While the final combat of the campaign was being worked out at Jonesborough, Thomas, on Sherman's instructions, ordered Slocum, now commanding the Twentieth Corps, to make an effort to occupy Atlanta if he could do so without exposing his bridgehead to a counterattack.

McClernand afterwards made an attempt to salvage Sherman's effort to no avail, so at the end of the first day neither Grant nor McClernand had succeeded.

Military historians Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones cited the significant damage wrought to railroads and Southern logistics in the campaign and stated that " Sherman's raid succeeded in ' knocking the Confederate war effort to pieces '.

" Captain Forrest Sherman's personal relationship with Major Albert Wedemeyer " ensured a community of planning effort between the two services and pointed to a future in which the services would acknowledge that mobilization planning was a joint responsibility that one service alone could not conduct adequately.

The fossilized, formalized, precedent-based thinking of the legendary military brain was not evident in Sherman's armies.

One of Sherman's most serious shortcomings, however, was his mistrust of his cavalry.

Rank was becoming an explosive issue in all three of Sherman's armies.

The damage caused by Sherman's March to the Sea through Georgia in 1864 was limited to a swath, but neither Lincoln nor his commanders saw destruction as the main goal, but rather defeat of the Confederate armies.

Sherman's capture of Atlanta in September and David Farragut's capture of Mobile ended defeatist jitters ; the Democratic Party was deeply split, with some leaders and most soldiers openly for Lincoln.

An image of " the South " was fixed in Mitchell's imagination when at six years old her mother took her on a buggy tour through ruined plantations and " Sherman's sentinels ", the brick and stone chimneys that remained after William Tecumseh Sherman's " March and torch " through Georgia.

The results at the end when comparing Sherman's diary to Wilkins was that " Seventy-five per cent were found to be correct ".

Sherman's march to the sea was one of the first times America experienced total war, and advancements in military technology, such as iron and steel warships, added to the destruction.

Wallace chose to take the " upper " path, which was much less used and considered in better condition, and which would lead him to reinforce the " right " side of Sherman's last known ( initial ) position at Shiloh Church.

According to the author Garry Boulard in his book Abraham Lincoln Ascendent, it was Sherman's 1859 endorsement of the controversial anti-slavery book, The Impending Crisis of the South, written by Hinton Helper, that doomed Sherman's chances of becoming Speaker.

To Sherman's great displeasure and sorrow, one of his sons, Thomas Ewing Sherman, joined the religious order of the Jesuits in 1878 and was ordained as a priest in 1889.

This was a new regiment yet to be raised, and Sherman's first command was actually of a brigade of three-month volunteers, at the head of which he became one of the few Union officers to distinguish himself at the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861, where he was grazed by bullets in the knee and shoulder.

In Sherman's case, this was in part because he developed close personal ties to Grant during the two years they served together in the West.

Sherman's military record in 1862 – 63 was mixed.

In July, the cautious Johnston was replaced by the more aggressive John Bell Hood, who played to Sherman's strength by challenging him to direct battles on open ground.

Local Native American Lumbee guides helped Sherman's army cross the Lumber River, which was flooded by torrential rains, into North Carolina.

Sherman's final significant military engagement was a victory over Johnston's troops at the Battle of Bentonville, March 19 – 21.

General Sherman's record as a tactician was mixed, and his military legacy rests primarily on his command of logistics and on his brilliance as a strategist.

Another World War II-era student of Liddell Hart's writings about Sherman was George S. Patton, who "' spent a long vacation studying Sherman's campaigns on the ground in Georgia and the Carolinas, with the aid of Hart's book '" and later "' carried out his plans, in super-Sherman style '".

Already debilitated by the Chattanooga starvation, the quality of Sherman's horseflesh ran downhill as the campaign progressed.

Confederate cavalry raiders Bedford Forrest and Earl Van Dorn stalled Grant's advance by breaking communications, while the Confederate army led by John C. Pemberton concentrated and repulsed Sherman's direct approach at Chickasaw Bayou.

* December 4 – American Civil War – Sherman's March to the Sea: At Waynesboro, Georgia, forces under Union General Judson Kilpatrick prevent troops led by Confederate General Joseph Wheeler from interfering with Union General Sherman's campaign of destroying a wide swath of the South on his march to Savannah, GA ( Union forces suffer more than 3 times the casualties as the Confederates, however ).

Although the economic Panic of 1893 had a number of causes, President Grover Cleveland believed the inflation caused by Sherman's act to be a major factor, and called a special session of Congress to repeal it.

Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas pointed out as late as 1966, " The very word ' Yankee ' still wakens in Southern minds historical memories of defeat and humiliation, of the burning of Atlanta and Sherman's march to the sea, or of an ancestral farmhouse burned by Cantrill's raiders.

Sherman's military campaigns of 1864 and 1865 freed many slaves, who greeted him " as a second Moses or Aaron " and joined his marches through Georgia and the Carolinas by the tens of thousands.

Sherman's greatest contribution to the war, the strategy of total warfare — endorsed by General Grant and President Lincoln — has been the subject of controversy.

Sherman's advance through Georgia and South Carolina was characterized by widespread destruction of civilian supplies and infrastructure.

The speed and efficiency of the destruction by Sherman's army was remarkable.

1888 photograph by Napoleon Sarony used in the second edition of Sherman's Memoirs, 1889.

One of Sherman's main concerns in postwar commands was to protect the construction and operation of the railroads from attack by hostile Indians.

Meanwhile, Charles L. Webster & Co. issued a " fourth edition, revised, corrected, and complete " with the text of Sherman ’ s second edition, a new chapter prepared under the auspices of the Sherman family bringing the general ’ s life from his retirement to his death and funeral, and an appreciation by politician James G. Blaine ( who was related to Sherman's wife ).

* Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860 – 1865, edited by Brooks D. Simpson and Jean V. Berlin ( Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999 ) – a large collection of war-time letters ( November 1860 to May 1865 ).

* Sherman at War, edited by Joseph H. Ewing ( Dayton, OH: Morningside, 1992 ) – approximately thirty war time letters to Sherman's father-in-law, Thomas Ewing, and one of his brothers-in-law, Philemon B. Ewing.

Sherman as College President, edited by Walter L. Fleming ( Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1912 ) – edited letters and other documents from Sherman's 1859 – 1861 service as superintendent of the Louisiana Seminary of Learning and Military Academy.

During the Sherman Riot of 1930 ( May 9, 1930 ), Sherman's elegant second courthouse was burned down by arson during the trial of an African American man, George Hughes.

Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood was threatening Sherman's supply line from Chattanooga, and Sherman detached two armies under Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas to deal with Hood in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign.

Sherman's force of about 100, 000 men was composed of three subordinate armies: the Army of the Tennessee ( Grant's and later Sherman's army of 1862 – 63 ) under Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson ; the Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas ; and the relatively small Army of the Ohio ( composed of only the XXIII Corps ) under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield.

Gen. George W. Morgan and Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's XV Corps.

During Sherman's March to the Sea, Kilpatrick's division remained with the army, serving again with a lack of real distinction, while the rest of the cavalry went north with George Thomas to repel John B.

By late May 1864, only two of these continued to advance: Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign and the Overland Campaign, in which Grant accompanied and directly supervised the Army of the Potomac and its commander, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade.