INTRODUCTION

In the late fall of 1864, as General William Tecumseh Sherman's Union Army marched toward Savannah, Sally, a freedwoman, roamed the camps at night searching for her children. Ever since she and her husband, Ben, had joined the army on its March to the Sea, she had been asking everyone she met for "any clue" into her children's whereabouts. When she encountered freed people who fled to the army and joined the march just like her, she would scan their faces and scrutinize them closely, hoping that by chance she might detect some distinguishing feature: a smile, a scar, or a mannerism, something only a mother would know and never forget. Her evening rounds became a camp ritual. Everyone knew of her search, even the soldiers, though most felt that she might as well have been searching for a "needle in a haystack." In fact, all Sally knew was that ten years before, one of her children, her eight-year-old daughter, Nan, had been sold to the "lower country," and that Nan might be down there yet. Late one evening, as the army neared Savannah, Sally got the news she'd been hoping for. A friend told her that he'd heard someone call his wife "Nan" and the woman just might be her daughter. Struck by the news, Sally stopped what she was doing, praised God, and did what any mother would do: she started running.

Sally and Ben had both been enslaved in Georgia, probably somewhere near Atlanta. Little else is known about them except that earlier that fall their lives had changed forever. General Sherman's monthslong campaign for Atlanta had concluded in a decisive Union victory. The city was now occupied by the US Army, which meant it had become a refuge for enslaved people residing on nearby plantations, men and women like Ben and Sally. Sometime that fall the two had taken flight. They had escaped to Atlanta, attained their freedom, and then found work laboring for the army. Ben had become a wagon driver for the Twentieth Army Corps; Sally had become a cook for one of the officers. When it came time for the army to move out of Atlanta in early November, they decided to go along. Perhaps they thought that camp life might better secure their freedom, but they must have also known that their journey could take them toward Savannah, to that place called the "lower country," where they might reunite with their long-lost daughter.

Little did Ben and Sally know that in marching along with Sherman's army, they would take part in the largest emancipation event in US history. In the coming weeks sixty thousand soldiers would march overland from Atlanta to Savannah in what's known as Sherman's March to the Sea. Though neither Sherman nor most of his men had any desire to turn their march into one of liberation, the enslaved people they met en route certainly did. From the very start and at every stop along the way, enslaved people fled plantations and rushed into the army's path. Men and women arrived at night or during the day. They came as families or as lone escapees. And some made long, circuitous journeys while others simply met the soldiers on the main road—or right there in the shadow of their homes. The movement was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Soldiers described it as being practically providential. Enslaved people did, too. They hailed the soldiers as angels of the Lord and celebrated the army's arrival as if it were the start of something prophetic, as if God himself had ordained the war and the days of Revelation had arrived.

Some of the men and women who ran to the army took the occasion to do just as Ben and Sally did and march along. Indeed, wherever the army went—plantations, homesteads, roadsides in between—enslaved people packed their bundles, said their goodbyes, and marched off with Sherman's men. Some found work, often as cooks, laundresses, or laborers, and thus marched along with the main columns, but the vast majority who left traveled along somewhere at the army's rear, with long lines of formerly enslaved people sometimes stretching well into the Georgia countryside. Mostly on foot and with little to eat or protect them from the cold of a Georgia winter, those men and women essentially traveled as wartime refugees. And as Sherman pushed his massive army toward Savannah, those refugees would soon swell the army's lines, turning one of the war's great military campaigns into a march of liberation.

By the time Sherman's army arrived on the coast, as many as twenty thousand freed people followed—all marching, one soldier would write, "somewhere toward freedom."

INTRODUCTION

In the late fall of 1864, as General William Tecumseh Sherman's Union Army marched toward Savannah, Sally, a freedwoman, roamed the camps at night searching for her children. Ever since she and her husband, Ben, had joined the army on its March to the Sea, she had been asking everyone she met for "any clue" into her children's whereabouts. When she encountered freed people who fled to the army and joined the march just like her, she would scan their faces and scrutinize them closely, hoping that by chance she might detect some distinguishing feature: a smile, a scar, or a mannerism, something only a mother would know and never forget. Her evening rounds became a camp ritual. Everyone knew of her search, even the soldiers, though most felt that she might as well have been searching for a "needle in a haystack." In fact, all Sally knew was that ten years before, one of her children, her eight-year-old daughter, Nan, had been sold to the "lower country," and that Nan might be down there yet. Late one evening, as the army neared Savannah, Sally got the news she'd been hoping for. A friend told her that he'd heard someone call his wife "Nan" and the woman just might be her daughter. Struck by the news, Sally stopped what she was doing, praised God, and did what any mother would do: she started running.

Sally and Ben had both been enslaved in Georgia, probably somewhere near Atlanta. Little else is known about them except that earlier that fall their lives had changed forever. General Sherman's monthslong campaign for Atlanta had concluded in a decisive Union victory. The city was now occupied by the US Army, which meant it had become a refuge for enslaved people residing on nearby plantations, men and women like Ben and Sally. Sometime that fall the two had taken flight. They had escaped to Atlanta, attained their freedom, and then found work laboring for the army. Ben had become a wagon driver for the Twentieth Army Corps; Sally had become a cook for one of the officers. When it came time for the army to move out of Atlanta in early November, they decided to go along. Perhaps they thought that camp life might better secure their freedom, but they must have also known that their journey could take them toward Savannah, to that place called the "lower country," where they might reunite with their long-lost daughter.

Little did Ben and Sally know that in marching along with Sherman's army, they would take part in the largest emancipation event in US history. In the coming weeks sixty thousand soldiers would march overland from Atlanta to Savannah in what's known as Sherman's March to the Sea. Though neither Sherman nor most of his men had any desire to turn their march into one of liberation, the enslaved people they met en route certainly did. From the very start and at every stop along the way, enslaved people fled plantations and rushed into the army's path. Men and women arrived at night or during the day. They came as families or as lone escapees. And some made long, circuitous journeys while others simply met the soldiers on the main road—or right there in the shadow of their homes. The movement was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Soldiers described it as being practically providential. Enslaved people did, too. They hailed the soldiers as angels of the Lord and celebrated the army's arrival as if it were the start of something prophetic, as if God himself had ordained the war and the days of Revelation had arrived.

Some of the men and women who ran to the army took the occasion to do just as Ben and Sally did and march along. Indeed, wherever the army went—plantations, homesteads, roadsides in between—enslaved people packed their bundles, said their goodbyes, and marched off with Sherman's men. Some found work, often as cooks, laundresses, or laborers, and thus marched along with the main columns, but the vast majority who left traveled along somewhere at the army's rear, with long lines of formerly enslaved people sometimes stretching well into the Georgia countryside. Mostly on foot and with little to eat or protect them from the cold of a Georgia winter, those men and women essentially traveled as wartime refugees. And as Sherman pushed his massive army toward Savannah, those refugees would soon swell the army's lines, turning one of the war's great military campaigns into a march of liberation.

By the time Sherman's army arrived on the coast, as many as twenty thousand freed people followed—all marching, one soldier would write, "somewhere toward freedom."