CHAPTER VIII

Winter 1865-Spring 1865

Planning the direction of the spring, 1865 campaigns, the General-in-Chief, Ulysses S. Grant, felt that the main focus of the Union effort to crush the Southern rebellion should continue to revolve around the operations of General Sherman's army. Abandoning his original intention to position Sherman's force around Augusta, Georgia, so that it would be able to permanently logistically sever the Atlantic coast portion of the Confederacy from the Deep South, General Grant briefly considered the possibility of bringing Sherman's forces by water to Virginia so that they could be united with the Army of the Potomac and together they could destroy General Lee's army. The General-in-Chief, however, rejected the maritime transit alternative as too difficult, as well as due to anticipated problems associated with supplying both General Sherman's army and the Army of the Potomac in the Richmond area simultaneously. Hence, in accord with General Sherman's original desires and with General Halleck's encouragement, the General-in-Chief finally directed Sherman to launch another overland raid upon the Confederate infrastructure and war-making resources, this time through the Carolinas, before joining the Army of the Potomac in Virginia, where the latter continued to watch Lee's army. Then, after concentrating his armies, General Grant intended to use these forces to destroy General Lee's Confederates.1

Plotting the course of his raid, as with the march from Atlanta to the sea, Sherman hoped to confuse the Confederates by leaving doubt as to whether his initial target would be Augusta, Georgia or Charleston, South Carolina. The General finally opted to march upon neither of these two cities, but rather to move between them to Columbia, South Carolina, destroy the railroad, and then move into North Carolina, making contact with the Federal navy via Wilmington, North Carolina, prior to moving

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upon Weldon or Raleigh. Sherman wrote the General-in-Chief, 'I feel confident that I can break up the whole railroad system of South Carolina and North Carolina, and be on the Roanoke, either at Raleigh or Weldon by the time spring fairly opens.' ”2

Examining the implications of his raid through the Carolinas for the Confederate forces operating against the Army of the Potomac in Virginia, Sherman observed that General Lee would be forced to "come out of Richmond or acknowledge himself beaten.'" General Sherman anticipated that General Lee would probably attempt to exploit his interior position between Sherman's own army and the Army of the Potomac and swiftly turn on Sherman's force. In such case, General Sherman expected to 'force him to attack me at a disadvantage, always under the supposition that Grant would be on his heels; and if the worst came to the worst I could fight my way'" to the Atlantic. Thus, General Grant and his principal lieutenant, General Sherman, adhered to the indirect approach to the defeat of the Confederacy. After the march through the Carolinas had begun, Sherman summarized the overall implications of his campaign by noting,

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The utter demolition of the railroad system of South Carolina and the utter destruction of the enemy's arsenals at Columbia, Cheraw, and Fayetteville are the principles of the movement. These points were regarded as unaccessible to us, and now no place in the Confederacy is safe against the Army of the West. Let Lee hold on to Richmond and we will destroy his country, and then what use is Richmond?3

Similarly, in another context, he observed, "Richmond is not more vital to his cause than Columbia and the heart of South Carolina.'" Thus, the march through the Carolinas was designed to cut Lee off from his sources of supply in the Deep South, a point which Sherman emphasized when he observed that his campaigns were "as much an attack on Lee's army as though I was operating within the sound of his artillery.' " Finally, Sherman intended that his raid through the Carolinas would again underscore the political dimension of the strategic approach which he repeatedly stressed. As with his march from Atlanta to Savannah, Sherman intended to further undermine Southern morale by bringing the war home to the people of the Carolinas.

In the larger sense, however, the General wanted to again demonstrate to all Americans, Northern and Southern, as well as to the Europeans that no place in the Confederacy was beyond the reach of the Union army. He sought to graphically show everyone that the power of the Federal government and its military arm was overwhelming and that the Union cause would inevitably prevail.4

