Not much has been written about General William Tecumseh Sherman’s march from Vicksburg, Mississippi to Meridian, Mississippi in early 1864. Buck T. Foster analyzes Sherman’s Mississippi campaign here. According to Foster, other books, like Marjorie Bearss’ Sherman’s Forgotten Campaign (1987), Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones’ How the North Won the War (1983), and Mark Grimsley’s The Hard Hand of War (1995), do not go into as much detail about this particular campaign as he does. Most biographies on Sherman, according to the author, barely mention this campaign. Foster says - and shows - that this particular campaign was very important in Sherman’s development of his style of conducting war. This campaign would influence how he would conduct his campaigns from Atlanta to the Atlantic coast (the March to the Sea) and his Carolinas campaign in 1865, which helped to end the Civil War.

Sherman and General Ulysses S. Grant came to the realization that a new style of warfare was needed to end the War as soon as possible. The Union had until then followed the old method of respecting the property of civilians. Grant and Sherman realized that they needed to break the Southern civilians’ support of the Confederate war effort. Once they did that, the Confederacy could be defeated sooner and more lives saved. As the War was being conducted by the Union up to this point, the War would otherwise have gone on for years and many more lives would have been lost. They decided to wage all-out war on the Confederacy, confiscating or destroying public and private property, but civilians were not to be personally harmed unless they were a threat to the Union. Foster’s book shows how this new way of fighting the War helped to change the direction the War was heading, to where it would end sooner with the Union the victor. It also influenced the way future wars were conducted in other countries.

Sherman and General Ulysses S. Grant came to the realization that a new style of warfare was needed to end the War as soon as possible. The Union had until then followed the old method of respecting the property of civilians. Grant and Sherman realized that they needed to break the Southern civilians’ support of the Confederate war effort. Once they did that, the Confederacy could be defeated sooner and more lives saved. As the War was being conducted by the Union up to this point, the War would otherwise have gone on for years and many more lives would have been lost. They decided to wage all-out war on the Confederacy, confiscating or destroying public and private property, but civilians were not to be personally harmed unless they were a threat to the Union. Foster’s book shows how this new way of fighting the War helped to change the direction the War was heading, to where it would end sooner with the Union the victor. It also influenced the way future wars were conducted in other countries.

This book is very readable, not too academic for general readers. It has several easy-to-read maps throughout the book. There are no illustrations, but endnotes, a huge bibliography that includes primary and secondary sources, and an index are included. Foster quotes from Confederate and Union military and civilian sources throughout the book. Sherman’s Mississippi Campaign is highly recommended to Civil War enthusiasts and those interested in General Sherman.

Dr. Buck T. Foster is a history professor at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Perkinston, Mississippi. He earned his Ph.D. in history from Mississippi State University, Starkville, and his dissertation has been turned into this book. He is also a book reviewer and has contributed articles to the ABC-CLIO Encyclopedia of the American Civil War (2000).