Holiday Assignment #3

Yet another book that I found about North Carolina in the Civil War is titled Sherman’s March Through the Carolinas. In fact, the first line of the book is what really caught my attention. It states that, General William Tecumseh Sherman always maintained that the Carolinas campaign of 1865 was his greatest military achievement.” A quote from Sherman later begins to explain that the famous march to Savannah that he later took may have gathered everyone’s attention and is popular among historians, but he viewed it as “child’s play”. I believe this to be one of the main aspects of my paper. This is the kind of change in history that I’ve been looking for. The Civil War is controversial and has many different views and retellings of different stories, but to find an entire book written with the help of a UNC professor about something I had never even heard of seems like a great opportunity. The march through the Carolinas occurred after the march to Savannah, in early 1865. It also discusses how the push to move Sherman out of the deep south became a top priority of the Confederates, and that stopping his advance into the Carolinas was the first, and most important step in doing so. Sherman also seemed to have realized this, and did not underestimate the small, but strong fighting force he had put up against him. He could also, however, see the disparity of the confederates, when they claimed that England and France had joined their cause.