Category Archives: Historical Figures

Winston Churchill

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This book by Victor L. Albjerg is a part of the “Twaynes Rulers and Statesmen of the World Series.” I’ve always thought I should learn more about Churchill, so I went to the library and looked at the selection. This book was by far the smallest, and it was an excellent choice. It is full of fascinating and well-written information.

I knew little about the childhood and earlier manhood of Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill before reading this book. He began to earn the name “young man in a hurry” by being born six weeks premature. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill was said to believe there was no respectable future for his son. Winston was called a “problem child” who had the lowest academic status of all his classmates. His behavior earned him frequent beatings. He was sent to two women to try to straighten him out, but the only distinction he earned with them was to be called “the naughtiest boy in the school.”

Winston as a youngster was given little if any support by his parents. His mother gave him no attention until he became a handsome and promising army officer. His father was immersed in politics, and is said to have only spoke with him father to son three or four times. However, Winston “…never ceased to admire his father and hoped some day to sit in the House of Commons with him…” He did have a remarkable relationship with a stooped and obese woman, Mrs. Everest, who was his nurse. He maintained contact with her throughout her life and kept a photo of her in his study. “Loyalty and devotion to his friends were significant characteristics of Sir Winston Churchill.” Continue reading →

Lies My Teacher Told Me, Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

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Reviewed by Kathy London

teacher-liesThis book by James W. Loewen covers a survey of twelve major high school history textbooks that the author found to be full of irrelevant and erroneous details, yet omitting pivotal facts. While history contains fantastic and important stories which “have the power to spellbind audiences, even audiences of difficult seventh-graders”, textbooks come up lacking. They are concoctions of “lies, half-truths, truths, and omissions” that avoid many important ideas, and they are generally boring. No wonder students lose interest. Since I was bored by history in high school, Loewen’s book rings true for me.

Loewen will provide any group with lively conversation: people of Columbus’ age did not believe the world was flat; Europeans were able to conquer the New World because European diseases decimated Native Americans, Helen Keller was an active social radical, and Abraham Lincoln did say the Civil War was fought to end slavery. Be outraged when Loewen labels your favorite piece of history as bland optimism, blind nationalism, or plain misinformation, and delve your own research.

I recommend the book and Loewen’s home page. So I was delighted recently to find Loewen’s home page. Here are some provocative quotes from that site:

“Most Americans hold basic misconceptions about the Confederacy, the Civil War, and the acts of neo-Confederates afterward. For example, two-thirds of Americans–including most history teachers–think the Confederate States seceded for ‘states’ rights.’ This error persists because most have never read the key documents about the Confederacy.” Continue reading →

Crazy Horse and Custer

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crazy-horseThe subtitle of this book by Stephen E. Ambrose is “The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors,” and it provides a wealth of information about the two main characters and details their similarities and differences. Crazy Horse lived a simple life and strived to do what was best for his people. Custer behaved outlandishly to attract attention and surrounded himself with an entourage that catered to him while his troopers lived a hard life with poor food. Custer’s actions were always designed to improve his reputation and status. Custer’s only military strategy was to attack regardless of the risk to the men under his command. His eventual defeat resulted from the fact Crazy Horse was a better strategist and had vastly superior forces that were well organized for one of the few times in the decades the Native Americans warred against the whites. (Note that Ambrose called them “Indians,” and I have a problem with that name because it derived from Columbus seeing natives in what he thought was Indies and that name has survived since that error was made. However, I will use the term the author uses in the remainder of this review.)

I began reading this book on the recommendation of a friend and with a warning from the librarian who declared the book was said by her husband, an Ambrose fan, to be his worst. More important to me is a negative review on Amazon by a Sioux that “What Mr. Ambrose states in his book is mostly fabrication about the Sioux Nation.” I found the descriptions of the Indians and Crazy Horse to be fascinating. It actually makes me sad that a member of the Sioux Nation was moved to give the book a one star ranking, because I had increased my admiration of that tribe from the reading of this book. The most remarkable observation Ambrose makes is that whites were amazed that the Indians could consume as much as ten pounds of meat in one meal.

Crazy Horse began life as “Curly” and Custer began as “Autie.” Crazy Horse was raised in the tradition that led him to want to be a Sioux warrior, and Custer became known as “a born soldier” as a little boy. Crazy Horse and his people had no use for the concept of private property while the whites believed that the concept of private property was the key to economic freedom. Autie learned early that currying favor with the politically powerful gained advantage, and that is how he made it into West Point. Crazy Horse learned that bravery of actions and outcome was all that was important to a warrior.

