orters among
the soldiers was not much greater than among the civil population. But
in both it was overwhelming.

Meanwhile Atlanta had fallen, and Davis had unwisely relieved Johnstone
of his command. It was now that Sherman determined on the bold scheme
which mainly secured the ultimate victory of the North. Cutting himself
loose from his base and abandoning all means of communication with the
North, he advanced into the country of the enemy, living on it and
laying it waste as he passed. For a month his Government had no news of
him. Ultimately he reached the sea at Savannah, and was able to tell his
supporters that he had made a desert in the rear of the main Confederate
armies. Thence he turned again, traversed South Carolina, and appeared,
so to speak, on the flank of the main Confederate forces which were
holding Grant.

The ethics of Sherman's famous March to the Sea have been much debated.
He was certainly justified by the laws of war in destroying the military
resources of the Confederacy, and it does not seem that more than this
was anywhere done by his orders. There was a good deal of promiscuous
looting by his troops, and still more by camp followers and by the
Negroes who, somewhat to his annoyance, attached themselves to his
columns. The march through South Carolina was the episode marked by the
harshest conduct, for officers and men had not forgotten Sumter, and
regarded the devastation of that State as a just measure of patriotic
vengeance on the only begetter of the rebellion; but the burning of
Columbus seems to have been an accident, for which at least Sherman
himself was not responsible. It is fair to him to add that in the very
few cases--less than half a dozen in all--where a charge of rape or
murder can be brought home, the offender was punished with death.

As a military stroke the March to the Sea was decisive. One sees its
consequences at once in the events of the Virginian campaign. Lee had
suffered no military defeat; indeed, the balance of military success, so
far as concerned the army directly opposed to him, was in his favour.
Sheridan's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley had delighted the North as
much as Jackson's earlier exploits in the same region had delighted the
South; but its direct military effect was not great. From the moment,
however, of Sherman's successful completion of his march, the problem of
the Southern general becomes wholly different. It is no longer whether
he can