After the Union’s capture of Atlanta and subsequent March to the Sea, Major General William T Sherman turned north with a vengeance on the state that started the US Civil War, South Carolina. In January 1865, he laid siege to the Charleston and Fort Sumter in the harbor. On 17 February, the rebels had had enough and abandoned the fort and city in the middle of the night. On their way out of the city, the Confederates set fire to the stores of cotton bales to keep them out of Sherman’s hands.

By the next morning, the fire spread and engulfed most of the city. The mayor of Charleston asked Sherman for help fighting the fires and stopping the looters, but Sherman politely declined. When he saw the fire was not affecting the one building in Charleston he wanted to destroy, the US Arsenal, Sherman had his men set fire to it too. He left some troops to occupy Fort Sumter, and took the rest to pursue the retreating rebels.

It was the first time the Stars and Stripes flew over Fort Sumter since the start of the US Civil War three years prior.

In September 1864, MG William Tecumseh Sherman defeated Confederate MG John Bell Hood and captured Atlanta. Hood and his army escaped but Atlanta was the industrial capital of the South. It was also a major railroad hub. With its loss, supplies from the Deep South for Lee in Virginia had to take a circuitous route up the Atlantic coast through the unoccupied portions of Georgia.

Robert E Lee wasn’t too worried about Sherman threatening his remaining supply lines though. Lee believed that he could advance no further with Hood’s intact army behind him. Hood threatened Sherman’s exposed railroads that extended all the way back to Kentucky.

So Sherman cut his own supply lines, and marched on Savannah.

Over September and October, Sherman culled his army of any soldier who could not make the grueling 250 mile march from Atlanta to Savannah by Christmas. Those who could not make the march were placed under the capable command of MG George Thomas “The Rock of Chickamauga” who would fall back to Nashville and defend against Hood. Sherman trimmed his army to its “fighting strength” – the original “hardcore”. The only camp followers he permitted were freed slaves they picked up on the route, and then he would feed only those who were of use to the army. For his Savannah campaign, Sherman expected his soldiers to march at least 15 miles a day with 55 lb packs. 20 days of supplies would be carried on their backs, and the rest would be foraged from the Georgia countryside until they could be supplied by the Union Navy blockading Savannah.

The foraging would not only feed his army, but it would also “make Georgia howl”. Sherman had spent most of his prewar military career in the South and he had a great affection for the Southern culture but he knew the only way to defeat them was to destroy their will and ability to carry on the fight. There were no Confederate formations between him and Savannah, and his men would have free rein to destroy the South’s physical and psychological ability to carry on the war. On 13 November 1864, Sherman expelled all citizens from Atlanta and then he put anything of military value to the torch. Factories, government buildings, warehouses, plantations, the only buildings he spared were Catholic churches because he didn’t want his Irish regiments to mutiny. The fires eventually spread to the rest of the city. Sherman didn’t care: elections have consequences. As his army marched out of the burning city, Sherman commented that he had “never heard ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ sung with more spirit and harmony”.

On the march, all foodstuffs were confiscated and any that could not be carried were destroyed. Unneeded livestock were shot. Anything deemed of military value was put to the torch, in particular plantations. Lee’s vital railroads were tore up, and the rails were heated and then bent around trees, in what his soldiers called “Sherman’s Neckties”. Food stores and farm implements, with the reason that they’ll be used to feed the Confederate armies were confiscated or destroyed. Georgia had to figure out how to feed its population over the winter. The troops were rough but disciplined, and shared their commander’s single minded purpose in ending the war. 155 years of research by revisionist Southern historians have failed to find a single instance of rape, massacre, or wanton pillage that wasn’t dealt with immediately and judiciously. Sherman made Georgia “howl”.

Sherman captured Savannah on 21 December and offered it to Lincoln as a Christmas present. His “March to the Sea” cut a 250 mile long and thirty mile wide swath of destruction across Georgia. He caused $100,000,000 worth of damage ($1.5 billion, with a “b”, today). He cut off Lee’s Army of Virginia and forced it to starve over the winter. Sherman eventually turned his march into South Carolina where he continued to punish the South for bringing about the war. The March to the Sea undeniably shortened the most devastating war to America in its history. Lee’s ragged and famished army surrendered to Grant the next April.