Custer finished last in his West Point class, and seemed to be able to curtail his lack of discipline in both actions and dress just in time to prevent expulsion. He loved attention and was an expert at getting it. He went from long flowing hair to shaving his head and wearing a toupee. As his hair grew back he acquired the nickname of “Curly,” which was the name first given to Crazy Horse.

Custer attracted attention of superiors in the Civil War because he was the opposite of cautious. Custer ordered and led charges while others held back. He often lost large numbers of soldiers killed, but seemed impervious to injury himself. He led a headlong charge into Jeb Stuart’s Confederate cavalry at Gettysburg and might have changed history. Stuart was to hit the Union lines from the rear to coincide with Picket’s charge from the front. Custer’s undermanned charge sent horses and men crashing into the Confederate calvary, and disrupted what probably would have been devastating to the Union soldiers lined up to repel Picket to the front. Custer lost 481 men killed, wounded, or captured of his 1,700 man force, but he was promoted to Major General and Jeb Stuart was mortally wounded. Custer lost more than a third of his men at the Wilderness. His aggressive “tactics” stopped Lee’s flight and was a key in forcing the Confederate surrender at Appomattox despite the loss of 377 men. His successes in battle were always brutal and bloody. Custer’s younger brother Tom was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in the battles that led to Appomattox. His brother would follow him and die with all the other selected staff members at the hands of the Sioux.

On a personal family note, one of Custer’s competitors for senior military attention was Judson Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick, or “Little Kil,” was the commanding general of the “mounted calvary” unit in Sherman’s army that included Elijah Tilton, my Great Uncle by marriage to my Great Aunt Rachael Brooke, and two of their sons. The two sons survived, but Elijah did not.

Custer led the Grand Review in Washington to celebrate the defeat of the Confederacy. The end of the Civil War left only the Indian wars for Custer to gain the military recognition he craved, and there was little positive recognition due for the U.S. army and calvary in those wars. The book observes that, “…no campaign the Army ever undertook matched the Hancock campaign of 1867 for sheer stupidity.” The soldiers spent years chasing the Indians, and many of them never saw a hostile Indian in the field except in the rare instances that the Indians believed they had a strategic advantage. Custer and his troops unsuccessfully pursued Indians in the central U.S. while the Indians “…had a fine time…” striking mail stations, wagon trains, and railroad workers. The whites defeated Indians not by direct conflict but by killing the buffalo herds that provided the Indians food.

There is detailed information about Libbie (Elizabeth) Custer and her relationship with Custer. Custer did everything to be in her company, and once was even court martialed for abandoning his post to reach her. Libbie was completely loyal to him, and used her beauty and charming personality to advance his career. She accepted the fact that Custer ordered that she be killed if threatened to become an Indian hostage. She dedicated her life to advocating that he was a hero who died in the service of the country.

There is an interesting comment by Sitting Bull who became part of the Wild Bill Cody show and was later shot in the back and killed by an Indian policeman that “…the white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it.” Annie Oakley observed that the money Sitting Bull made “…went into the pocket of small, ragged boys.” Sitting Bull was eventually shot in the back and killed by an Indian policeman.

There are details about Custer positioning himself in politics. There are implications that he pushed his soldiers and their mounts to exhaustion and ordered the fatal attack on a Crazy Horse’s massively superior force because he hoped to have a major combat victory would earn himself a nomination in the Democratic convention. He was said to have laughed just before his death, and one has to wonder whether his brother, the hand-picked staff, and the others in his command thought it was all that funny.

Crazy Horse eventually agreed to come in to a reservation, but tried to resist when he realized he was going to be locked in a small cage with no toilet. He was stabbed with bayonets, and died within a few days. Not a great story in our historical legacy, but a worthwhile book to consider.

In the Garden of Beasts

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garden-of-beastsThe title reveals of the book reveals what Erick Larsen thinks of Hitler and his henchmen. The subtitle “Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin” begins to explain the content of the book. William E. Dodd, his wife Martha or “Mattie,” daughter Martha, and son William Jr. “Bill” was the American family, and William Senior was appointed to be ambassador to Nazi Germany in 1933 after several others had turned down the position. The Dodds arrived in Berlin believing initially that the mistreatment of Jews might have some understandable basis. Daughter Martha commented, “We sort of don’t like the Jews anyway.” Dodd clung to the idea Hitler wanted peace for several months.

