Grant’s Grand Strategy and
Sherman
Lsn 11
ID & SIG:
• Appomattox, Atlanta, Banks, Butler, Grant,
Kennesaw Mountain, Meade, Petersburg,
Sherman’s March to the Sea,
Spotsylvania, total war, unity of effort,
Wilderness
Unity of Command
• From Manassas to Chattanooga, the
Federals had fought without a grand
strategy or a supreme field commander
– Twin, uncoordinated victories at Vicksburg
and Gettysburg demonstrated the problem
• With the election of 1864 approaching,
Lincoln had to show the war was making
progress
– Looked to Ulysses Grant to lead the country
to victory
Grant as General in Chief
• Grant was promoted to
lieutenant general March 9,
1864
– Replaced Henry Halleck
as General in Chief
• Grant saw the war as a
whole where previous
Federal generals had
viewed it in terms of
separate theaters with little
cooperative effort
– This disjointed view had
allowed Confederates to shift
forces from one threat to the
next
A council of war with Grant
leaning over the shoulder of
Meade looking at a map
Elements of Grant’s Strategy
• Simultaneously advance on all fronts to prevent
the Confederates from shifting forces
• Focus on enemy forces rather than “strategic
points”
• Maximize forces by eliminating passive
occupation duties and reallocating forces in
dispersed locations like Florida and Arkansas
• Combine destruction of Southern armies with
destruction of Southern war resources
Grant’s Grand Strategy
• Maneuver Lee away from the Rapidan River
and defeat him in open terrain by decisive
battle (Meade)
• Cut the James-Appomattox River line to
sever Lee’s rail and road links to other parts
of the Confederacy (Butler)
• Execute a wide wheeling movement through
the South to complete the envelopment of the
Confederacy east of the Mississippi
(Sherman)
• Attack through Mobile to close that port
(Banks)
Grant’s Plan for 1864
• Grant determined to “press”
the Confederates on all
sides in May 1864:
– Meade overland in the
East
– Sigel up the Shenandoah
Valley
– Butler up the James
River
– Sherman overland to
Atlanta
– Banks toward Mobile
• Lincoln describes the
concept as being “Those not
skinning can hold a leg”
Virginia
• Meade’s Army of the
Potomac
– Main effort
– “Lee’s army is your
objective point.
Wherever Lee goes,
there you will go also.”
(Grant)
• “Hold a leg”
– Sigel advance up the
Shenandoah Valley
– Butler conduct an
amphibious operation
against the RichmondPetersburg area
Both Butler and Sigel were
primarily political generals
Georgia
• “You I propose to
move against
Johnston’s army, to
break it up, and to
get into the interior
of the enemy’s
country as far as
you can, inflicting all
the damage you can
against their war
resources.” (Grant
to Sherman)
Mobile
• By 1864 only
Mobile, Alabama
and Wilmington,
NC remained
open to
Confederate
blockade runners
• Closing Mobile
would further
isolate the
Confederacy
Traditional Military Strategies
• Attrition
– The reduction of the effectiveness of a
force caused by loss of personnel and
materiel
• Exhaustion
– The gradual erosion of a nation’s will or
means to resist
• Annihilation
– Seeks the immediate destruction of the
combat power of the enemy’s armed forces
Grant and the “American Way of
War’
• Grant knew that the hopes for the
Confederacy lay in a strategy of
exhaustion
– “… I think that [Johnston’s] policy [in the
Atlanta Campaign] was the best one that
could have been pursued by the whole
South– protract the war, which was all that
was necessary to enable them to gain
recognition in the end.”
Grant and the “American Way of
War”
• Grant knew that the Napoleonic ideal of a single decisive
victory was a thing of the past
• Instead he would keep relentless pressure on the enemy
and be willing to accept tremendous casualties himself
with the knowledge that his casualties could be replaced
but the South’s could not
• Grant “developed a highly uncommon ability to rise
above the fortunes of a single battle and to master the
flow of a long series of events, almost to the point of
making any outcome of a single battle, victory, draw, or
even defeat, serve his eventual purposes equally well.”
