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Book Summary and Reviews of Southern Storm by Noah Andre Trudeau

Southern Storm by Noah Andre Trudeau

Southern Storm

Sherman's March to the Sea

by Noah Andre Trudeau

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  • Published:
  • Aug 2008, 688 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Award-winning Civil War historian Noah Andre Trudeau has written a gripping, definitive new account that will stand as the last word on General William Tecumseh Sherman's epic march—a targeted strategy aimed to break not only the Confederate army but an entire society as well. With Lincoln's hard-fought reelection victory in hand, Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union forces, allowed Sherman to lead the largest and riskiest operation of the war. In rich detail, Trudeau explains why General Sherman's name is still anathema below the Mason-Dixon Line, especially in Georgia, where he is remembered as "the one who marched to the sea with death and devastation in his wake."

Sherman's swath of destruction spanned more than sixty miles in width and virtually cut the South in two, badly disabling the flow of supplies to the Confederate army. He led more than 60,000 Union troops to blaze a path from Atlanta to Savannah, ordering his men to burn crops, kill livestock, and decimate everything that fed the Rebel war machine. Grant and Sherman's gamble worked, and the march managed to crush a critical part of the Confederacy and increase the pressure on General Lee, who was already under siege in Virginia.

Told through the intimate and engrossing diaries and letters of Sherman's soldiers and the civilians who suffered in their path, Southern Storm paints a vivid picture of an event that would forever change the course of America.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"The march to the sea was in many ways "the day of jubilo," and in Trudeau it has found its Xenophon." - Publishers Weekly Pick of the Week.

"Civil War enthusiasts will appreciate Trudeau's careful attention to detail, while general readers may wish for a more vivid, cut-to-the-chase version of events." - Kirkus Reviews.

"Trudeau has written a sprawling and mesmerizing account of "the March" that reminds the reader that General Sherman had no intention of waging a 'total war' against Confederate Georgia but instead hoped to make any continuance of the rebellion within its borders so unpalatable to its populace that the state government would regard a return to the Union as the lesser of two evils." - Library Journal.

This information about Southern Storm was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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