Living Through The Civil War–Personal Accounts Of Sherman’s March, The Siege Of Atlanta, And The Destruction Of The South

The Hutchins B&B in Erhardt South Carolina was directly in the path of Sherman’s army as he led it through the state after having defeated the Confederate Army in Georgia and destroyed Atlanta.  In his own words his march through South Carolina, the state that precipitated the war by attacking Union forces at Fort Sumter, the first state to secede from the Union, and the most rebellious of the South, would be punitive.  After the South saw the power, determination, and absolute brutality of his army, it would never, ever rise again.

Sherman’s march through Georgia from Chattanooga to Atlanta was less purposely destructive and more ‘living off the land’.  The army did indeed burn and pillage as it headed for the coast, but it was to destroy all munitions and armaments and provision its troops.  Nevertheless, it was remembered by those who lived through it as the most frightening event of the war.



Earl Hutchins, the owner of the B&B was 6’7”, 82 years old who, many people said, looked very much like John Brown from Potawatomie, Kansas.

Brown was  '”a crazed man” said Hutchins, “and a crusading abolitionist who killed, burned, and savaged his way to Harper’s Ferry as though he was liberating Jerusalem itself. Even the thought that I look like that delusional, marauding Yankee is ridiculous. I am the great-grandson of a Confederate major and slaveholder; grandson of a boy who witnessed Sherman’s depredations from the very window of his bedroom and watched his soldiers burn the barn, slaughter the cattle, rape his aunt, cut the slaves loose, and sledgehammer every piece of furniture in the house looking for silver; and son of a father who fought the vile arrogation of power of the Federal Government until his dying day.”

Hutchins Run was settled in 1820 by Earl Hutchins’ great-grandfather who had come from Virginia where he had been farming tobacco. He had a small plot of land which was getting tired, and he was himself tired of selling to the Carter family and their merchants and always in debt to them. When the Carters moved to the more fertile land of North Carolina, Hutchins’ great-grandfather trekked inland to the homestead at Hutchins Run.

With his wife, three children, and five slaves he travelled by steamer to Charleston then by horse cart and mules over some of the worst, swampiest, insect- and snake-infested terrain in the South; but when he got to Hutchins Run he was happy. The land – some 300 acres – was high, dry, well-watered, and not far from a trading post. There were few problems with Indians, and other settler families close enough to help out but not too close for comfort. He, his family, and the slaves cleared the land, built the cabin Hutchins uses for the B&B, and started farming.

The house Hutchins lived in was built by my great-grandfather in 1845. At that time more land had been cleared, and the family raised dairy cows and some beef cattle. The number of slaves was around 15 which never changed until the War.

Hutchins’ grandfather was born and raised in that house and saw everything destroyed by Sherman’s army. Reconstruction was a bad time for everyone in the South; and the only consolation was that my grandfather never had to sell his land because of debt. “Nor”, said Hutchins, “ had any Yankee carpetbaggers or freed slaves attempting to appropriate it.”

“Our land was farmland”, Hutchins like to tell, “ but hard duty land – not the flat fields of the Northern Neck or the lands east of the Shenandoah where my folks had settled; and certainly not the Mississippi Delta. It was hilly and rocky, and every acre cleared was an acre of sweat and blood. For a hundred years harmony prevailed. Plantation owners lived in Aiken, Charleston, and Georgetown; farmers like me developed the rural inland counties; and poor whites and colored picked cotton and worked the tenant farms. Labor and capital were in equilibrium. Society was structured, predictable, stable, and peaceful.

Hutchins liked to show the few tourists who stayed at his B&B, the bullet holes around the upstairs window of the main house. 

“It wasn’t enough for Sherman’s men to shoot up the livestock and burn the stables, they had to take aim at the house where my grandmother and my mother were still living.  Every pane of glass was shot through, shattered, and splintered with shards on the floor, on the beds, and on every table and chair.  When they were sure that they had killed everyone on the property, they raided the chicken coops, corralled the horses in the field, and tied the cow to the back of the artillery wagon. My grandmother and mother somehow survived, and stayed on the property, eking a living from the animals they had hidden in the woods beyond the back forty, the corn fields, and their vegetable garden.”

