The Union Army, under the command of William Tecumseh Sherman, decamped from a devastated and burning Atlanta on November 16, 1864 and marched across the expanse of Georgia until it reached Savannah. The purpose, according to its commander, was to bring the horrors of war into the farms, fields, parlors and living rooms of the South in a way that would teach Southerners the futility of continuing the fight for their independence.
The march through Georgia took almost exactly a month. A week before Christmas, Sherman wired President Abraham Lincoln from Savannah, offering him the city as a “Christmas present.”
Sherman succeeded far beyond anything that he had in mind at the beginning of his journey.