re: #323 austin_blue

Yes and no.

It was often a war of movement and siege, but it was most mostly about set pieces where large armies were brought forward to strike directly at each other. The losers would fall back and suck their wounds, the winners would resupply.

What Sherman did in the Carolina campaigns was different. He used movement, but not to bring his armies into a position where a set piece would occur. He kept flanking the Confederates, again and again on the move north, destroying their food and ammo depots. His Army ate off the the land and just. didn’t. stop moving. He was relentless, taking divisions out to of the line to rest and throwing the rest of his forces forward, flanking, flanking, flanking again. His army moved 425 miles in 50 days, along three axes of motion.

It had never been done, and the Rebels had no way to stop it. When they finally met in Bentonville, the Rebels were pretty much done. They were routed, straggled first to the north and then west, and surrendered what was left at Durham Station on April 26th.

Earlier he had faced the champion retreater of all time in Joe Johnston, so he had to learn how to bust ‘em up. The Rebels didn’t have the terrain advantages in Georgia and the Carolinas that Johnston depended on.