See how Sherman’s destruction of the South laid the foundation for a new generation of warfare. On November 15, 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman left Atlanta with 62,000 men and headed toward the Georgia coast. Traveling the rail lines to Savannah, his army laid waste to the countryside, burning crops, confiscating supplies, destroying buildings, and ripping up rail tracks. When Sherman reached his destination in December, the South had been dealt a blow from which it would never recover–and the brutal general had written a chapter in military history that would be studied by generations of commanders.
