"The south must be ruled or will rule," he is quoted as saying, "We must fight it out army against army, man against man." While the south's forces were preoccupied elsewhere, Sherman had successfully made the psychological strike required to break the psychological thread that held the south together by way of southern pride and philosophy. "He intended to make the people 'so sick of war that generations would pass before they would again appeal to it.'" That Sherman received the people of Savannah as a host in their own city to grant favors, and allowed the city government to go about their daily business proved the confidence Sherman had in his strength of force and the power he now wielded over the southern city on the sea. While some residents of Savannah held out hope that the Confederacy would persevere, others embraced their reunion with the Union; even if somewhat reluctantly. Sherman's presence in Savannah, and the 300-mile path of destruction that he cut across Georgia, served to increase the sense of "loss that was slowly eroding Rebel society." It served to show the importance of conducting a campaign that delivered an extreme blow to the confidence of the population, so that they would cease to devote what little resources they continued to have to their cause.

Sherman's march had evoked unconscious emotional response that previously had appeared only as impotent discontent. Not long after Christmas, a group of Savannah Unionists asked Governor Brown to call a convention to discuss the merits of continuing the war, and many anxious Georgians in nearby counties concurred."

Hopelessness, like a spread, spread with the taking of the "heart of Dixie." Georgia was a strategic and psychological gain for the Union. Without it, there is only speculation as to how long the southern population might have braced itself against accepting the end of the war. Sherman's march was both militarily and psychologically necessary to bring about a close to the war.

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Bailey, a., (2000), p. 116.

Bailey, a., (2000), p. 117.

Higham, St., and Woodworth, S., (1996). The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research, Greenwood Press, p. 198.

Hitchcock, H., and Howe, D., (1995). Marching with Sherman: Passages from the Letters and Campaign Diaries of Henry Hitchcock, Major, and Assistant Adjutant General of Volunteers, November 1864 - May 1865, University of Nebraska Press, p. 186.

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The Washington Times, (May 10, 2003), "Confederacy's Safe Harbor Ends at Wilmington; Lee Surrenders Soon after Loss of N.C. Port," p. B03.

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Bailey, a., (2000), pp. 172-173.