In November 1864, sixty-two thousand Union forces readied themselves to depart from Atlanta. Under the command of William Tecumseh Sherman, these soldiers would engage in the most brutal, ruthless, devastating and effective military campaign of the Civil War, and possibly of history. Their mission was to cut a path across Georgia of complete destruction and beat the southern forces and spirit into submission of the war. Sherman's march to the sea would be the turning point …showed first 75 words of 917 total…

…showed last 75 words of 917 total…plant the seed of reconstruction for Georgia and the rest of the south after the war was over. It would now be easy to turn Georgia into whatever the Union wanted because so little remained of it. The slate was wiped clean and waited to be filled. Like a lump of clay in the Union’s hands, Georgia would be shaped and modeled into a dependent state and never able to leave the Union again.