2. Little chance
• With the Union victory at
Vicksburg, a river city in
Mississippi, announced July
4, 1863, the Mississippi
River was in complete
control of the Union.
3. Little chance
• This meant that the
Anaconda Plan of Winfield
Scott, a plan he had
suggested would be
necessary at the beginning of
the war, but was told would
not be needed, was working.
4. Little chance
• The Confederacy was being
choked off by the naval
blockade in the Gulf of Mexico
and the Atlantic Ocean, and
with the loss of the
Mississippi, valuable supplies
smuggled in from Texas could
not reach the troops.
5. Little chance
• Victories at Chattanooga, an
important railroad city in
Tennessee, and Mobile, an
important port city in
Alabama opened the door for
Union troops to divide the
Confederacy in half again.
6. Little chance
•By September 2, 1864,
General William T.
Sherman had captured
Atlanta, a vital
Confederate city if not its
heart.
7. Merry christmas
•On November 15, 1864,
Sherman marched his
troops out of the city of
Atlanta on his way to the
sea.
8.
9. Merry christmas
• Sherman’s army started with
rations that would last them
20 days and then they would
be forced to “live off the
land,” eating whatever the
foragers could bring back for
them.
10. Merry christmas
• He and his troops followed
the scorched earth policy,
which meant that crops
would be burned, livestock
killed, supplies consumed,
and anything that might aid
the Confederates destroyed.
11. Merry christmas
•This included railroad
lines, which were torn up
and bent around
trees, earning them the
nickname “Sherman’s
neckties.”
12. Merry christmas
• This type of military policy
is also called “total war,”
meaning a nation mobilizes
all of its resources to destroy
other nation’s ability to make
war.
13. Merry christmas
• The Confederates would long
remember the devastation that
Sherman brought to Georgia
and it would make it more
difficult to bring them back into
the Union when the war was
over.
14. Merry christmas
• For the better part of six weeks,
Sherman and his troops were
out of contact with anybody in
the Union, finally reaching the
outskirts of Savannah,
Georgia along the Atlantic
Ocean on December 20.
15. Merry christmas
• The Confederates escaped
and retreated rather than fight
the Union armies and on
December 22, 1864,
Sherman and the Union
marched into the city.
16. Merry christmas
•Sherman sent a telegram
to President Lincoln
saying “I beg to present
you as a Christmas gift the
city of Savannah…”
17. Merry christmas
• The “anaconda” was slowly
but surely tightening its grip
on the Confederacy and it
was only a matter of time
before they would suffocate.
