Sherman’s Plan of Marching to the Rear of Lee
After the concentration at Goldsboro’, Sherman’s plan was to march straight for Lee’s rear at Petersburg, and he expected Johnston to keep ahead of him and to unite with Lee for the final struggle at or near Richmond. Grant’s idea was quite different: He wanted Sherman to keep between Lee and Johnston and prevent their union, as well as to cut off Lee’s retreat if he should escape before Grant was ready to move, the latter alleging that he had ample force to take care of Lee as soon as the necessary preparations were made and the roads would permit him to move. It was this important difference of plan that occasioned Sherman’s visit to City Point, where he hoped to gain Grant’s acquiescence in his own plans. The result was the movement ordered by Sherman on his return to Goldsboro’, which was substantially the same as that which Grant had before proposed. Grant’s immediate army proved to be, as he predicted it would, amply sufficient for the capture of the whole of Lee’s army. Hence it is difficult to see in what respect Sherman’s campaign of the Carolinas was essential to this great result, or proved to be more important than his march through Georgia. Each was a great raid, inflicting immense damage upon the enemy’s country and resources, demoralizing to the people at home and the army in Virginia, cutting off supplies necessary to the support of the latter, possibly expediting somewhat the final crisis at Richmond, and certainly making the subjugation more complete of those of the Southern people who were thus made to “feel the weight of war.” Considered as to military results, Sherman’s march cannot be regarded as more than I have stated—a grand raid. The defeat and practical destruction of Hood’s army in Tennessee was what paved the way to the speedy termination of the war, which the capture of Lee by Grant fully accomplished; and the result ought to have been essentially the same as to time if Sherman’s march had never been made. The capitulation of Johnston was but the natural sequence of Lee’s surrender; for Johnston’s army was not surrounded, and could not have been compelled to surrender. Indeed Sherman could not have prevented that army from marching back into the Gulf States and continuing the war for a time. In military history Sherman’s great march must rank only as an auxiliary to the far more important operations of Grant and Thomas. Sherman at the time saw clearly enough this view of the case; hence his undeviating bent toward the final object of his march, disregarding all minor ends—to take part in the capture of Lee’s army.
During General Sherman’s interviews with the President and General Grant at City Point, his mind must have been absorbed with this one idea which was the sole reason of his visit. Terms of surrender and the policy to be pursued toward the conquered South must have been referred to very casually, and nothing approximating instructions on the subject can have been received or asked for by General Sherman. Else how is it possible that the very pointed and emphatic instructions of the President to General Grant, dated March 3, 1865,( 1) were not made known to him or the spirit of them conveyed to him in conversation?