NOVEMBER 12, 1864:
Generals Grant
and Sherman meet at Kingston, Georgia. Despite some concerns about John Bell
Hood’s Confederate force away north, Grant gives Sherman the go-head to cut
loose from his supply lines and march to the sea with 60,000 troops arrayed in
two parallel columns of 30,000 men each. Since Union forces were abandoning
their supply and communication line to Chattanooga, Sherman gave orders to
“forage liberally during the march.” He also ordered mills and cotton gins
burned along the way and if guerrilla activity was encountered then “army
commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless
according to the measure of such hostility.” Although Confederate resistance
was nil during the March, much devastation was wrought.
