Birth of the Brute: Sherman’s Order to Evacuate Atlanta

By Eric Chaney

On September 8, 1864, Major General William T. Sherman issued an order – Special Field Order

No. 67 – expelling all civilians from the city of Atlanta, which his army had captured nearly a

week before. The order, of which Sherman had “thought much and long,” was dry and

administrative in tone but sparked a series of much more theatrical correspondence between

Sherman, Confederate General John B. Hood, and the mayor of Atlanta, James M. Calhoun.1

These documents, which the New York Herald cited as “more important than the

[Atlanta] campaign itself in stamping [Sherman] as ‘one of the great men of the time,’” were

cornerstones in building the Sherman-as-the-devil mythology that still lives in many Southern

hearts and minds and are still objects of fascination more than 150 years after they were written.2

The order itself is succinct: five hundred words over six sections cover the ouster of

civilians, the confiscation of goods, property and construction materials, the establishment of a

defensive perimeter, and the exclusion of all but a few “traders, manufacturers, or sutlers” from

said perimeter.3 The aim, Sherman said, was to “make Atlanta a pure military garrison or depot,

with no civil population to influence military measures.”4

Sherman opened the correspondence with Hood, whose army he had pushed out of the

city, with a short letter informing Hood of his intentions vis-à-vis the inhabitants, written the day

before he formally published the expulsion order. Hood, unsurprisingly, opposed the order, and
1
William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman (New York: D. Appleton and
Company, 1875), 111, from Archive.org.
2
John F. Marszalek, Sherman's Other War: The General and the Civil War Press, (Kent: Kent State
University Press, 2011) 186, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/westga/detail.action?docID=3119780; Bill
Hendrick, “Sherman’s fiery letters: Atlanta History Center eager to buy,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 19,
2005, from Newspapers.com.
3
United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the
Union and Confederate armies (hereafter OR), ser. 1, vol. 38, pt. 5 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1892),
837-838, from Hathi Trust Digital Library, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/mb?a=listis&c=106642625.
4
William T. Sherman, Memoirs, 111.
 1

the resulting war of words between the two generals (two letters from Hood and two from

Sherman) lasted a week and rose to a histrionic crescendo before Sherman saw the wisdom of

halting the exchange. Meanwhile, Sherman also received a joint letter from Calhoun and two

Atlanta city councilmen, who argued less melodramatically, though no less ardently, against the

treatment of their constituents. Calhoun pleaded with Sherman to rescinded or modify the order,

something that Hood, for all his bluster, did not do.

Special Order No. 67 and the resulting correspondence are fascinating windows into the

mind of a man whose name would become near synonymous with “total war” after the events

around Atlanta and his infamous march to the sea. On September 4, Sherman had written to

Henry Halleck, chief of staff of the Union armies, “If the people raise a howl against my

barbarity and cruelty I will answer that war is war, and not popularity-seeking. If they want

peace they and their relatives must stop war.”5

Writing this letter, Sherman biographer Michael Fellman argues, “was the moment in

which Sherman attained his most fully conscious and self-acknowledged role as psychological

warrior. Though he had a military argument for getting civilians out of the way of his army – in

order to use Atlanta as one big military depot – his greater purpose was to strike terror in

Southern hearts.”6

Though Southerners had already labeled Sherman “the Brute”, Hood attempted to further

this narrative with dramatic language in his reply to Sherman’s first letter, a businesslike

discussion of the logistics of moving people out of the city.7

“The unprecedented measure you propose,” Hood wrote, “transcends in studied and

5
OR, ser. 1, vol. 38, pt. 5, 794.
6
Michael Fellman, Citizen Sherman (New York: Random House, 1995), 181, from Archive.org.
7
“Butler the Beast – Sherman the Brute: The Outrages of the Latter in East Tennessee,” Augusta Daily
Constitutionalist, May 13, 1864, from Georgia Digital Library: Georgia Historic Newspapers.
 2

ingenious cruelty, all acts ever before brought to my attention in the dark history of war. In the

name of God and humanity I protest . . . .”8

The order itself was obviously meant for public consumption, but Sherman believed that

the correspondence between himself and General Hood would initially remain private.