The accounts of the destruction of Atlanta and Sherman’s march through Georgia described by Margaret Mitchell in Gone with the Wind, are, according to most historians, accurate.  Like Vicksburg, the city of Atlanta was under siege for weeks, and what wasn’t destroyed by the constant shelling, was burned to the ground.  Sherman was determined, confident, and utterly merciless; and yet understandable and, within the context of military engagement of the times, moral.  The fact that the civilian population was complicit in the rise of the Confederacy was beside the point.  Only if the civilian population could be killed, terrorized, and completely demoralized would the South capitulate.   There was no compassion for the region that defied Lincoln, the idea of union, and the North; the region that started the bloody conflict that resulted in over 500,000 Union military and civilian deaths.



Sherman was not the first to use all-out warfare.  Military leaders since Genghis Khan in the 12th century have acted no differently.  Truman’s decision to firebomb Dresden and bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final months of the war were less to destroy enemy encampments and materiel, but to show the Nazis and the Japanese that the United States and its Allies would stop at nothing to force surrender and complete capitulation.




The siege of Atlanta, the total, destruction of all buildings and infrastructure was no different than accounts of the Battle of Britain during which Nazi bombers blasted London for weeks until forced back by the RAF.  An owner of a B&B in Vicksburg showed off the cannonball which was still lodged in the living room floor of his house.  He was a descendant of the owners of the house which somehow survived the shelling from Grant’s gunboats on the Mississippi River.  He told stories similar to Mitchell’s and Hitchins’.  The Union Army withheld nothing to bring the city of Vicksburg and its Confederate defenders to heel.  The siege lasted over a year. 

Mitchell describes the siege of Atlanta:

Within the space of a few days the battles of Atlanta and of Ezra Church were fought, and both of them were major engagements which made Peachtree Creek seem like a skirmish.

But the Yankees kept coming back for more. They had suffered heavy losses but they could afford to lose. And all the while their batteries poured shells into Atlanta, killing people in their homes, ripping roofs off buildings, tearing huge craters in the streets. The townsfolk sheltered as best they could in cellars, in holes in the ground and in shallow tunnels dug in railroad cuts. Atlanta was under siege…

It was unreal, grotesquely unreal, that morning skies which dawned so tenderly blue could be profaned with cannon smoke that hung over the town like low thunder clouds, that warm noontides filled with the piercing sweetness of massed honeysuckle and climbing roses could be so fearful, as shells screamed into the streets, bursting like the crack of doom, throwing iron splinters hundreds of yards, blowing people and animals to bits…

Lying in the pitiless sun, shoulder to shoulder, head to feet, were hundreds of wounded men, lining the tracks, the sidewalks, stretched out in endless rows under the car shed. Some lay stiff and still but many writhed under the hot sun, moaning. Everywhere, swarms of flies hovered over the men, crawling and buzzing in their faces, everywhere was blood, dirty bandages, groans, screamed curses of pain as stretcher bearers lifted men.

The smell of sweat, of blood, of unwashed bodies, of excrement rose up in waves of blistering heat until the fetid stench almost nauseated her. The ambulance men hurrying here and there among the prostrate forms frequently stepped on wounded men, so thickly packed were the rows, and those trodden upon stared stolidly up, waiting their turn.

A memoir of the wife of a Confederate officer described her ordeal during Reconstruction.  Penniless, homeless, and without the support of friends and family all killed or displaced by the war, she wandered through the South as homeless beggar, a woman who had lost everything, and whose descriptions of her ordeal were as much about the loss of the past as the impossible conditions of the present.

The question why the Confederacy did not surrender after the defeat of their forces in Atlanta and the complete devastation of the city has often been raised.  Atlanta was perhaps the most important city of the Confederacy, for after the complete blockade of South Carolina ports preventing any goods from England to arrive in the South, Atlanta mobilized and began production of weaponry, transport, uniforms, medical supplies, and all else needed to support an army.  Atlanta was the rail hub of the South with lines leading in all directions, and was becoming the most populous city of the Confederacy.  Once it was destroyed, there was little hope for military victory.

While campaigns fought in the North might continue, the South was outnumbered, ill-equipped, and demoralized.  Had Lee surrendered after Atlanta, thousands of lives would have been saved; yet the fight went on for many months more.  Political arrogance? Defense of the homeland, The Cause, States Rights, and the Cavalier tradition? Ignorance borne of a longstanding belief in cultural superiority? Or a more practical desire to simply bring about a more generous and accommodating truce?



In any case the war persisted, Sherman marched north through South Carolina and devastated every town, field, and granary in his path; and the Army of the Potomac continued to beat back persistent Confederate troops.