Meanwhile, during the autumn of 1864, General Grant had revived a modified version of the North Carolina project which he had proposed to the Federal high command immediately prior to his appointment to the position of General-in-Chief, but which had been abandoned due to opposition from Mr. Lincoln and General Halleck. Grant now planned to use a coordinated army-navy force to close the port of Wilmington, North Carolina, the Confederacy's last major window to the sea and, since 1863, the South's most significant base for blockade-running operations. By mid-December, after a slow start, a combined force arrived off Cape Fear, but the initial attack upon Fort Fisher guarding the gateway to Wilmington failed. A new expedition was quickly organized and, on January 13, 1865, the Union forces launched a second attack upon the fort. Two days later, the fort fell to the Union forces. Meanwhile, between mid January and the outset of February, Sherman moved his army north from Savannah on his raid into the Carolinas. In order to help provide support, with General Sherman's encouragement, General Grant transferred 20,000 men from Tennessee to reinforce the Union force outside Wilmington. Grant intended that this force should seize the city, "give General Sherman material aid, if needed on his march north,'" as well as "open a base of supplies for him on his line of march'" and open rail communications with Goldsboro, North Carolina. By opening a line of communication for Sherman's raiding army, his movement would be transformed into a full penetration. Meanwhile, on February 17, General Sherman's army reached Columbia, South Carolina, already ablaze with a fire of unknown origins and fanned by high winds. As a result of this fire, about two-thirds of the city was destroyed. Sherman's army remained for two days in the ruins of the South Carolina capital waiting for the high winds

to calm prior to destroying the Treasury office and the arsenal. Shortly after Columbia fell to Sherman's army, Wilmington fell to the Union forces located on the North Carolina coast. By March 11, Sherman reached Fayetteville, North Carolina and, following a last ditch fight with the defending Confederate forces in mid-March, the victorious Sherman proceeded to Goldsboro, North Carolina to resupply. Here, on March 23, Sherman's army united with the Federal forces from the North Carolina coast. Meanwhile, after holding out for two years against concerted Federal efforts to take Charleston, South Carolina from the sea, in response to Sherman's operations inland, the Southerners abandoned the city where the war had begun a little less than four bloody years earlier. By now, however, Charleston had little except symbolic importance to the remains of the Confederacy since its inland rail communications had been destroyed by Sherman's host and the city left isolated from the interior.5

General Sherman's march through the Carolinas completely devastated the Confederacy's infrastructure. Moreover, the fall of Wilmington and Charleston finally cut the Confederacy's links with the outside world. Indeed, although General Lee's army in Virginia continued to receive provisions until its surrender in April, 1865, the Confederate supply network could not have sustained the concentrated Southern field armies much longer with its rail network destroyed and its principal ports captured. Thus, while certain factories continued to produce war material, these items piled up in warehouses since they could not be transported to the troops in the field. More important, Southern morale continued to plummet and desertion from the Confederate army increased. The Southern armies were rapidly disintegrating and ceasing to be viable fighting instruments."

As the main Union effort was being orchestrated in the Carolinas, General-in-Chief Grant ordered a series of movements in Alabama designed to destroy the remains of the Confederacy's infrastructure and war-making resources in the Deep South. Grant ordered reinforcements be sent to the Union army outside Mobile so that it could finally take the city and move up the Alabama River as had been originally intended. The General

stressed, "It is important to prevent as far as possible, the planting of a crop this year and to destroy their railroads, machineshops, etc. It is also important to get all the negro men we can before the enemy put them in the ranks." In addition to the main expedition up the Alabama River from Mobile, the Federals planned a series of supporting cavalry raids from the Mississippi toward Selma, Alabama. Finally, General Grant directed General Thomas to send a large cavalry raiding expedition southward from the Tennessee toward Selma. These cavalry raids, especially the latter, were designed to support the Alabama River expedition by striking at the enemy rear, while, simultaneously, destroying as much of the remaining Southern rail network, warmaking industry, and resources as possible. Since Mobile did not fall until the final days of the war, the work which was supposed to have been performed by the Alabama River expedition was accomplished by the cavalry force which was despatched southward from the Tennessee. Commencing the raid on March 18, the Union horsemen moved to Selma and thence to Georgia. In the process they destroyed “almost all of the South's remaining industrial capacity: ironworks, foundries, machine shops, rolling mills, collieries, factories, niter works, arsenals, a navy yard, a powder magazine, steamboats, locomotives and railroad cars, and untold quantities of quartermaster, commissary, and ordnance stores."7

Meanwhile, as the winter and spring, 1865 campaigns progressed, the President attempted to provide guidance concerning both the terms and conditions under which hostilities might be terminated. In his December 6, 1864 message to Congress, Mr. Lincoln observed that "no attempt at negotiations with the insurgent leader could result in any good" " as long as the Confederates insisted upon the dissolution of the Union. The President did note, however, that "some of them, we know, already desire peace and reunion.'" Expressing hope that this opinion would increase, he commented that 'they can, at any moment, have peace simply ... by laying down their arms and submitting to the national authority under the Constitution.” Remaining questions could then be resolved by the electorate, the legislature, the courts, etc. The President, however, was adamant con

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