General Sherman Offered Savannah as a ‘Christmas Gift’ to President Lincoln . The Victory Signaled the End of His Brutal March to the Sea

As General William Tecumseh Sherman sauntered into Savannah, Georgia, the city at the end of his infamous March to the Sea, , he gave new meaning to the old saying that “to the victor go the spoils.” 

“To His Excellency President Lincoln,” Sherman wrote in a telegram, sent on December 22, 1864, “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.”  

It was not always evident, especially to Confederates, that Savannah would be the endpoint of Sherman’s maneuvers through Georgia, according to Noah Andre Trudeau in Southern Storm: Sherman’s March to the Sea. Before he left Atlanta on November 15, Sherman considered Macon or Augusta, railway hubs and centers of Confederate military production.  

But newspapers in the North like the Chicago Tribune began to report Sherman’s plants “sweep with the irresistible power of a tornado down into the heart of Georgia and South Carolina” early in November.  

“The fall of Charleston and Savannah,” the Tribune continued, “would constitute a far more disastrous blow to the rebellion than the fall of Richmond.” 

With this crucial goal in mind, Sherman’s troops left Atlanta and lit out for the next phase of battle on November 15. 

“The troops were noisy and cheerful; full of hope and excitement,” wrote David Power Conyngham, an embedded war correspondent in his 1865 book Sherman's March Through The South. For the next 36 days, Sherman’s troops followed a “scorched earth” policy as they moved through Georgia.  

“In most instances they burned down houses to cover their depredations,” Conyngham wrote of the troops, “and in some cases took the lives of their victims, as they would not reveal concealed treasures. These gangs spread like locusts over the country.”  

The plundering en route to Savannah was immense. Sherman estimated $100 million (around $1.5 billion today) in damages to the Southern economy. Economists have measured the effects of agricultural destruction lasting as late as the 1920s. The psychological terror along his 300-mile march was harder to measure. 

Savannah suffered, too, but not nearly as much. Once it was clear that Sherman’s men were marching to the sea, “freebooters,” as Conyngham described the Confederate troops of Joseph Wheeler, a general, had a “reign of terror” before the Union troops arrived.  

“When we entered the city we found few of the citizens in the streets,” Conyngham reported. “The poor classes were grouped around, apparently well pleased with the change, for they had nothing to lose, and had suffered much during the war.” 

Savannah surrendered easily. No siege was necessary, and it was spared from Sherman’s fiery destruction, left as an offering for Lincoln, a sign of the war’s coming end. 

On Boxing Day, fivedays after Savannah fell, Lincoln finally made his reply.  

“Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift, the capture of Savannah,” Lincoln wrote. “When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that ‘nothing risked, nothing gained,’ I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours.” 

Now that Sherman and his troops had taken Savannah, the March to the Sea was necessarily over. The war was still more than three months from its conclusion, however, and Sherman was restless. 

“But what next?” the president asked. “I suppose it will be safer if I leave General Grant and yourself to decide.”

Eli Wizevich | | READ MORE

Eli Wizevich is a history correspondent for Smithsonian. He studied history at the University of Chicago and previously wrote for the El Paso Times.