By the time the Dodds left they had become disgusted with the Nazis and concerned that the German people had been drawn into the clutches of monsters. The outside world did not understand Hitler was merely playing for time while he consolidated power and built a military machine that he intended would dominate the world. It should have been quite easy to understand Hitler’s motives. He announced that Germany was withdrawing from the League of Nations and the disarmament conference underway in Geneva. Consul General Foreign Service officer George Messersmith was filing frequent reports to warn about what he was observing. He wrote that “What they most want to do, however, definitely is to make Germany the most capable instrument of war that has ever existed.” He called the Nazis “a global threat.”

The book was recommended to me by my wife. She knew I would be fascinated with the content. She also knows I am a fan of any book that refers to the Venona project and the uncovering of the massive espionage network established by the Soviet Union in the United States during World War II. (The Venona project was the subject of the first book review I posted on this web site.)The two Dodd children and Martha’s second husband Alfred Stern make it into the Venona list of 349 Americans and U.S. residents who had covert relationships with Soviet intelligence agencies.

It is easy to understand why the first choices for the German ambassador position refused the appointment. The primary assignment of the new ambassador was to see that the $1.2 billion dollars owed by Germany to American creditors was repaid, and that must have been considered an impossible task in the midst of the Great Depression. Also, the atmosphere in Germany was anything but diplomatic. The brown-shirted Sturmabteilung, Storm Troopers or SA, had launched brutal state-condoned violence and were arresting, beating, and murdering Jews, Socialists, and Communists. Dealing with Hitler would not be a prize assignment. The Gestapo and SA are described as being attractive to sadists.

Dodd was not the typical diplomat. Most were wealthy and lived extravagantly. Dodd was not wealthy and strongly believed that frugal living was appropriate. That attitude gained him many enemies in the State Department who decided to think of him simple and shallow instead of frugal. I will admit that I became a fan of Dodd’s as I read the book, so I didn’t think highly of the people in Washington D.C. who undermined Dodd’s reputation and the advice he was giving Roosevelt. His detractors called themselves the “pretty good club,” and Dodd was not a member. At least one member of the club called him “Ambassador Dud.” Germans who dealt with Dodd referred to him as kind, brilliant, and willing to accept open discussion of difficult issues.

Ambassador Dodd and his wife were the picture of proper decorum and daughter Martha was not. She had numerous affairs in the U.S., including one that ended in a failed marriage, and with dignitaries including Carl Sandberg. In Germany she has affairs with several senior Nazi officials, and at one point she was even suggested as a mistress for Hitler. Hitler, proving his reputation of being ambivalent about women, wasn’t interested. She did have a lengthy romantic relationship with the first secretary of the Soviet embassy who was also an “operative” of the NKVD. (He was eventually executed in one of Stalin’s innumerable purges after being forced to write Martha a farewell letter designed “…to keep his death from destroying her sympathy for the Soviet cause.”) One of the staff members of the U.S. embassy referred to it as a house of ill repute. Martha made many other friends, and not all survived the Nazis.

The American reaction to the treatment of Jews is difficult to comprehend with the advantage of historical hindsight. Roosevelt and most State Department officials were eager to avoid any direct statement of condemnation regardless of any inhuman and outrageous behavior reported to them. There was a baffling policy that only a small percentage of the visas available were issued to Jews desperate to escape. Even more baffling is the large number of Jews who did not try to escape. They apparently believed they could “ride out the storm” with careful behavior. Germany’s economy was improving in late 1933 and Hitler seemed to be moderating his hatred. Some Jews actually returned to Germany.

The book has many interesting details and asides. As an example, there is a description of the “bold, black broken cross, or Kakenkeuz” that later became known as the “swastika.” I found it quite odd that Hitler’s favorite movie was said to be King Kong.

Ambassador Dodd rented the bottom floors of a mansion for a very low price by a Jewish family who retained the top floor. Dodd did not understand that the family was buying their safety by having the American ambassador living under them. Daughter Martha especially enjoyed the library’s large brown leather sofa as an asset to her romantic life.

