The Very Day He Occupied Savannah at the End of His March to the Sea, Gen. William T. Sherman Credits Perseverance For Seeing Him Through to Success in the War

"My own success in the war has resulted more from persevering through ill report and good report than from professional knowledge; and if my example be worth anything, it results from this truth.

Since mid-November of 1864, General William T. Sherman's 60,000-man army had been sweeping from Atlanta across the state of Georgia to the south and east towards Savannah, one of the last Confederate seaports still unoccupied by Union forces. Along the way, Sherman wrecked havoc, burning farms and storehouses, demolishing railroads, and feeding his army off the land. In his own words, he intended to "make Georgia howl," and by destroying the infrastructure and morale of the South, bring the war to a swift end. The plan had been approved by President Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, general-in-chief of the Union armies. During the march, Sherman's army had been completely cut off from the North, and only the reports of destruction provided any evidence of its whereabouts. In fact, for nearly six weeks, Union leadership in Washington and Virginia heard nothing from Sherman's army.

On December 10, 1864, Sherman's forces arrived in front of Savannah, Georgia. The city of Savannah was fortified and defended by some 10,000 Confederates under the command of General William Hardee. The Rebels flooded the rice fields around Savannah, so only a few narrow causeways provided access to the city. Sherman's army was running low on supplies, and he had not yet made contact with supply ships off the coast. Sherman directed General Oliver O. Howard to the coast to locate friendly ships, and Howard dispatched three aides to contact the Union fleet, but nothing was heard of the trio for several days. They finally located a Union gunboat that carried them to Hilton Head, South Carolina. Supply ships were then sent to Savannah, and an emissary was sent to Washington, D.C. to deliver news of Sherman's successful arrival to President Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

For ten days, Hardee held out as Sherman prepared for an attack. Realizing the futility of the situation, Hardee fled the city on December 20 and slipped northward to avoid a battle in which he felt himself at a huge disadvantage. The next day, December 21, Savannah tendered its surrender, thus ending the March to the Sea, and on December 22 Sherman's army began entering Savannah. That night Sherman send his famous telegram to the President: "His Excellency President Lincoln: I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton. W. T. Sherman, Major-General." The following day, December 23, 1864, was the date that the State of Georgia website maintains, "Sherman's forces occupied Savannah." Sherman himself relates in his "Memoirs of W.T. Sherman" that "On the 23d of December were made…general orders for the disposition of the troops in and about Savannah."

Capt. Francis J. Lippitt served in the Mexican War, where he came to the favorable attention of Gen. Winfield Scott. After the war Lippitt remained in California territory, where he was a member of the first California Constitutional Convention in 1849. From 1848-1854, Sherman had served in California, and Lippitt's Memoirs indicate that as Captain, his reports to headquarters were made to then-Lieutenant Sherman. Sherman and Lippitt became friends, and Sherman came to Lippitt's rescue in a business transaction. When the Civil War broke out, General Winfield Scott, who admired Lippitt, obtained for him the right to raise and serve as Colonel in the 2nd California Infantry. The unit was tasked with prosecuting a war against the Indians in the counties of northwestern California, rather than Lippitt's preference of being brought east to serve against the Confederacy. At that time, relates Lippitt, Gen. Sherman recommended to the War Department that he (Lippitt) be given a Brigadier General's rank. Instead, Lippitt was relieved of command on July 13, 1863 by a superior who disliked him and his methods of military operation. In October 1864, Colonel Lippitt was mustered out with men of his regiment who had completed their terms of enlistment. He was very unhappy with these developments, believed he had something to contribute to the war effort, and sought an active command. He wrote to his old friend Sherman, asking for Sherman's intersession to help him obtain one.

Letter Signed, on his Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi letterhead, Savannah, Ga., December 23, 1864, to Col. Lippett in Providence, RI. "I was very glad to receive your letter of November 7, and assure you that I would like to see you properly placed in this war. I know you to be so full of zeal and enthusiasm for the cause, and so full of professional knowledge, that I regard it as a national misfortune that you should have been left so long out of service. A staff position is not what you want. Interest the governor of some state in your behalf, and get a commission as a field officer in some one of the volunteer regiments now in service. This will put you in the line of promotion, after which you have only to wait for time and opportunity.

"My own success in the war has resulted more from persevering through ill report and good report than from professional knowledge; and if my example be worth anything, it results from this truth. I do not regard the war as over yet, by a good deal, and apart from the patriotic duty we all owe our country in this her hour of trial, I believe you will have time and opportunity yet to make a name and reputation which I know you aim to establish. I am, truly, your friend, W.T. Sherman, Maj. Genl." It is nothing less than extraordinary that Lippitt should have thought to write Sherman while the latter was incommunicado on the March to the Sea, and even more, that Sherman should have taken the time to write Lippitt in what was surely one of the first, if not indeed the first, letter he wrote after occupying Savannah.

Our research indicates that this triply important letter is unpublished, and its content has been unknown until now. In it, Sherman gives the reasons for his success, reasons we have never seen him articulate before. He then predicts, accurately, that the March to the Sea would not bring an immediate end to the war, and that the conflict still had some time to run. Lastly, he intimates that his own actions in the war were done out of a sense of duty owed to the country, in what he defined as "her hour of trial." We do not ever recall seeing a war date letter of Sherman such as this, showing his personal opinions about his own motivations and successes, no less one written the day he occupied Savannah.

Lippitt was made a Brevet Brigadier General on March 13, 1865, for faithful service during the war. After the war, he became a noted author on military subjects.