A Carnival Of Destruction

Appearing in markets in September 2012, Tom Elmore's massive book (580 pages following xxxiii pages of preliminaries) with the subtitle SHERMAN'S INVASION OF SOUTH CAROLINA is today in July 2013 less than one year old. Its title A CARNIVAL OF DESTRUCTION encapsulates a remark by Union Major Genearal W. B. Hazen: From Pocataligo, Georgia "began a carnival of destruction that ended with the burning of Columbia, in which the frenzy seemed to exhaust itself. There was scarcely a building far or near on the line of that march that was not burned." ***Here are a few of the major points that linger in memory once a first reading of A CARNIVAL OF DESTRUCTION: SHERMAN'S INVASION OF SOUTH CAROLINA is done: (1) Union Major General Henry Slocum, commanding Sherman's left wing, on December 18th tried to establish a toehold in South Carolina but was repelled. By then the South was already clearly defeated. Atlanta and Savannah had fallen to commanding Major General William Tecumseh Sherman. Confederate General Hood's army, having lost Atlanta, was in the process of being annihilated in Tennessee and Kentucky. Nothing prevented Sherman from marching or sailing straight to Petersburg, VIrginia to join General U.S. Grant and compel Robert E. Lee to evacuate Richmond, the Confederate capital. *** (2) Continuous Union military actions in the South Carolina campaign lasted from January 19 to March 8, 1865. During that time Sherman continued and intensified his new concept of "total warfare" introduced in the "march to the sea" from Atlanta to Savannah. His troops took food without payment in a 50-mile swathe wherever they marched. In South Carolina -- despised as the birthplace of secession -- the Yankees burned far more houses, churches and masonic lodges than in Georgia. *** (3) Confederate military resistance to Sherman's 65,000 men was disorganized and downright stupid. The South spread its 35,000 or so troops available to defend the Palmetto State far too thin, tried to hold too many cities, including Charleston and Augusta. At the same time crafty Sherman succeeded in avoiding head-on big battles. Through feints elsewhere with his left and right wings, the Major General brilliantly concealed his real intention to capture Columbia, South Carolina's capital. Nowhere in South Carolina did he encounter armed resistance that seriously threatened his movements. Only Confederate and Union cavalry units engaged each other almost daily in skirmishes. *** (4) Sherman's greatest enemies were not rebel armed forces but ferociously cold, wet weather and more than a hundred miles of swamps and rivers in flood that Confederates were sure would stop him from mounting a winter campaign. Yet nothing stopped "Uncle Billy's boys." They may have been forged into the most motivated, talented, relentless army in human history. And they all loved Uncle Billy with a passion. *** (5) By the time Sherman left South Carolina he had destroyed huge quantities of munitions, bales of cotton, entire factories, railroad lines and their metal tracks. South Carolina could no longer send desperately needed materiel to General Lee besieged outside Richmond. Sherman and his boys had broken the belief of most Carolinians and Georgians that the Confederacy could possibly win independence so long as newly re-elected Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States. By April 1865 Richmond had fallen, Lee had surrendered. The war was effectively over. -OOO-