– Russell Weigley
Grant and the “American Way of
War”
• Grant sought the destruction of the
Confederate armies through attrition and
annihilation
– While mercilessly directly pounding Lee’s
army with Meade, Grant added an indirect
approach to destroy the enemy’s armies by
striking the Confederate war resources with
Sherman
Execution
• Meade, Sherman, Butler, and
Sigel all began operations in
May 1864
– Sigel was defeated at the Battle
of New Market on May 15
– Butler landed on the JamesAppomattox peninsula and was
quickly cut off by the
Confederates
• Both supporting efforts failed
• Banks got distracted with the
Red River Campaign and did
not attack Mobile
“Virginia Mourns Her Dead”
statue at Virginia Military
Institute
Execution
• Even Meade’s effort against Lee seemed
to have reached a stalemate with the
siege of Petersburg
– In June and July, Jubal Early launched a raid
from the Shenandoah Valley into western
Maryland and toward Washington
– The Confederates were stopped but the mere
fact that they could still pose such a threat
alarmed the public
Political Situation
• These developments did not bode
well for Lincoln as he faced
reelection in November
– On Aug 23, 1864, Lincoln had
his cabinet members endorse a
memo that said, “This morning,
as for some days past, it seems
exceedingly probably that this
Administration will not be reelected. Then it will by my duty
to so cooperate with the
President elect, as to save the
Union between the Election and
the inauguration; as he will have
secured his election on such
ground that he cannot possibly
save it afterwards.”
George McClellan,
running on a peace
platform, was Lincoln’s
Democratic opponent
Atlanta Campaign: Political
Implications
• What is going to
reverse this trend of
gloom is Sherman’s
capture of Atlanta
– A vivid
demonstration of the
close connection
between battlefield
developments and
politics
The Atlanta Campaign
• Grant’s instructions to Sherman were:
“You I propose to move against Johnston’s
army, to break it up, and to get into the
interior of the enemy’s country as far as
you can, inflicting all the damage you can
against their war resources.”
• Sherman moved out on May 4, 1864 (the
same day the Army of the Potomac
crossed the Rapidan)
The Federals
• Sherman had approximately 100,000 men
– George Thomas commanded the Army of the
Cumberland
– James McPherson commanded the Army of
the Tennessee
– John Schofield commanded the Army of the
Ohio
• Sherman’s strategy was to fight a war of
maneuver and attempt to turn the
Confederate defenses
The Confederates
• Opposing Sherman was Joe
Johnston who had replaced
Bragg after Chattanooga
• Johnston had just 50,000
men (although he soon
received reinforcements to
bring him to about 60,000)
but the rugged mountainous
terrain favored the defense
• Johnston elected to follow a
defensive strategy
Johnston
• As Sherman tried to turn
Johnston’s line, Johnston
continually withdrew to a new
position
• The only exception to the pattern
of withdraw, defend, flank,
withdrew, defend, flank… was
Kennesaw Mountain where
Sherman conducted a disastrous
frontal attack
• By mid-July Johnston had
withdrawn behind the outer ring
of fortifications that ringed Atlanta
itself
• Johnston’s army was still in tact
but he no longer had room to
maneuver
John Bell Hood
• Davis became frustrated with
Johnston’s defensive strategy and
on July 17, he replaced Johnston
with John Bell Hood
– Hood was extremely
aggressive
– His left arm was rendered
useless from wounds at
Gettysburg and his right leg
was amputated after a wound
at Chickamauga
– He had to be strapped into his
saddle
Hood Takes the Offensive
• Between July 19 and 28,
Hood attacked Sherman
three times, suffering
huge casualties and
making no headway
• Hood then withdrew to
the Atlanta fortifications
• On August 26 Sherman
began a turning
movement designed to
cut Atlanta’s rail
communications with the
rest of the South
The Fall of Atlanta
• Hood realized what
Sherman was trying to do,
but he was too late to do
anything about it
• After a desperate attempt
at Jonesboro to dislodge
Sherman, Hood
abandoned Atlanta and the
Federals took possession
on Sept 2
• Hood headed north into
northern Alabama and
Tennessee trying
unsuccessfully to get
Sherman to follow him or at
least disrupt Sherman’s
communications
Political Impact
• The fall of Atlanta sealed the fate of the
Confederacy because it ensured Lincoln
would be reelected and would prosecute
the war to victory
March to the Sea
• Rather than getting distracted
by Hood’s offensive, on Nov 12
Sherman took his 62,000 men
and headed east to the coast
– Cut his communications and
lived off the land
• “Where a million people
live my army won’t
starve.” (Sherman)
– Destroyed everything in his
path
• Planned “to leave a trail
that [would] be
recognized fifty years
hence.”