“You will find General Hood has published my letter about moving the people of Atlanta

and his answer,” Sherman wrote Halleck on September 13. “I feel sure he has made his answer

public before it went to the Richmond Government, as is required by their official usage. He has,

therefore, appealed to the public as a demagogue, and hopes to make capital.”9

Jacob D. Cox, who served as a division commander under Sherman during the Atlanta

campaign, questioned the wisdom of Sherman’s participation in the back and forth. “Hood's part

of it is so manifestly meant for popular effect,” he wrote in 1882, “that it may be doubted

whether Sherman might not as well have contented himself with the mere reiteration of the order,

and of the terms on which the removal must be made.”10

But Sherman had no problem deploying his “inexhaustible” and “caustic” pen to respond

in kind, telling Halleck, “. . . if [Hood] expects to resort to such artifices I think I can meet him

there too.” 11 He felt, he told Halleck, that he “could not tamely submit to [the] impertinence” of

Hood questioning his motives.12 Of course, neither general was objective; Sherman no doubt felt

he had to defend himself in the court of public opinion, and Hood was likely still stung by being

forced to give up Atlanta.

8
OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 2, 415.
9
OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 2, 370.
10
Jacob D. Cox, Campaigns of the Civil War: Atlanta. (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1882), 220, from
Archive.org.
11
Lloyd Lewis, Sherman: Fighting Prophet (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 416, from
Archive.org.; Fenwick Yellowley Hedley, Marching through Georgia: pen-pictures of every-day life in General
Sherman's army, from the beginning of the Atlanta campaign until the close of the war (Chicago: Donohue,
Henneberry & Co., 1890), 202, from Archive.org.
12
OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 2, 414.
 3

Once the correspondence became public, the nature of the communication changed. No

longer was Sherman speaking only to an opposing general and the population of a conquered city

but rather to the entire citizenry of both North and South, and he changed his writing

accordingly. Sherman biographer Lloyd Lewis would write that Sherman’s letters to Hood and

Calhoun were “the most eloquent and vivid ever to come from his . . . pen” and “the general’s

letter writing art at its best.”13

Sherman chastised Hood for appealing to God “in such a sacrilegious manner,”

challenged him with “If we must be enemies, let us be men and fight it out,” and offered to

choose “any fair man to judge which of us has the heart of pity.”14

The letter to Calhoun was likewise overflowing with eloquent turns of phrase: “You

might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war,”

“When . . . peace does come, you may call on me for anything. Then will I share with you the

last cracker,” “. . . take with you the old and feeble . . . until the mad passions of men cool down .

. . ,” and perhaps Sherman’s most well-known maxim, “War is cruelty and you cannot refine it,

and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can

pour out.”15

By this time, Sherman knew these letters would be read far and wide, and he used the

opportunity to use what Fellman calls “consciously applied terror” to bring a swifter end to the

war.16

“Sherman was delighted with the propaganda impact of this public exchange,” Fellman

wrote, which “[shook] Southerners with the prospect of their own destruction, which more

13
Lloyd Lewis, Sherman: Fighting Prophet, 416; Lewis, 415.
14
OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 2, 416.
15
OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 2, 418.
16
Michael Fellman, Citizen Sherman, 183.
 4

restrained pronouncements – such as those made frequently by Lincoln – did not. Hearing them,

and witnessing Sherman's ever-advancing, seemingly unstoppable, increasingly destructive

army, undoubtedly was a major factor that caused the Southerners to lose heart, thus leading

toward the end of the war.”17

Sherman also knew that his letters could both strike at southern morale and raise the

fighting spirit of his own men.

“Have you read any of Sherman’s letters to Hood in reference to the removal of the

women & children of Atlanta . . . ?” Edward Allen, of the 16th Wisconsin Infantry, wrote to his

parents in late September. “. . . They are so good, just the sentiments of his whole army. Such a

general, one that is not afraid to treat with them as they deserve, is the man we like to fight

under.”18

The effect extended beyond even the soldiers directly under Sherman’s command. Lewis

quotes a letter from Charles Francis Adams, Jr., fighting under Grant in the Army of the

Potomac, to his brother.

