| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
“The most desperate cavalry charge I have ever witnessed.”
Via Carl
As Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s armies prepared to leave Atlanta and embark on their march to Savannah in early November 1864, a Federal captain wrote of the efforts to extinguish anything of military value to the South. He especially observed Federal engineers “detailed to destroy the depots and public buildings in Atlanta.”
Moving toward the city, Sherman’s forces tore up the rails of the Western and Atlantic Railroad. Since Sherman planned to break from his supply line and live off the land, he no longer needed the rails.
Along the W&A from Dalton to Atlanta, today’s I-75 corridor, any structure deemed of military value received the torch — like a large part of Marietta’s square, which burned on Nov. 13. Coining a phrase that he would repeat during the advance on Savannah, Sherman — while watching the buildings of Marietta burn — told one of his aides, “I never ordered burning of any dwelling – didn’t order this, but can’t be helped. I say Jeff. Davis burnt them.”
Source: http://freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-most-desperate-cavalry-charge-i.html
