General Sherman's Christmas: Savannah, 1864 - Hardcover

Weintraub, Stanley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061702986 ISBN 13: 9780061702983

Publisher: Smithsonian Books, 2009

Synopsis

Relates the story of the end of the siege of Savannah, led by General William T. Sherman, after which the general "gave" President Lincoln the city as a Christmas gift, in a book by the best-selling author of Silent Night that explores what the holiday was like that year, from a regiment serenading the general to the significance to former slaves of being freed so close to the holiday. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

From the author of the bestselling Silent Night comes a close look at the embattled holiday season of 1864, when Major General W. T. Sherman gave President Lincoln the city of Savannah and paved the way for the end of the Civil War.

General Sherman's Christmas opens on Thanksgiving Day 1864. Sherman was relentlessly pushing his troops nearly three hundred miles across Georgia in his "March to the Sea," to reach Savannah just days before Christmas. His methodical encroachment of the city from all sides eventually convinced Confederate general W. J. Hardee, who had refused a demand for surrender of his troops, to slip away in darkness across an improvised causeway and escape to South Carolina. In freezing rain and through terrifying fog, equipment-burdened soldiers crossed a hastily built pontoon bridge spanning the mile-wide Savannah River.

Three days before Christmas, the mayor, Richard Arnold, surrendered the city, now populated mostly by women, children, and the slaves who had not fled. General Sherman then telegraphed to Abraham Lincoln, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah with 150 heavy guns & plenty of ammunition & also about 25.000 bales of cotton."

The fight for Savannah took place as its inhabitants were anxiously preparing for Christmas. Weintraub explores how Christmas was traditionally fêted in the South and what remained of the holiday to celebrate during the waning last full year of the war. Illustrated with striking period prints, General Sherman's Christmas captures the voices of soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict, as they neared the end of a long war.

About the Author:

Stanley Weintraub is a historian, biographer, and professor emeritus of arts and humanities at Pennsylvania State University, as well as the author of Silent Night and General Washington's Christmas.
Ed Sala, an actor and a writer, has won numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards for his audiobook narrations, including one for Finn by Jon Clinch, and his performance of White Doves at Morning by James Lee Burke was selected by AudioFile as one of the fifteen best audiobooks of the year.

About this edition

• Publisher: Smithsonian Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0061702986
• ISBN 13: 9780061702983
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 238