The Dodds began to be swayed against the Nazis by attacks against U.S. citizens who failed to give the Nazi salute as they casually watched parades. Ambassador Dodd said he had hoped to find decent people around Hitler. He then wrote, “I am horrified to discover that the whole gang is nothing but a horde of criminals and cowards.” The State Department reacted to comments such as those by criticizing Dodd. Martha was the slowest to change, saying that she was in the early days intoxicated with the spectacle of the Nazis. “I Heiled as vigorously as any Nazi.”

The trial of five people accused of the Reichstag fire, which Hitler blamed on Communists despite the evidence to the contrary, has a central place in the book. Marinus van der Lubbe insisted he was the only person responsible for the fire, but the prosecution presented massive amounts of evidence there had to be several people involved. Only van der Lubbe was convicted, and he was beheaded by guillotine.

The greatest risk to Hitler was internal. One Nazi observed “There is nobody among the officials of the national Socialists party who would not cheerfully cut the throat of every other official in order to further his own advancement. The commander of the SA Ernst Rohm wanted to take control of the military. Hitler responded by publically praising Rohm while beginning to plan for the murder of Rohm and several hundred other SA members in the “Night of the Long Knives” under the code name ” Kolibri,” or “Hummingbird.” Official Nazi reports said there were under a hundred people executed, but other reports were that as many as fifteen thousand were arrested and several hundred disappeared. All doubt the Dodds had about the possibility that Hitler might have a peaceful nature was eliminated as they noted numerous people who had attended various diplomatic functions had been removed by imprisonment or execution. Dodd hoped the murders would outrage the German people and Hitler would be overthrown. Hitler’s power instead increased. No country filed a protest and the populace did not rise in revulsion. Hitler assumed the position of president as well as chancellor when Hindenburg died, and the world was doomed to endure a long and brutal war.

Dodd’s critics in the State Department finally won their quest to have him ousted. Hull sent Dodd a letter in November 1937 saying that Roosevelt was “requesting” that he leave Berlin. Dodd embarked on a tour giving speeches warning of the German threat that brought protests from Germany. Hull responded that Dodd was a private citizen and could say whatever he wanted. Dodd died a hero to many Germans.

I have violated my guideline of keeping reviews to two pages or less. There are enough interesting and important facts described in the book that would fill more pages. I recommend reading the book to learn how much I left out.

The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

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This book by Masha Gessen describes how Vladimir Putin rose from low-ranking member of the KGB to “…absolute—and absolutly corrupt—power…” as the leader of the Russian Federation. I was eager to read the book and post this review because the latest statistics on this web site indicated large numbers of readers in the Russian Federation and the Ukraine.

The story of Putin’s childhood is murky. His parents were a disabled man and a woman who had almost starved to death and had lost another son. They had a larger apartment and more amenities than neighbors. The apparent advantages of the parent’s living arrangement created rumors about what the father might have done to serve the KGB. There also are rumors that Putin was adopted. The author says what is indisputable is that he “…by the standards of his time, was a miracle child.”

The KGB expected new recruits to be skilled in hand-to hand combat, and Putin studied Sambo, a Soviet martial art. He was assigned to a unit created to fight dissidents and later trained as a spy. He was assigned to Dresden where there were few spying opportunities. Mikhail Gorbachev began the policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, and dissidents in Leningrad had been emboldened by the time Putin and his wife and family returned from Dresden.

The demolition of the Angleterre Hotel, a Leningrad historic site, spawned a revolution. Dissidents calling themselves “Informals” began gathering and giving speech in front of the site, which they called “Information Point.” Glasnost had released the power of freedom and brought about the rapid collapse of the Soviet system.

Putin claimed he resigned from the KGB when the Soviet Union was collapsing. A man named Sobchak worked himself into being chairman of the Leningrad City Council and hired Putin as an assistant. One theory was that Sobchak was said to know “…that it is wiser to pick your KGB handler yourself than to have one picked for you.” Putin convinced one after another higher ranking officials he could be both trusted and controlled amongst all the political intrigue.

Oligarchs became incredibly wealthy as the country lurched to corrupt enterprise. Russia defaulted on its debts in 1998 amidst hyperinflation. The turmoil opened opportunities for the nondescript Putin. He worked his way into the trust of Boris Yeltsin, who had launched democracy in the Russian Federation with great hope, but Russians quickly became disillusioned amidst terrible economic conditions. Yeltsin resigned and named Vladimir Putin prime minster of Russia August 9, 1999. Yeltsin probably picked him because he believed Putin would not prosecute or persecute him.