Accounts of the war, including the memoirs of Grant and Sherman; historical treatises discussing the underlying causes of the war and the battlefield strategies, and lengthy accounts of the aftermath of the war, Reconstruction and the surprising rebirth of the South can never do justice to the consequences of war.  Only accurate historical fiction, memoirs, and firsthand civilian accounts can. 

The Red Badge of Courage is perhaps the best war novel to come out of the South, a day-to-day account of the brutal, maiming, and destructive battles of the war.

The way seemed eternal. In the clouded haze men became panic-stricken with the thought that the regiment had lost its path, and was proceeding in a perilous direction. Once the men who headed the wild procession turned and came pushing back against their comrades, screaming that they were being fired upon from points which they had considered to be toward their own lines.

At this cry a hysterical fear and dismay beset the troops. A soldier, who heretofore had been ambitious to make the regiment into a wise little band that would proceed calmly amid the huge-appearing difficulties, suddenly sank down and buried his face in his arms with an air of bowing to a doom. From another a shrill lamentation rang out filled with profane allusions to a general. Men ran hither and thither, seeking with their eyes roads of escape. With serene regularity, as if controlled by a schedule, bullets buffed into men.

Historians have wondered if the Civil War should have been fought at all, whether slavery as an economic system would have collapsed upon itself, and whether the South would have finally learned from the rapidly industrializing North and moved from an agrarian economy to one more consistent with the late 19th century.  Was the rush to war too precipitous on both sides?

In any case the bloodiest war in America’s history was fought in the North and the South, a million men and women were killed; and despite Radical Republicans’ desire to emasculate the South, it continued and extended a de facto slave system (indentured labor, tenant farming, plantation re-ownership, planter-dominated government).

Gone with the Wind, often characterized as a hymn to the Old South is nothing of the sort.  It is a book about the devastation of war and its human consequences; and joins the hundreds of other firsthand, personal accounts of Vicksburg, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Charleston, and New Orleans.

Food, Fashion, And Identity In America - The Art Of Influencing And Belonging, But To What End?

What to make of glitz, glamour, image, show and the culture of identity?  We are far from the moral, ethical, spiritual, and consensual beings envisaged by Jefferson and the founding fathers, the Church, or the philosophers of the Enlightenment – beings with a center, a principled, unvarying and unchangeable center of personal gravity; but some flighty race of shoppers.  We shop for Charmes Chambertin ‘96; truffles, sea grass, and persimmon coulis; cuisine architecture, pairings, presentation, and décor of the best restaurants, and adopt the cultural signifiers of travel, experience, and good judgment. Nothing of real value.



We are frequent theatre-goers, lifetime subscribers to the Kennedy Center, the Met, and MOMA.  We are as bella figura - the Italian art of presentation, looking good, and good taste – as we as Americans can manage; proud of our carriage, sophistication, and comportment.  We are dismissive of television, movies, and popular music, persuaded that there is such a thing as high culture but unable to avoid the low. 



This, of course, is but one slice of the social spectrum; but there are many more – the hip, tonsured, shades-of-gay, cool LA crowd, a step up and beyond the old Hollywood moguls who are now influencers of the new high tech, digital, interactive social community networks.  No Michelin stars, Dior, La Traviata, and lawn tennis for them; but as positive and sun-drenched as any who came before.  It’s just that they prefer high-end burgers with a taste of kitsch, lots of donuts and curly things. 

To say nothing of the Walmart, Family Dollar and Target crowd – the vast, aspiring, market-driven middle who, despite what anyone else thinks, has their own sense of stylish belonging.  The best Bass rods and reels, the newest Ford F-250 truck, enviable gear, and enough money to go around.

There’s the ski crowd, the outdoor crowd, the environmentalists, the global warming naysayers, and the social justice warriors.  The anti-abortion, pro-gun, fundamentalists; the covered dish church Saturday supper crowd; the fiercely regional, anti-government, raw, untutored, haters of the Washington elite.  The black activists, the white Black Lives Matter wannabees.  Country music, hillbilly, rockabilly, blues, jazz, house, Top 40, and alternative rock.  And a thousand more groups, societies, and communities of every possible interest, faith, and persuasion.

