Having had five weeks for rest and preparation, Sherman began the third
stage of his campaign on February 1, with a total of sixty thousand men,
provisions for twenty days, forage for seven, and a full supply of
ammunition for a great battle. This new undertaking proved a task of
much greater difficulty and severer hardship than his march to the sea.
Instead of the genial autumn weather, the army had now to face the
wintry storms that blew in from the neighboring coast. Instead of the
dry Georgia uplands, his route lay across a low sandy country cut by
rivers with branches at right angles to his line of march, and bordered
by broad and miry swamps. But this was an extraordinary army, which
faced exposure, labor and peril with a determination akin to contempt.
Here were swamps and water-courses to be waded waist deep; endless miles
of corduroy road to be laid and relaid as course after course sank into
the mud under the heavy army wagons; frequent head-water channels of
rivers to be bridged; the lines of railroad along their route to be torn
up and rendered incapable of repair; food to be gathered by foraging;
keeping up, meanwhile a daily average of ten or twelve miles of
marching. Under such conditions, Sherman's army made a mid-winter march
of four hundred and twenty-five miles in fifty days, crossing five
navigable rivers, occupying three important cities, and rendering the
whole railroad system of South Carolina useless to the enemy.
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