In the summer of 1864, the Union was winning the battles but losing the war. In the presidential race of 1864, war weariness was working against Republican incumbent Abraham Lincoln, and his Democratic challenger George B McClellan was significantly ahead because he promised to make peace with the South and end the war. That changed in September when Sherman seized Atlanta, which greatly increased Lincoln’s popularity. But by October, Lincoln was still only tied in the polls with McClellan because Ulysses S Grant was stuck in a bloody stalemate besieging Robert E. Lee around Richmond, and the morale crushing casualties were high.

In order to break the stalemate around Richmond, Grant needed troops. The only troops available were those defending Washington DC from attack. Washington DC was constantly threatened over the years because of its proximity to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, the gateway to the North and Breadbasket of the South. Because the Valley runs southwest to northeast, i.e. away from Richmond, it previously didn’t made sense for Grant to clear it.

In September 1864, Grant needed those troops and dispatched Major General Phil Sheridan with 20,000 men to clear the valley of Rebels, thereby removing the threat to Washington. Sheridan pinned down Confederate Major General Jubal Early, but could not destroy him. So in a prelude to Sherman’s March to the Sea, Sheridan began a scorched earth policy in the Shenandoah Valley to deny supplies to the Confederates. Thinking everything was going well, and that Early would be forced to leave the valley or starve, Sheridan left his army to attend a conference in Washington DC in mid-October.

On 18 October, Sheridan was on his way back from the conference and stayed the night in Winchester, Va, twenty miles from his army. Also that day Jubal Early decided not to retreat but to attack. He marched his army all night and surprised the Union troops encamped on Cedar Creek, just as Sheridan woke to the distant sound of guns. Like all good commanders, Sheridan mounted up and rode toward the sound of battle. To his astonishment, he encountered the shattered and routed remnants of his army retreating from Cedar Creek to Winchester.

Sheridan spurred his horse on and raced down the road towards the sounds of fighting, inspiring his troops and admonishing his officers, but never slowed below a gallop. Sheridan arrived at the still raging Battle of Cedar Creek within minutes of it being lost. His presence on the battlefield electrified the remaining defenders, and more importantly, behind him a came a steady stream of recently rallied reinforcements. That evening, Sheridan counterattacked and swept Early’s exhausted troops from the field.

The news of Sheridan’s Ride was exactly what Lincoln needed. Sheridan was an immediate national hero and Lincoln’s popularity soared. McClellan’s antiwar campaign collapsed and Lincoln would handily defeat him in November. There would be no peace treaty with an independent Confederate States of America.

On April 24, 1862 Union Admiral David Farragut, an aggressive Virginian in command of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, boldly ran his ships past the Confederate forts and batteries protecting the approaches to New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River. With the main defenses of Forts Jackson and St. Philip bypassed, the undefended city fell to Farragut without a fight on the 29th. It was one of the Union’s most important victories in the “Anaconda Plan” to economically strangle the Confederacy into surrender and a big step in controlling the Mississippi River which would split the Confederacy in half.

On 12 April 1862, Union civilian scout James Andrews and 22 Ohio infantry volunteers hijacked a Confederate locomotive “The General” in Kennesaw, Georgia. The plan was to stop periodically and destroy track, cut telegraph wire, and burn bridges behind them in order to cut supply from Atlanta to the strategically important Confederate town of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Although Andrews cut telegraph wire preventing anyone ahead from knowing of the train, the former conductor of The General, William Fuller, pursued on a hand car with some rebel soldiers (Andrews’ top speed was only 15mph). Fuller eventually commandeered another train and pursued Andrews. Fuller dogged and unrelenting pursuit prevented the raiders from damaging the vital supply route in any meaningful way. Andrews at one point tried to set a car on fire while on a covered bridge to thwart pursuit, but Fuller pushed through before the bridge was too damaged.