None of the early Christian theologians, nor Martin Luther, Kant, Voltaire, Russell, and Kierkegaard; nor an Alexandria Library full of artists, writers, dramatists, and poets; nor Jefferson, Hamilton, and Adams could possibly have imagined today's America.  The most savvy political philosophers of the 18th century might have seen how individualism, the industrial revolution, and a culture of rights would transform the old, European, traditional, hidebound Europe into something as rich and superior; but most would be in awe.  Not so much at the mundane – for, despite the almost unbelievable advances in technology, medicine, and pure science, life seen within these parameters is indeed mundane – but at the lack of the principled foundations that all had envisaged.  Christianity was a religions of Jesus Christ, the remission of sins, salvation, Trinity, and transubstantiation, but it was also a religion of faith, rectitude, secular principle and religious authority.  There was no division between Church and State in the the 2nd and 3rd centuries, only the best of all possible worlds where the secular was subsumed within the holy.  No longer.



The institutional growth of the Church and its geopolitical influence, ambitions, and interventions loosened this unity.  Morality and ethics became secular issues, and render to God and to Caesar took on a whole new interpretation.  The Church was to guide, to educate, and to illustrate; but it no longer was indistinguishable from social life.

The philosophers of the 17h, 18th, and 19th centuries considered this morality and added a particular intellectual dimension – the nature of good and evil, perception and reality, past and present.  However distant they might have been from Church teachings, they nevertheless were focused on the nature of being.

All of which leads to the present state of affairs – a society which has seemingly become unmoored from either the teachings of the early Church, the lessons of moral, political, and existential philosophers, or the admonishments of the prophets of the Enlightenment both in England and in America.  Any society which is so focused on identity – belonging, like-minded camaraderie and companionship, and community reinforcement of fragile, doubtful, but personally ‘meaningful’ beliefs – cannot have much faith in foundations; cannot see the point in academic, archaic notions of human society which have little or no relevance to a hyper-active, hyper-changing world where nothing is permanent, where no one set of principles can possibly apply to all cases, and where religion has only the offer of solace in misery, dying, and death.

Harvey Wellstone was a happy man, an influencer in his tony-but-edgy Hollywood world.  He was at the top of his game, seen everywhere in his signature outfit of short hair, over-sized horn rims, eclectic mix of retro fashion and ultra-modern chic, adding his bit of creativity to gaming, streaming, and online communities.  He was young enough to be able to avoid the confusion and mess of Kant, Nietzsche, and Eusebius; but well-educated enough to know that he could go academic if he chose; but he always thought better of it.  Life was grand as is, and there would be plenty of time later.



Harvey was the perfect 21st century Hollywoodian American – he never cooked but always went out.  Why would one pore over recipes, deconstruct the heavily travaillé and recherche French cuisine of reductions, sauces, and historical tradition? Why bother with cooking in the kitchen when Thai, Laotian, Tibetan, Malian, and Caribbean food was available on every street corner.  Going out was done with a purpose, an exposure, and a fulfillment that putting together raw, organic ingredients never could.

The point was that all of Harvey’s choices were logical and predictable.  He had no sense of or dutiful obligation to anything solid.  There was as little sense to cooking as there was to going back to The Federalist Papers.  Life was to be led in the here and now; within the visible, the immediate, and the out-front imagery, taste, and texture of food, dress, music, and popular culture.

Although Harvey is perhaps the best example of the post-millennial upscale, woke, dank millennial culture; he is not alone.  On the East Coast influencing is political, and belonging has less to do with dress, style, and attitude than commitment.  Commitment to causes and to progress.  Those who fight against global warming, capitalist exploitation, the oppression of minorities, the glass ceiling, gay rights, and the comprehensive making of a truly progressive world all have homes – seminars, conferences, chat rooms, social media groups, brick-and-mortar places for gathering, discussion and greeting. While most believers insist that the outcome of their efforts is what drives them; it is not.  Given the perpetual, cyclical  nature of history, the permanence of human nature, and the inability of any society to become more compassionate, congenial, and loving, it cannot be results which matter.  It can only be belonging.



And the vast middle? Although there hopes and aspirations may not be as attuned either to high pop Hollywood culture or serious East Coast elite angst, it is no difference in aspiration or belief that meaning comes from identity.  We are all the same – image-driven, influencer wannabees, desired, admired, and sought after.

It is too late for America to return to Jefferson, Hamilton, Kant, Augustine, or Clement of Alexandria.  Once we have untied our moorings and set sail alone, there is no going back.  The waters are come what may, and we will take any port in a storm.  We will pay dues to any harbormaster, sailing club, or organization, as long as they will have us.  Some like Harvey will never have to pay dues – people will pay him dues.  Just as he wants to belong and influence, belonging to his club will afford the same camaraderie and influential purpose.  A pyramid scheme that pays off for everyone as long as you don’t get caught at death’s door without a clue.  Then you might well wonder why you wasted so much of your time; but of course it will be too late.