They raided farms and plantations, stealing and slaughtering cows, chickens, turkeys, sheep and hogs and taking as much other food especially bread and potatoes. These groups of foraging soldiers were nicknamed bummers, and they burned whatever they could not carry. The Yankees needed the supplies, but they also wanted to teach Georgians a lesson. One soldier wrote in a letter home, “it isn’t so sweet to secede as they thought it would be.” Sherman’s troops arrived in Savannah on December 21, 1864, about three weeks after they left Atlanta. The city was undefended when they got there. About 10,000 Confederates who were supposed to be guarding it had already fled. Sherman presented the city of Savannah and its 24,000 bales of cotton to President Lincoln as a Christmas gift. Early in 1865, Sherman and his men left Savannah and pillaged and burned their way through South Carolina to Charleston. In April, the Confederacy surrendered and the war was
They raided farms and plantations, stealing and slaughtering cows, chickens, turkeys, sheep and hogs and taking as much other food especially bread and potatoes. These groups of foraging soldiers were nicknamed bummers, and they burned whatever they could not carry. The Yankees needed the supplies, but they also wanted to teach Georgians a lesson. One soldier wrote in a letter home, “it isn’t so sweet to secede as they thought it would be.” Sherman’s troops arrived in Savannah on December 21, 1864, about three weeks after they left Atlanta. The city was undefended when they got there. About 10,000 Confederates who were supposed to be guarding it had already fled. Sherman presented the city of Savannah and its 24,000 bales of cotton to President Lincoln as a Christmas gift. Early in 1865, Sherman and his men left Savannah and pillaged and burned their way through South Carolina to Charleston. In April, the Confederacy surrendered and the war was