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Sherman's Mississippi Campaign
written by Buck T. Foster
Studio : University Alabama Press
by University Alabama Press
Publisher : University Alabama Press
Released : 2006-10-15
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780817315191
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 4 reviews)
List Price : $29.95
Our Price : $20.53
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Product Description |
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The rehearsal for the March to the Sea. With the fall of Vicksburg to Union forces in mid-1863, the Federals began work to extend and consolidate their hold on the lower Mississippi Valley. As a part of this plan, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman set out from Vicksburg on February 3, 1864, with an army of some 25,000 infantry and a battalion of cavalry. They expected to be joined by another Union force moving south from Memphis and supported themselves off the land as they traveled due east across Mississippi. Sherman entered Meridian on February 14 and thoroughly destroyed its railroad facilities, munitions plants, and cotton stores, before returning to Vicksburg. Though not a particularly effective campaign in terms of enemy soldiers captured or killed, it offers a rich opportunity to observe how this large-scale raid presaged Sherman’s Atlanta and Carolina campaigns, revealing the transformation of Sherman’s strategic thinking. Buck T. Foster is an independent scholar living in southern Mississippi. |
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Strong on opinion; weak on historicity |
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Whether you will like Mr. Foster's work or not depends on the style of historical writing you enjoy. If you like writing in the style of Stephen Sears you will enjoy this book. If you like writing in the style of Joseph Marsh you probably will not. It all hinges on how much opinion you are willing to tolerate in and the degree of historicity you demand out of works of history. |
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Sherman's March through Mississippi |
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The book presents a little known campaign and shows the importance of western campaign experience in developing the "Hard War" doctrine that destroyed the Southern will to fight. The book captured my interest but was not the easiest book to read consisting of a long narrative of a campaign that had little action other than the destruction of Southern property. Units were mentioned and their movements described but it would have been nice to have an order of battle to know who served in which unit. Fortunately the there were a lot of maps. The narrative would have been very hard to follow or understand without them. The maps served to show the roads and towns mentioned, but little information on troop movements were shown, only the location of Sherman's main force. A good account of an under appreciated campaign that was overshadowed by events before and after to the east and west. I would recommend this book to serious students of the western campaign or Sherman's generalship. The average reader would probably find it too boring to hold their interest. |
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Fire and plunder and Sherman's love of it. |
Sherman's Mississippi Campaign by Buck T. Foster, 2006, 215 pages, maps.
Overall opinion: Very good work. Lots of referenced data, with a great collection of the details of Sherman's winter march through Mississippi. The names and places of what Sherman's army destroyed during this campaign is the most I've seen in any work. Detailed stories of what the Union soldiers saw and what they did is a very refreshing plus to this book's coverage. The style keeps you on the edge of your seat as you follow Sherman's men march deeper and deeper into Confederate held territory not knowing where his lost cavalry column was or what happened to it (even when I knew the answer).
Negitive Criticism: The writer is irritatingly repetative in his opinions. I disagree with some of his assertions about General Sherman character. Sherman did not control his men and many civilians suffered due to his inability to do so. The act of creating orders with threats of harsh punishment -not to harm private property- occured mainly after the destruction, not before. The months after this raid the Union forces continued to burn and destroy private property in Mississippi. Sherman did not change Mississippi back into a Unionist state by this tactic of 'Hard War'. The reports of cavalry columns that traveled through this same area from April-March 1865 showed a open hostility towards the Union troops, more so than earlier reports through this same region.
Corrections: The soldier identified as member of 16th Mississippi was from the 43rd Mississippi (a typo).
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Well Worth Reading |
The Civil War was more than Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Atlanta and the Overland Campaign. The war was a number of smaller campaigns, none of which should be dismissed as unimportant. Each of these campaigns contributed something to the development of the war and can tell us something about the history of the war. This campaign is an important step in the evolution of Sherman's thinking on how to fight the war and how to support his army in the field.
The idea that became the March to the Sea was not an overnight development but started in 1861 and progressed with the war. Buck Foster spends considerable time on the development of the "hard war", the reasons for the change and how each step logically caused the next step in the process. The second major development was the understanding that an army could "live off the land". By dropping lines of supply and communication, an army becomes all teeth with no tail to attack. The enemy would look for these lines trying to slow or stop the advancing army. Again, the author gives us a good review of this critical development, starting with Grant's 1862 Vicksburg Campaign.
In early 1863, Sherman was determined to advance from Vicksburg into Mississippi and attack the CSA infrastructure. Meridan, with a complex of factories, railroad intersections and supply depots became his objective. Sherman would carry only what could not be secured from the farms and towns on his line of march, the army would destroy the infrastructure as they moved. This is not a campaign to secure territory but to prove how powerless the CSA is.
Polk in charge of the defense of Mississippi and Alabama, is unable to determine Sherman's objective, gives contradictory orders and causes a number of other problems. S.D. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest have a much better idea of the situation but are hampered by Polk's indecision and lack of resources. Sherman is hampered with leadership problems too. These problems result in preventing him from achieving his secondary objectives.
Most of all, this book highlights the importance of leadership and the cost of not having good leaders in critical positions. Additionally, this book shows how resource poor the South was by 1863. Men and materials are not available to meet the challenges. Lack of resources and poor Southern leadership teach Sherman that what becomes the March to the Sea is possible. This is an easy to read book with enough maps to keep up with the campaign. It covers a little known area of the war while providing a good history of the development of Hard War. |
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