"Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea", by Noah Andre Trudeau

[Sequoia]

I finally got this book from B&N and am reading it when the actual events took place since the march started on November 15. Very detailed with maps and all sorts of notes, but boy is it heavy as a rock to be lugging around. Some of the people in Atlanta told Sherman they never wanted the war to begin with and to go after South Carolina since they started it all. Too bad the book ends in Savannah because Sherman did some more marching before it was actually over with.
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Product Description

Award-winning Civil War historian Noah Andre Trudeau has written a gripping, definitive new account that will stand as the last word on General William Tecumseh Sherman's epic march—a targeted strategy aimed to break not only the Confederate army but an entire society as well. With Lincoln's hard-fought reelection victory in hand, Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union forces, allowed Sherman to lead the largest and riskiest operation of the war. In rich detail, Trudeau explains why General Sherman's name is still anathema below the Mason-Dixon Line, especially in Georgia, where he is remembered as "the one who marched to the sea with death and devastation in his wake."

Sherman's swath of destruction spanned more than sixty miles in width and virtually cut the South in two, badly disabling the flow of supplies to the Confederate army. He led more than 60,000 Union troops to blaze a path from Atlanta to Savannah, ordering his men to burn crops, kill livestock, and decimate everything that fed the Rebel war machine. Grant and Sherman's gamble worked, and the march managed to crush a critical part of the Confederacy and increase the pressure on General Lee, who was already under siege in Virginia.

Told through the intimate and engrossing diaries and letters of Sherman's soldiers and the civilians who suffered in their path, Southern Storm paints a vivid picture of an event that would forever change the course of America.

amazon.com

[Captain Hilts]

1. Did you read E.L. Doctorow's ficitonalized version of the march?

[Sequoia]

3. You know, I did but I forgot I did.

This book is very heavy and the font is small and the battle scenes make my eyes glaze over trying to figure out the formations and such. Thank goodness for all the maps, it helps. I prefer to read the day by day grind and the reactions of the people the Yankees encounter. I'll have to give that other version you mention another look.

[Adsos Letter]

2. I read Treadeau's "Gettysburg"...

I find that his writing is quite compelling. Give "Gettysburg" a read when your finished with his current work.