We often hear about Sherman's march from Atlanta to the port of Charleston, leaving a wake of total destruction behind him, an act of unprecedented savagery. The image fits well into the mythical world perpetuated by "Gone With the Wind." Well, savage it was, but not unprecedented. It was the concept of total war -- making civilians the targets as well as the enemy army. The point, from Sherman's view, was to lessen the civilians' morale and to destroy their means of waging war. His destructive march to the sea did put a dent in the supplies available to the Confederate Army but, far from demoralizing the civilians of the South, it enraged them and stiffened their resistance.
It was the chief aim of the United States Army Air Force in bombing German factories and later cities. It didn't work for the bombing campaign in World War II, and it didn't work for Sherman, although the film suggests otherwise. "Unsere Maueren Brechen; Unsere Herzen Nicht," said the banners on the walls of German cities. Our walls may break but never our hearts. Ditto for the South, where there still lingers bitterness towards Lincoln and his general. It wasn't long ago that Southern shops sold beach towels with a cartoon of a battered Confederate soldier carrying a shredded Confederate flag over his shoulder, and at the bottom, the slogan, "Hell, no, we won't forget." In some ways, the South has been enacting a never ending revenge against the North for Sherman's march.
However, the film, narrated by Dale Dye, is less pointed than my remarks above. Dale observes that, for one thing, it was a risky move on Sherman's part. The farther he advanced into the South, the more his supply lines were stretched and interfered with by Confederate cavalry. So he did the unthinkable. He cut himself off entirely from his supply lines and plunged into the heart of the South, foraging for food as his army moved. Sherman's 60,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry confiscated food and supplies from the villages and cities they looted and they destroyed anything that would aid the enemy's ability to make war. When thought about carefully, terrible as it is, depriving the enemy of his needs is a more humane way of waging war than simply killing them en masse. And Sherman didn't hate the South. He'd made friends while posted there, long before the war. He'd taught at the college in New Orleans that later became LSU.
His orders to his men were to "forage liberally" and that's what they did, looting warehouses and mansions while destroying factories and ammunition dumps. Some of the men deserted and were joined by Confederates who deliberately stole valuables and destroyed personal property, smashing windows, breaking mirrors, ripping up furniture, and carrying on with what is generally called "pillaging." He finally reached Savannah, which surrendered to him. He governed the city humanely. He stayed for a month before moving north to join Grant in Virginia. If Georgia had been pillaged, South Carolina, the most fiercely Confederate state, which was seen as having started the war, was treated even worse.
The trail of smoke that followed Sherman's Army stopped at North Carolina, under Sherman's orders. In a short time, the war ended, leaving Sherman a hero to the North and a hated figure to the South. The film is a reasonably balanced sketch of a man and an army with an important mission. Necessarily, in the interests of concision, it leaves out some facts, such as Sherman's going bonkers after Shiloh.