“What do you think of Sherman's letter to Hood? What a ‘buster’ that man is. He really

seems to be the most earnest and straightforward of the whole war,” Adams wrote. “Here is the

most scathing exposition of rebel nonsense of old standing which has yet enlightened the

world.”19

Newspapers both North and South printed Sherman’s correspondence in its entirety,

many without further comment. Those that did expound further were split, naturally, along the

already divided lines of the country. The Cincinnati Gazette likened the evacuation order to “the

17
Michael Fellman, Citizen Sherman, 183; Fellman, 182.
18
Edward W. Allen, 16th Wisconsin Infantry to his parents, September 25, 1864, Edward W. Allen Papers,
Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
19
Lloyd Lewis, Sherman: Fighting Prophet, 421.
 5

blast of the war trumpet" while the Washington Chronicle labeled Sherman "as trenchant with

his pen as with his sword."20

Southern papers disparaged Sherman’s missives as “coarse, bullying, brutal and

undignified” and full of “impudent falsehoods and shallow sophistries.”21 In late September

1864, the Richmond Enquirer devoted more than a full column of its front page to the blasting

even the heartfelt parts of Sherman’s letters, saying “Sherman is instructed to talk like ‘a

Southron’ and to profess feelings of humanity which he abhors in his heart.” The Montgomery

Advertiser sneered that, “Sherman’s edicts and honeyfuggling will fail to convince . . . our

people that the war was wrongfully commenced.”22

Though the rights and wrongs of the war’s genesis are still hotly debated today, time and

hindsight have cleared away some (though certainly not all) of the emotion provoked by

Sherman’s order and letters. The secondary sources used in researching this text offer a more

objective (for the most part) look at these documents as well as explore their place in the broader

context of the war, the history of the South, and Sherman’s life. Nearly all the modern sources

quoted here argue that these writings, though couched in Sherman’s blunt, no-nonsense style,

were well thought out and helped accomplish Sherman’s military objectives, crush Confederate

morale, and shorten the war, with which I completely agree.

Even historian Stephen Davis, who once served as prosecutor in a mock war crimes trial

for Sherman in the general’s native Ohio, admits to the effectiveness of Sherman’s methods.23 In

his somewhat unobjective Atlanta Civil War history What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman's

Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta, he tells the story of leaving a note at Sherman’s grave.
20
Marszalek, Sherman's Other War, 172.
21
Wilmington Daily Journal, September 24, 1864, from Newspapers.com; “Hood versus Sherman.”
Yorkville Enquirer, September 28, 1864, from Newspapers.com.
22
Montgomery Daily Advertiser, September 22, 1864, from Newspapers.com.
23
“Pro&Con: Was Sherman a war criminal?” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 13, 2014, from
Newspapers.com.
 6

“I hate you, you son of a bitch, for what you did to my people, and my city, and that you

won,” the missive read. “But I admire you as a soldier.”24

Any disagreement between the main sources used seems to center on Sherman’s morality

(or lack thereof) and not the effectiveness of Special Order No. 67 and his correspondence.

Fellman argues that Sherman’s promises of “later kindness, as a reward for capitulation . . .

heightened rather than reduced the terrors of what [Sherman] and the still deepening war might

bring to the South” in that Sherman might completely abandon his morality for the time being to

reach his goals.25 I disagree. While studying Sherman more closely for this research, I reinforced

my belief that he was throughout the war a moral person and he truly did believe that his brutal

military methods were merely the quickest path to peace. Patrick H. Calhoun, son of Mayor

Calhoun and a self-described “red hot secessionist,” agreed, telling the New York Daily News in

1935, “I think Sherman personally was a man of kind instincts and a gentleman. As for the edict,

the events justified it. . . . He did the humane, wise thing.”26

But Sherman’s forced evacuation of Atlanta is wedged so deeply into the subconscious of

many southern minds that the legend of “the Brute” remains alive and well.

24
Stephen Davis, What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman's Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta (Atlanta:
Mercer University Press, 2012), 439.
25
Michael Fellman, Citizen Sherman, 182.
26
“70 Years Ago – Sherman: His Memory Hated Still, Due Largely to Women’s Efforts,” New York Daily
News, November 25, 1934, from Newspapers.com.
 7

Bibliography

Davis, Stephen. What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman's Bombardment and Wrecking of
Atlanta. Atlanta: Mercer University Press, 2012.

Cox, Jacob D. Campaigns of the Civil War: Atlanta. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1882.

Fellman, Michael. Citizen Sherman. New York: Random House, 1995.

Hedley, Fenwick Yellowley. Marching through Georgia: pen-pictures of every-day life in

General Sherman's army, from the beginning of the Atlanta campaign until the close
of the war. Chicago: Donohue, Henneberry & Co., 1890.

Lewis, Lloyd. Sherman: Fighting Prophet. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

Marszalek, John F. Sherman's Other War: The General and the Civil War Press. Kent: Kent
State University Press, 2011.

Sherman, William Tecumseh. Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. New York: D.

Appleton and Company, 1875.

United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official
records of the Union and Confederate armies. Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1892.