antly, “In my opinion I can hold this post.
If you want it, come and take it.” Hood,
after being bloodied at Allatoona, with-
drew of to the west. This was accompa-
nied by a raid on Forrest’s part into central
Tennessee. While Forrest damaged roads
and chewed up rail lines, Sherman was
unconcerned. In reference to Forrest he
wrote, “But, as usual, he did his work so
hastily and carelessly that our engineers
soon repaired the damage.”
While Hood and Forrest were doing lit-
tle long-term damage to Sherman, their
raids were having the desired effect of dri-
ving him to distraction and delaying fur-
ther offensive action. Hood’s attacks
forced him to scatter his army along his
lines of communication from Atlanta to
Chattanooga. Sherman would have liked
nothing better than to catch and engage
Hood, but in the aftermath of the Alla-
toona and Resaca raids, Hood showed
that he could slip away at will. Sherman
was reluctant to give chase, knowing that
would wear down his army and open up
his lines of communication to further
harassment.
Frustrated by the continuing back and
forth, Sherman looked for ways to seize
the initiative. By October 10, while Hood
and Forrest where conducting the Ten-
nessee and Resaca raids, Sherman was toy-
ing with a radical idea. He wrote Grant,
“It will be a physical impossibility to pro-
tect the roads, now that Hood, Forrest,
Wheeler, and the whole batch of devils are
turned loose.” He argued that rather than
stay put in northern Georgia he should cut
his communications and march southeast
for Savannah. “Until we can repopulate
Georgia, it is useless for us to occupy it,”
Sherman reasoned, “but the utter destruc-
tion of its roads, houses, and people will
cripple their military resources.” He con-
cluded famously, “I can make this march
and make Georgia howl!”
While the Allatoona raid seems to have
made up Sherman’s mind, he had been
considering a march out from Atlanta ever
since Hood began his harassing opera-
tions. “As soon as Hood had shifted across
from Lovejoy’s to Palmetto, I saw themove in my ‘mind’s eye,’” he recalled,
“and after Jeff. Davis’s speech at Palmetto,
of September 26th, I was more positive in
my conviction, but was in doubt as to the
time and manner.”
Sherman tested his idea of living off the
land. When Hood demonstrated against
Dalton on October 13, Sherman severed
his supply line and chased Hood down the
Chattooga Valley, “drawing our supplies
of corn and meat from the farms of that
comparatively rich valley and of the neigh-
borhood.” At the same time, Maj. Gen.
Henry Slocum, one of Sherman’s unspec-
tacular but competent generals, dispatched
a foraging party east from Atlanta. Sher-
man wrote that Slocum’s foragers hadbrought back “large trains of wagons to
the east, and brought back corn, bacon,
and all kinds of provisions, so that Hood’s
efforts to cut off our supplies only reacted
on his own people.”
These two maneuvers convinced Sherman
that his plan for marching through Georgia
and living off the land was feasible. “Geor-
gia has a million inhabitants,” he said. “Ifthey can live, we should not starve.” Sher-
man ordered copies of the 1860 census and
examined these to determine his general
route through Georgia. In 1860 the state
had produced more than 50 million pounds
of rice and raised more than two million
hogs. Sherman planned a march through
the “Black Belt,” a fertile stretch of land
running through the north central part of
the state. The Black Belt accounted for four-
fifths of Georgia’s annual cotton produc-
tion (726,000 bales in 1860). Plundering
the region would be a devastating economic
blow. This area was also extremely vulner-
able, as African Americans accounted for
55 percent of the population. In the coastal
region, slaves made up 59 percent of thepopulation. Georgia’s largest city was
Savannah, with more than 22,000 residents.
Recently occupied Atlanta was only the
state’s fourth largest city with, a population
of 9,554. Other important cities were
Augusta (12,493) and Columbus (9,631).
Macon, with 8,247 people, was the state’s
fifth largest city.
Sherman’s grand idea was about moreSherman at the peak of his power in the fall of 1864. With the capture of Atlanta behind him, he was prepared
to risk everything on an audacious march through south-central Georgia to the Atlantic coast.CWQ-Sum16 Sherman's March_Layout 1 4/20/16 4:40 PM Page 67