The date of Putin’s appointment was intended to make him the “…instant incumbent…” The Russian people and world leaders were “…relieved that unpredictable, embarrassing Yeltsin was gone …” Few understood Putin believed a “…country is as great as the fear it inspires, and the media should be loyal.” The American media was focused on the Bush-Gore election and paid no attention to the turmoil in Russia or Putin’s immediate moves to transform the country back to a Soviet-style government.

There is a story about a tobacco riot  that gives insight into the kind of desperation that led to the collapse of democracy. People were constantly forced to search for food and other commodities, and the stores were often empty. Several thousand people gathered in central Leningrad to demand cigarettes. City council members arrived to prevent violence. It was well after dark when a stash of cigarettes was located and delivered. The protestors lit up and dispersed. However, “…it seemed the city would run out of everything.”

Putin used state control of the media and, according to the author, intimidation, corruption, murder, and terrorism against Russian citizens to solidify his power. The book presents many chilling stories about his actions and how he used corruption to make himself an incredibly wealthy man. The most disturbing accusation is that the FSB, the replacement for the KGB, set off bombs in apartment buildings that killed hundreds of men, women and children. Sacks of the explosive hexogen labeled “sugar” that were used to demolish the apartment buildings were found in a FSB warehouse. It is speculated the bombings were intended to make people want stricter state control; Putin used them to justify canceling gubernatorial elections. The bombings were officially blamed on an Islamic terrorist group. The official response to terrorist attacks was to “…maximize bloodshed…aimed to multiply the fear and the horror.”

There are disturbing stories of Putin’s willingness to punish critics. Wealthy people and powerful public figures who decided to publically oppose Putin’s abandonment of democracy and development of a “tyranny of bureaucracy” paid with their freedom or their lives if they didn’t first escape the country. Some critics died of mysterious poisons such as the radioactive element polonium which could not be obtained by anyone other than a central government. Some critics were convicted of invented crimes and imprisoned by Putin’s imposition of the Stalin theory that the courts existed to “…do the bidding of the head of state and dole out punishment…” He didn’t just apply his “don’t mess with me” policy domestically. He also officially abandoned the “no first nuclear strike” policy against foreign foes. Disasters such as the failure to rescue men on the nuclear submarine Kursh and the slaughter of more than 300 people, mostly women and children, at a school in Breslan by terrorists seemed to cause Putin little concern.

Putin also apparently can’t resist taking things. He pocketed the diamond Super Bowl ring shown to him by New England Patriot owner Robert Kraft. Kraft later ended the embarrassment by saying the ring was a gift. Putin took a glass replica of a Kalashnikov filled with vodka shown to him at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The author calls him a pleonexia, which is a person who has “…the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others.”

Dmitry Medvedev (who is around five feet tall, although his height is classified) served as the stand-in when Putin had to leave office because of term limits. Medvedev publically admitted in 2011 that he and Putin had made arrangements for Medvedev to hold the office for Putin until Putin was once again eligible to be president.

All of this leads to the Epilogue, which gives a day-by-day description of the events immediately before and during the Russian Federation election in December 2011. Putin was announced to have been the winner, although the margin was narrow despite the suspected corruption of the election. Mikhail Gorbachev called for a re-vote. There was a Facebook posting “The Snow Revolution, or a Clean Slate.” Large numbers of people (the author estimates 150,000) arrived wearing white armbands or other white articles. I haven’t noticed U.S. coverage of what has happened since, but I intend to research the subject for a blog posting at that link.

General Sherman’s Christmas, Savannah, 1864

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My brother sent me this book, and he knew I would be interested in the content. It describes the march across Georgia after Atlanta fell to Sherman’s army. I should mention there is family interest before I book. Elijah Tilton was married to one of a Brooke sister who was an aunt of our grandmother. Elijah was a member of the 92nd Illinois mounted infantry and part of Sherman’s army when it was advancing on Atlanta. Two of his sons, George William and Cornelius (or Commodore) and two other Tiltons, Orrin and Alfonso, were also part of the unit. The unit was assigned to the reckless and not very admirable General Kilpatrick on May 7, 1864 (according to Elijah Tilton’s diary for that year), and “Lil Kil” is a central figure of the book. I don’t recall any of the incidents mentioning Kilpatrick that were complimentary. Elijah never mentions weapons except for hearing cannons fire, but his unit was one of those issued the Spencer rifles, which are mentioned in the book.

