Sherman's Mississippi Campaign

By Buck T. Foster
Maps, notes, bibliography, index, 215 pp., 2006. The University of Alabama Press, P.O. Box 870380, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0380, $29.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Carl R. Schenker Jr.
Carl R. Schenker Jr. is a lawyer living in Washington, D.C. His wife, Susan Sherman Richard-son, is a great-great-grand-daughter of William Tecumseh Sherman. Schenker is the author of "Grant's Rise from Obscurity" in North & South magazine.

Review:
Sherman's Mississippi Campaign by Buck T. Foster. What did the ever-energetic William Tecumseh Sherman do between lifting the siege of Knoxville in December 1863 and launching his Atlanta Campaign in May 1864? This slim volume by Buck T. Foster provides the answer; Sherman waged war against the infrastructure in Mississippi, marching from federally-controlled Vicksburg to the Confederate rail hub at Meridian and back again during February 1864.

Sherman abandoned his supply lines, sustained his 20,000 troops on the countryside, and operated with sufficient swiftness and force to go where he wanted and do what he wanted. In this case, his objectives were to disrupt rail and other infrastructure in Mississippi and demoralize the civilian population. In these objectives, he succeeded well but not very memorably.

Sherman himself devotes less than 10 pages to the Meridian Campaign in his memoirs, and Foster notes that Sherman's biographers and other historians have paid relatively little attention to the campaign.

However, Foster makes a persuasive case that the Meridian expedition deserves detailed attention because it served as a proving ground for the style of warfare widely known and vividly remembered from Sherman's subsequent marches to the sea and north through the Carolinas.

Throughout his volume, Foster attempts to assess the evolution of Sherman's style of warfare against infrastructure, detailing the limits Sherman did (and did not) impose on his forces as towns were savaged or spared and the lessons Sherman himself learned in Mississippi. Foster's close attention to such basic issues helps readers focus on the question of what the proper limits should have been for Sherman's famous hard war.

This study originated as a doctoral dissertation, is based on original sources, and is judiciously well-rounded. Foster draws on both Union and Confederate sources, and details not only Sherman's operations, but also the conduct of the ineffectual Confederate defense organized by the fighting (in this case, retreating) bishop, Leonidas Polk, in long-distance consultation with Jefferson Davis and Gen. Joseph E. Johnson.

Foster also sketches the demographic environment of the various counties through which Sherman passed and details the impact of the expedition on Mississippi civilians, both black and white.

Foster concludes his study with an evaluation of the short- and long-term military impacts of the expedition, including details on the Confederate repair of the rails after Sherman's withdrawal.

Additionally, there is a chapter detailing Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's frustration of the related Union cavalry expedition under Gen. William Sooy Smith.

Under Sherman's orders, Smith was supposed to move from Memphis with 7,000 cavalry, smash Forrest's smaller cavalry force, and rendezvous with Sherman at Meridian. As Sherman himself acknowledges in his memoirs, Smith's component of the overall operation "failed utterly," and Foster does a good job of showing why.

As should be suggested by the foregoing, this book is useful to understanding Sherman's broader role in the war and to more fully appreciating his more famous marches. However, for this reader at least, the book suffers from certain flatness or academic dryness.

Doubtless, the less-than-inspired quality of Foster's writing stems partly from the lack of major military engagements during the expedition. The chastisement of one hapless town seems much the same as that of the next. However, the author and publisher have not done all that they could have to breathe life into this material. For example, there are maps, but no illustrations of people, places or events.

Likewise, there is no meaningful profile of the colorful Sherman, not even mention of his famous red hair, and too often Foster paraphrases Sherman's views rather than quoting this most quotable of generals.

In short, some of the color and vivid detail one would like to find in a work of history are missing. The liveliest chapter is that detailing Forrest's defeat of the cavalry force under the uncertain leadership of Sooy Smith.

At the end of the day, however, this book has many strengths and deserves an audience.