Chief among Sherman’s
targets were railroads where
his men twisted ties into
“Sherman’s bow-ties”
March to the Sea
• Key to Sherman’s success was keeping the
Confederates on “the horns of a dilemma”
– Would his objective be Macon or Augusta and then
Augusta or Savannah?
– Wrote Halleck, “I must have alternatives, else, being
confined to one route, the enemy might so oppose
that delay and want to trouble me, but having
alternatives, I can take so eccentric a course that no
general can guess my objective. Therefore, have
lookouts at Morris Island, South Carolina, Ossahaw
Sound, Georgia, Pensacola and Mobile bays. I will
turn up somewhere.”
– Sherman kept his enemy confused and advanced
with virtually no opposition
March to the Sea
• Sherman’s target was not Confederate
armies but Confederate will
– “This movement is not purely military or
strategic, but will illustrate the vulnerability of
the South. They don’t know what war means,
but when the rich planters of the Oconee and
Savannah see their fences and corn and hogs
and sheep vanish before their eyes they will
have something more than a mean opinion of
the ‘Yanks.’”
March to the Sea
• While Sherman was
cutting through
Georgia, Hood was
defeated at Franklin
and Nashville
• Sherman arrived at
Savannah in
December, offered it
as a “Christmas
present” to Lincoln, got
resupplied by the sea,
and headed north to
combine with Grant
March North
• Sherman continued
his destruction being
particularly hard on
South Carolina
because of its role in
starting the
secessionist
movement
– Burned the capital of
Columbia
North Carolina
• In the wake of
Sherman’s onslaught,
Davis recalled Johnston
to organize the meager
Confederate resistance
• Sherman and Johnston
fought their last major
battle at Bentonville
between March 19 and
21
• Johnston surrendered
on Apr 26
– Lee had surrendered
Apr 9
The James Bennett house,
site of Johnston’s surrender
The Virginia Campaign
• While Sherman was cutting his
swath through the Deep South,
Grant fought a series of battles
against Lee in Virginia
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Wilderness
Spotsylvania
Hanover Junction
Cold Harbor
Petersburg
Five Forks
Appomattox
The Wilderness
• On May 4, the Army of the
Potomac crossed the Rapidan
River into the Wilderness
– A tangled second growth of
stunted pines, vines,
creepers, and scrub brush
– The few roads often led
nowhere and were
inaccurately mapped
– Ground broken by irregular
ridges and hills and
crisscrossed by numerous
streams and ravines
• Bruce Catton called the
Wilderness “the last place on
earth for armies to fight”
The Wilderness
• However the Wilderness was exactly the type of terrain
Lee would need to offset his numerical inferiority
– Lee had just 64,000 men to Grant’s 119,000
– One Federal general figured that in more hospitable
terrain Grant could have covered a front of 21 miles,
two ranks deep with 1/3 of its strength in reserve
whereas Lee could only cover 12 miles
– Grant had 274 artillery pieces manned by 9,945
artillerymen while Lee only had 224 guns and some
4,800 artillerymen
– Grant had 11,839 cavalrymen compared to Lee’s
8,000
– The restrictive terrain would not allow Grant to deploy
his artillery or cavalry to full effect
The Wilderness
• Grant hoped to turn
Lee’s right flank and
force him to retreat
• Instead Lee attacked
two of Grant’s corps
as they struggled
through the narrow
lanes of the
Wilderness
• In two days of violent
fighting Grant suffered
nearly 17,000
casualties to Lee’s
10,000
The Wilderness
• Grant brought a new attitude to the Army of the
Potomac
– One general told him, “General Grant, this is a crisis
that cannot be looked upon too seriously. I know
Lee’s methods well by past experience; he will throw
his whole army between us and the Rapidan, and cut
us off completely from our communications.”
