV anything.
Hey Confederates: play stupid games/win stupid prizes.
Hey yankee your people are still down here ! Lol
Hey Yank, you got Joe Biden don't you? You know, the guy who walks like he's got a full diaper!
Sleepy joes got nothing on dementia donald
"GG EZ" - Sherman, 1864
Same to the Indians
I love watching the portrait painting while you are narrating the video.
Narrator says with Grant's support Sherman got better, but he hadn't even met Grant yet.
That is true. Weirdly it was General Henry Halleck .
@@ThePrader Thats interesting but it makes sense, because I don't think they had their falling out until right after the war, around the spring or summer of '65.
It' s a good doc but they make a quite a few errors like that. At Shiloh the Union soldiers weren't drilling they were disembarking at Pittsburgh landing in preparation for a campaign to actually take Corinth. Ultimately why there were caught out is less important information then that they were caught out. Not that important but still enough to nag at me.
Also the "explainer" goes onto say guess he did a good job or whatever. Sherman both contributed to the peril the Army of Tennessee was in and likely saved the Army of the Tennessee with his actions, especially on the 6th. His command turned a near certain disaster into a stalemate as Buell didn't arrive til the second day.
Also they did my man Meade dirty and while they only dedicate like 3 sentences to Chattanooga they get like 3 things wrong. Including the fact that the Confederates held Chattanooga during the siege of Chattanooga and Rosecrans got into trouble for what Grant perceived as cowardice after he left Thomas to defend at Chickamauga even though Rosecrans was rightly concerned about a possible (which turned out to be an actual ) Confederate flanking maneuver that would have trapped the Army of the Cumberland. I don't really think Vicksburg needed more then it got because that was a Grant masterclass, Sherman didn't really factor into Vicksburg on a tactical level,
The actual subject matter of the doc borrows heavily from the State of Georgia's doc When Georgia Howled.
Great Great job, I love the format and want more.
Sherman and Grant saved the United States of America...
Lincolns vice president gave it back to chaos.
Interesting and fast-moving. Thanks
Sherman was a devout unionist and an actual Soldier and he would have been a great Samurai following Bushido
Really enjoyed this video. Thank you
11:52 pronunciation check: the city of Cairo, Illinois is spoken either "CARE-oh" or "KAY-row", but never like the city in Egypt.
I loved this. Thank you so much!
As a native Georgian who's well acquainted with the area that Sherman marched through, I'm forced to admit that tales of the destruction he wrought along the way are greatly exaggerated.
To this day If you visit many of the small towns along his line of march you will find no shortage of antebellum homes and structures. This simply doesn't support the claim of indiscriminate devastation on his march to the sea.
As an Athens native I was always taught of his magnanimous behavior toward Madison and how it was spared. Can't remember why though.
Indeed, the destruction was focused on infrastructure and means of production. Fields and supplies were destroyed, factories, roads, bridges and tracks. Houses were a waste of time when his focus was ending the war by destroying the ability for his enemy to wage it.
To create the "we were the victims" narrative, the facts had to be embellished.
Precisely. Sherman's campaign was much more psychological than it was actual. Sherman brought the war to the home front.
@@chrisg4305
Someone from Georgia once told me she was from some town in Georgia that sherman spared because he dated a girl from that town once.
Can't remember the town. Maybe it was Madison
This was cool! Loved the music in the background. Thanks for the history lesson
I love this comment section. An absolute cesspool of armchair historians and lost causers.
I need a series of these, I love this
Great video....but too much painting.
Please include more images of the time.
Fascinating. As someone who knew nothing of him before this, I thank you for the lesson.
I'm a southern born in Atlanta and have absolutely no problem with what his army did.
Born in Savannah, still had some issues into my 20s but have gotten over it.
amazing video to watch while I ate dinner
After the1st yr of the war Robert E. Lee lost battle after battle. He's vastly overrated as a general.
Disagree. He did what he could with what he had. That said, Grant absolutely is the best general of the Civil War.
Lee's record was comparatively much better than George Washington. In a war of attrition, individual victories don't matter, the results of the campaigns do. In the end Washington won his war and Lee lost his.
I never make comments but hot damn y’all are slick and know how to tell a story. Happy I’m here before you guys go to the moon
I think there is a reason the largest tree in the world the General Sherman tree in Sequoia National Park is named what it is, besides the California connection
Also a tank named after him
@@brentmaynes8934 one of hell of a tank at that!
Right!
One of my GG Grandpa served in the 39th Iowa Infantry, fought in the Atlanta camaign, marched to the sea and up the Carolinas and finally in the Grand Review in Washington DC. What a glorious day he must have had at the Grand Review!
That's in history, but the most decisive time of our country will soon be upon us the way things are unfolding.
WTS is one of my personal heroes. He knew how to put the boot in when it mattered.
Sherman once said "f they want eternal war, well and good; we accept the issue, and will dispossess them and put our friends in their place. I know thousands and millions of good people who at simple notice would come to North Alabama and accept the elegant houses and plantations there. If the people of Huntsville think different, let them persist in war three years longer, and then they will not be consulted. Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late.
All the powers of earth cannot restore to them their slaves, any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences. Many, many peoples with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence."
Letter to Major R.M. Sawyer (31 January 1864), from Vicksburg.
The there is the thing he was to have said "war is hell I intent to make it that for the ppl of GA" Dont know if he ever said this or not or in these words but... It is Sherman...
Sherman murdered thousands of citizens
unbelievably based
Growing up in Lancaster Ohio his family home was one of our first field trips. His name etched into our lives.
Sherman made the slave owning plantation aristocrats pay the price for their reaping huge benefits derived from owning people whose hard work sent untold millions into the pockets of the slave owners. The southern ruling elite had everything their own way for over a century. In the end justice caught up with them and they could no longer steal the fruit of the labors from their slaves.
best
Bruce Peek
Sherman is the definition of the quote “Standing On Buisness” , he completely embarrassed Johnston & Hood🤣😂 Absolute disgrace & disrespect to the American 🇺🇸 flag to name Army bases & street names after those scum
I am a relative of Sherman (my Grandfather was a Sherman), I like to think he made positive change and did what was needed to end a horrible war. My family doesn't like the fact of the relation grandmother took it as her middle name and has always worried of being shunned. I am glad facts have come to light in past years of what truly happened then I am tired of Sherman being used as a scapegoat for most of the torching.
Never mind what happened to the freed slave and all is well, eh?
Sherman wrote dis[patches to cover his tracks. Your inheritance does not need to define you.
Sherman is probably in Hell
This is the kind of subtle anti Black human hatred disregard that is pervasive in white America's society