Authors: Edward Caudill and Paul Ashdown
Author info: Professors of Journalism and Electronic Media
Publication Date: July 2008
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Synopsis: General William Tecumseh Sherman’s devastating “March to the Sea” in 1864 burned a swath through the cities and countryside of Georgia and into the history of the American Civil War. Legends and myths about Sherman began forming during the March itself, and took more definitive shape in the industrial age in the late-nineteenth century. Edward Caudill and Paul Ashdown provide a brief overview of Sherman’s life and his March, but their focus is on how these myths came about–such as one description of a “60-mile wide path of destruction”–and how legends about Sherman and his campaign have served a variety of interests.