The Chase lasted almost all the way to Chattanooga when The General ran out of coal and had to be abandoned. Andrews and the Union soldiers split up but were all eventually captured. They were tried as spies and found guilty of being unlawful combatants and sentenced to hang. Seven, including Andrews, were hung but the rest escaped, six were recaptured but because of the outcry were not hung and later exchanged. Abraham Lincoln’s Sec. of War, Edwin Stanton, awarded the first Medals of Honor to the soldiers who participated in The Chase, the very first being Pvt Jacob W. Parrot of the 33rd Ohio Infantry, due to his particularly brutal time as a prisoner.

On 9 March 1862, during the American Civil War, the first clash of ironclad warships took place. After the CSS Virginia, a Confederate ironclad built from the remains of the USS Merrimac, easily sunk two Union ships blockading Richmond, the USS Monitor, a Union ironclad with a rotating turret, sortied to protect a third: the USS Minnesota which had run aground fleeing the Virginia. The Monitor and Virginia fought inconclusively off Hampton Roads, VA, for about three hours before darkness halted the fight. Navies around the world, including the two largest: France and Great Britain, immediately halted all construction on wooden ships. The Age of Sail was over.

Intra-service squabbling between Union generals Don Carlos Buell and Henry Halleck had brought the Western Theater of the American Civil War to screeching halt after successfully securing most of Kentucky in late 1861. This was despite the many readily available invasion corridors into the South defended by the under-strength armies of Confederate General Albert Sydney Johnston who was given the unenviable task of securing a 300 mile front from the Cumberland Gap to the Mississippi River. President Lincoln, frustrated with the timidity of all his top commanders, issued an ultimatum in January 1862 that all Union armies must be on the move by Washington’s Birthday: 22 February.

At Paducah Kentucky, Commodore Andrew Foote and an unknown brigadier general, Ulysses S. Grant, seized upon Lincoln’s order, and convinced Halleck, their superior, that if he allowed them to attack it would fulfill the letter of Lincoln’s order, if not the spirit. Halleck, whom Lincoln once called a “damn fine clerk”, agreed. Not wasting time, the duo attacked on 3 February, three weeks earlier than Lincoln’s deadline.

Foote and Grant executed a joint Army/Navy plan to break into Tennessee by taking forts blocking access to the parallel Tennessee and Cumberland River valleys. From Paducah, Foote’s “iron and timber-clads” sailed down the river to bombard Fort Henry while Grant’s men marched. But the river was flooded, and Grant made slow progress in the boggy ground. Foote arrived on 6 February, well ahead of Grant. He was surprised to find Fort Henry poorly sited and nearly underwater; so much so that the Confederates were hastily attempting to build another fort, Fort Heiman, across the river on higher ground. Foote seized the moment, sailed his gunboats to within ¼ mile of Fort Henry, and pounded the Confederates point blank. They surrendered one hour later.

Grant arrived the next day and took advantage of the victory by moving on Ft Donelson, 12 miles away across the neck of land that separated the two rivers. On the 11th, he invested the fort. Foote attempted to do the same to Donelson as he had Henry and bombard the Confederates into surrender, but was fought off. Nonetheless, this small rebel victory couldn’t change the fact that Grant had them in a vise, and if they weren’t crushed, they’d surely starve.

After three days of fighting, the Confederate command began breaking down. The recently arrived cavalry commander, Lt Col Nathan Bedford Forrest, snuck out with his men on the night of the 15th. Along with Forrest, the top two overall fort commanders disappeared after abdicating their responsibilities to their third, Simon Bolivar Buckner, a friend of Grant’s from West Point. Buckner was convinced he could get good terms from Grant, a man he personally helped when Grant was deep into alcoholism and unemployment. He was mistaken.

On the 16th, after a failed breakout attempt by the rest of the cut off Confederates, Buckner asked for terms of surrender. Grant succinctly replied: “No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.” Buckner surrendered immediately.

Brigadier General U.S. “Unconditional Surrender” Grant gave America its first significant victory of the Civil War. Foote’s “Brown Water Navy” were masters of Tennessee’s waterways and even bombarded Confederate targets in Mississippi and Alabama. The large confederate base on the Mississippi at Columbus Ky was untenable and abandoned. Grant took Nashville a week later, the first rebel state capital to fall to Union armies during the war.