A CARNIVAL OF DESTRUCTION

After capturing Atlanta on September 2, 1864, then "marching To The Sea" and making a Christmas present of Savannah to President Lincoln, Union Major General William Tecumseh Sherman with an army of 65,000 men entered South Carolina January 19, 1865. After capturing Columbia, his troops had left the Palmetto State by March 8, 1865 en route to Virginia to link with General Grant's army besieging Petersburg and Richmond. In the Georgia and South Carolina campaigns Sherman resurrected Genghis Khan's practice of total warfare: destroying the civilian capacity to support professional armies in the field. Tom Elmore tells that story. -OOO-