James Ford Rhodes (1848–1927). History of the Civil War, 1861–1865 1917.
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probably more humane generally than those in almost any European army that had marched and fought before our Civil War, but any invading host in the country of the enemy is a terrible scourge.
Sherman reached Fayetteville (N. C.) on March 11 and, by means of a steam tug, which had come up the Cape Fear river from Wilmington, was placed in communication with Schofield1 and therefore with Grant and Stanton. Up to February 22 Grant, through the Richmond newspapers, had kept pretty well informed of Sherman’s progress, but on that day the newspapers were requested by the authorities not to publish any news connected with the pending military movements in the Carolinas, so that afterwards he could cull from them only meagre and unsatisfactory information. In his letter to Grant, Sherman said, “The army is in splendid health, condition and spirit although we have had foul weather and roads that would have stopped travel to almost any other body of men I ever read of.”2
On March 21 Schofield reached Goldsborough (N. C.) where, two days later, Sherman’s army made with him the desired junction. “Were I to express my measure of the relative importance of the march to the sea and of that from Savannah northward,” wrote Sherman, “I would place the former at one and the latter at ten or the maximum.”3 He might have continued in Napoleon’s words written during his Austrian campaign, “I have destroyed the enemy merely by marches.”4
