Sherman’s March To The Sea: Hood’s Tennessee Campaign and the Carolina Campaigns of 1865

Often hailed as a stroke of military genius, General William T. Sherman’s decision to divide his command and his subsequent, infamous march through the interior of Georgia to the Atlantic coast inaugurated the final phase of the war. General Jacob D. Cox (1828–1900) played key roles in most of the decisive actions that followed. Left with Generals Schofield and Thomas to delay Hood’s advance, Cox led his men through the night and at Spring Hill; he supervised the construction of the fortifications that proved so effective against Hood’s assaulting columns at Franklin; at Nashville his division joined the attack on the crucial Confederate position at Shy’s Hill; and later he finished his service with Sherman in North Carolina. It was Cox’s self-professed qualities of “a bold heart, a cool head, and practical common-sense” that subsequently earned him the command of the entire Twenty-third Corps and the rank of major general. After the war, Cox applied those same attributes to his books, Sherman’s Battle for Atlanta, and Sherman’s March to the Sea, two volumes in the landmark series Campaigns of the Civil War. If readers are seeking concise, astute, and balanced accounts of Sherman’s march to the sea, the burning of Columbia, the bloody battles of Franklin and Nashville, the oft-overlooked assault on Fort Fisher (which sealed the Confederacy from Europe), and the surrender of Johnston’s Army, Cox’s single volume provides all the scope, detail, and color that these critical campaigns demand.