– Grant replied, “Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing what
Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think
he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault and
land in or rear and on both our flanks at the same
time. Go back to our command and try to think what
we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is
going to do.”
The Wilderness
• At the Wilderness,
Lee defeated Grant,
but, instead of
retreating as
McClellan, Burnside,
and Hooker had
done, Grant kept
moving south to
Spotsylvania to try to
get around Lee’s
flank and get
between Lee and
Richmond
Spotsylvania
• Lee used excellent intelligence and analysis to
determine that Spotsylvania was where Grant is
heading
• Lee won what amounted to a race to
Spotsylvania and prepared trenches
• For 12 days the two armies fought inconclusively
north and east of Spotsylvania
– Lee remained behind his strong defenses which
Grant could not breach
Spotsylvania
• The Confederates withdrew but Grant was
determined to continue his offensive
– He had written Halleck, “I propose to fight it out
on this line [Spotsylvania] if it takes all summer.”
– However the failure of Butler and Sigel’s
supporting attacks had given Lee 8,500
reinforcements
– Grant decided to try to slip by Lee’s right flank
and continue moving southward
• Grant and Lee fought at Hanover Junction and Cold
Harbor, but Lee always escaped Grant’s clutches
Petersburg
• Grant now had no further
prospects of breaking through
to Richmond
– He had simply run out of
maneuver room and Lee’s
defenses were too strong
• Instead Grant decided to shift
his army south of the James
River, use the river as his line
of supply, and try to get to
Petersburg
– Petersburg was about 20 miles
south of Richmond
– Through it passed most of the
supplies bound for Richmond and
Lee’s army
Petersburg
• Grant got a jump on Lee
and crossed the James
between June 12 and 16
• Grant almost was able to
seize Petersburg without
a fight, but Lee barely
managed to beat Grant
to Petersburg and
occupy the fortifications
already in place
• A ten-month siege
ensued
Petersburg
• Grant built up a huge
logistical base at City
Point
• City Point gave Grant
outstanding rail and
water
communications
which kept his force
well-supplied
• As Lee weakened in
Petersburg, Grant
grew stronger
outside
Five Forks
• As the siege continued,
Grant kept extending his
lines to the west
• At the Battle of Five Forks
on April 1, Sheridan
succeeded in breaking
Lee’s western flank
• Grant then ordered a
general attack all along
the Petersburg front
• Lee was forced to
abandon Petersburg and
the city fell on April 3
• Federal troops entered
Richmond the next day
Appomattox
• On April 8, Sheridan
got ahead of Lee
and cut off the
Confederate retreat
• On April 9, Lee
requested a
conference with
Grant and the two
met at Appomattox
Court House where
Lee surrendered the
Army of Northern
Virginia
Surrender at Appomattox by Tom Lovell
Post-Appomattox
• Lincoln was assassinated
on April 14
• Joe Johnston surrendered
to Sherman on April 26
• Jefferson Davis was
captured near Irwinville,
Georgia on May 10
• Richard Taylor
surrendered most of the
remaining troops east of
the Mississippi on May 4
• Kirby Smith surrendered
the trans-Mississippi
Department on May 26
John Wilkes Booth
assassinated President Lincoln
in Ford’s Theater
Legacy of the US Civil War
• Displayed the ascendancy of the defense over the
offense
• Highlighted the inability of armies to destroy each other
in battle
• Showcased the military application of the technology of
the Industrial Revolution
• Illustrated the importance of sociopolitical factors such
as mass armies, conscription, and the mobilization of
entire societies for war
• Set a new pattern for total war through the extensive
mobilization of societies and the devastating Federal
attacks on the Confederate agricultural base, war
resources, and civilian will
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