Join us as historian Greg Biggs examines the nuts and bolts of Sherman’s logistics including the errors that were made in the process.
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No army in history moved without a secure line of supplies especially if it moved into enemy territory.
If an army got cut off from its supplies calamity usually followed, often ending in defeat and/or destruction.
When William T. Sherman set his sights on Atlanta he prepared for the supplying of his army in a manner that surpassed every other Civil War general. Rebuilding railroads and confiscating locomotives and cars to haul supplies, Sherman set daily goals for shipments to his forward base in Chattanooga.
Ruthless in making sure that only supplies got on the cars, Sherman also had to worry about protecting the line of rails that ran back to Louisville, Kentucky from Confederate raiders.