Elijah died of dysentery on October 6, 1864 (more soldiers died of disease than from combat) but his sons and the other relatives were there for the fall of Atlanta. We lose the family connection with the book when the surviving Tiltons were assigned to the forces heading for Tennessee when General Sherman prepares to begin his march across Georgia. They were therefore part of the army commanded by George H Thomas that defeated John Bell Hood at Nashville December 15-18, 1864. It was undoubtedly chance that sent those ancestors into Tennnessee instead of into Georgia and eventually South Carolina. However, that might make the book easier to accept by our son and his family who live in Fort Mill, South Carolina and his in-laws who live in Columbia. Sherman quite unpopular in South Carolina.

I’ll begin my review after that lengthy introduction. The book by Stanley Weintraub provides details of Sherman’s army marching across Georgia to Savannah in late 1864. The destination was a secret when the march began, but it wasn’t a particularly well-kept secret. The plan was to make “Georgia howl,” by destroying anything that could support the Confederate war effort. Railroads were ripped up and the rails twisted around trees in “Sherman’s bowties.” Most of the livestock was taken along with the stores of food necessary to feed 60,000 marching soldiers. Baled cotton and mills were burned along with homes of those who dared to show open allegiance to the Confederacy or their revulsion toward the Union. One woman who unwisely spit at a soldier had her home burned. One woman told a captain “Our men will fight you as long as they live and then these boys (her sons) will fight you when they grow up.” A man was quoted as saying war wouldn’t end until all the men and women were killed, and “…it won’t be ended then, for we’ll come back as ghosts to haunt you.”

There were many accusations that Sherman’s “bummers” were harsh to the citizens they encountered. There is no doubt there was significant thievery, because the route of march became littered with all manner of abandoned loot. There were accusations of rape and murder, although the author believes there were more accusations than actual outrages. Sherman’s men came across emaciated men dressed in rags from the Andersonville prison, and that undoubtedly gave some of them reason to behave in anger. The army came across an abandoned prisoner of war site at Millen that had no shelters and no water. There were burrows where the prisoners had lived and a large burial ground. One officer wrote that what he saw gave him a “…renewed feeling of hardness toward the Confederacy.”

Sherman and his troops marched 300 miles in twenty-four days. Most of the casualties were in a single a battle at Fort McCallister, There were more than two hundred listed as missing and presumed dead. Most of those were “bummers” who did the foraging.

Sherman would write about the accusations issued against his men that they had been, “A little loose in foraging, they did some things they ought not to have done, yet on the whole they have supplied the wants of the army with as little violence as could be expected…”  An order was issued ordering that anyone pillaging or burning a home without being ordered to do so would be shot, but none of the soldiers were charged with those crimes.

One controversial event was that Sherman ordered prisoners of war to move in front of the column with shovels searching for “torpedos” (mines) after one exploded and tore the right foot off an officer.

With a few exceptions the army did not meet much organized resistance. They seldom came across a farm, plantation, or town that hadn’t been deserted by men. They were greeted as liberators by blacks, and thousands of the freed slaves joined in the march. Sherman was said to not think highly of blacks, and tried on several occasions to convince the followers to go back. The author observes that they required rations and slowed the movement of the army. One sad event was that the army pulled the pontoon bridge from a river they had crossed, which stranded the thousands of blacks. Some tried to swim the river despite the fact they couldn’t swim. Some union soldiers tried to push logs to them for rescue, and many were disturbed by what happened. Most of the blacks were left to be recaptured by Confederate soldiers and a very uncertain fate.

There were also acts of kindness. Two girls estimated to be three and five were found in an abandoned home dressed in burlap bags with holes cut for their heads and arms. They were fed, bathed, clothed, and taken along by the army. They eventually found their way to homes in the North after being transported there by soldiers who had been released from duty after their enlistments had ended. Women often welcomed officers into their homes, because they had undoubtedly heard the stories about what had happened to others earlier in the march.

Sherman’s army did begin to run low on provisions as they approached Savannah, and there was concern that the only path to the city was on narrow causeways through the swamps. However, the confederates decided not to defend the city and pulled out during the night over a makeshift bridge. The action is said to have kept Savannah “…relatively safe from the destruction wreaked upon other cities visited by Sherman’s marchers through Georgia.” Sherman telegraphed, “To His Excellency President Lincoln, Washington, D.C.: I beg to present you as a Christmas-gift the city of Savannah…”