Echoes of Reconstruction: When Sherman’s March Helped Bring a Family Together
Emerging Civil War is pleased to welcome back Patrick Young, author of The Reconstruction Era blog.
When Major General William Tecumsheh Sherman began his March to the Sea on November 15, 1864, many Georgians greeted the Union armies as deliverers from slavery. Nearly 466,000 Georgians were Black, 44% of the total population. Of those, only 3.500 were Free Colored, The rest were slaves. In his new book Somewhere Towards Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation, Benett Parten describes the emancipation of tens of thousands of Georgians during this campaign. In his opening chapter, Parten recounts the story of Sally, a freedwoman, looking for her children in the wake of Sherman’s army.
We know what happened to Sally because of John Potter. He was part of Sherman’s army and after the war he wrote a memoir of his time in the army. He was from Illinois where he was active in campaigning for Lincoln in the 1860 election. After the attack by Confederates on Fort Sumter, Potter enlisted in the 33rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment but his father had his name stricken from the rolls of the regiment because he was too young to enlist on his own. The next year, Potter was able to gain parental consent and in August of 1862 he again enlisted, this time in the 101st Illinois Infantry. The unit was assigned to Grant’s army during the Vicksburg Campaign and then followed Grant to Chattanooga. Next it participated in the Atlanta Campaign.
Potter was in Atlanta when the March to the Sea began. Like many in the Union army, Potter noticed a difference in the attitude of Georgians to the advancing Union army. He wrote in his memoir that “The colored people appreciated our presence, but the disloyal whites, where they presumed to give us an audience at all, looked on us and our operations with grim despair depicted on their countenances.” While many of the white Georgians fled their homes and either went to areas held by Confederate forces or hid themselves in the back country until Sherman’s forces had passed by, Black Georgians welcomed the Northerners. Potter says that “Many of the negroes thought ‘the year of Jubilee had come,’ and struck out and marched to the sea with us.”
A Black couple joined the army at Atlanta. Potter says that; “There was another colored man named Ben, who came to us at Atlanta and drove one of the headquarters teams of the 20th corps.” His wife also found work with the army. “His wife, Sally, cooked for one of the officers,” says Potter.
While Potter did encounter one Black man who stayed “loyal” to his master, all of the other Blacks he met welcomed freedom. Potter recounts that Sally and Ben “had always been slaves, but elated at the thought of freedom, they started out with the army.” Their family had been taken away from them and sold over the previous years. For example, their daughter Nan had been sold more than a decade ago when she was eight years old. They hoped that they would now be free, but also wanted freedom for their kidnapped family members, including Nan. This might have seemed like wishful thinking to the soldiers they told their story to, since Ben and Sally “did not know anything about them” after they were taken away from them.
As the army moved south, Black refugees began to come into the nightly camps that the Union army set up. Potter says that “When the freed men began to flock to our camps, old Aunt Sally would scrutinize them very closely to see if any of them were her children, and inquire for any clue whereby she might hear of them or perchance find them.”
Sally told Potter that Nan was taken away from her and was relocated to “the lower country,” exactly where Sherman’s army was marching towards. She asked so many times for clues as to where her daughter might be that it caught everybody’s attention in the unit. Potter writes that “Her interest and inquiry was so intense that a good many of the soldiers knew about it. I thought, however, as it had been so long, and slaves were bought and sold so frequently and taken from state to state, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.” An eight year old girl might soon forget her parents over the decade when she did not see them, and she might be changed in appearance or have a new name as she grew up making her unrecognizable to her parents.
As the army approached Savannah, a couple came into the Union lines seeking refuge. They said they wanted to “go to Massa Linkum” to help win the war. The husband’s name was Joe. When Joe addressed his wife as “Nan,” a man who heard it went to tell Sally about what how Joe had addressed his wife. Sally was cooking supper for her “mess.” Her informant told her that a couple was camped nearby and that the husband had called his wife Nan.
Sally, Potter writes, “threw down her cooking utensils and raised her hands and said ‘de Lord be praised, I know its her,’ and flew to where they were. Joe, of course, did not have any knowledge of her, and perhaps the girl had forgotten her mother, and as they saw her making toward them they just stared at her and wondered what was the matter. The sight of them checked her somewhat and to assure herself she began to make inquiries about them, ‘[where] dey war from and how long dey [lived] thar.’ Nan said she lived about thar, she reckoned, ’bout ten year. She was born up de country near Atlanta, and when she [was] little her massa had fetched her down thar. The old auntie could not stand it any longer, she just screamed, ‘uan’s is my chile, I knows uan’s is; I’se looked for you all de way down, an’ bless de good Lord, he’s sent uan’s to me.’ The girl, too, recognized her mother and in a little while they were in each others arms, embracing and kissing and shedding of tears, and slapping each other on the back accompanied with joyous screams, raised a commotion in the camp.”
The Union soldiers saw what had happened and they had been hearing every day of Sally’s search for her family, and so they reacted. Potter wrote that “The soldiers, hard as they seemed to be, were wonderfully moved when they knew what it all meant.”
Of course, Sally was not the only parent. Potter described what happened next; “Then Ben came and the scene was repeated, all three hugging together and jumping up and down till they seemed exhausted. It was the most powerful demonstration of human emotion I ever saw; some laughed and others cried as they witnessed these exuberances of joy at finding each other again. Aunty was so nearly overcome that she nearly forgot the supper she had so hastily left. It was scantier than usual and very late, but the officer, when he knew what had detained her and made his supper less in quantity, readily forgave her.”
Ben and Sally were lucky that they found their daughter Nan. Nearly one million Blacks had been sold by their white owners in the years preceding the Civil War, many to new cotton plantations in Mississippi, Arkansas, or Texas. And what happened to Ben and Sally’s other children and other relatives? Many freed slaves spent years trying to find their parents, spouses, children, and siblings. Even as late as the 1920s ads appeared from former slaves looking for relatives they had not seen for sixty years.
In her new book Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families, Judith Giesberg says that chances of finding loved ones separated by slavery were nearly impossible. Did Sally and Ben give up their search at the of the end of war, or did they continue it for the rest of their lives?
While many think that Reconstruction began with Lee’s surrender in April of 1865, it actually began when slavery ended for each individual African American. Then they could begin making decisions that would affect their families for the rest of their lives.
Happy Black History Month.
Sources:
Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families by Judith Giesberg published by Simon and Schuster (2025)
Somewhere Towards Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation by Benett Parten published by Simon and Schuster (2025)
Reminiscences of the Civil War in the United States by John Potter published by The Globe Presses (1897)
Note: in Potter’s memoir I left in the original spelling of Black people’s dialogue contained in the book except where it was difficult for the modern reader to interpret. The changes are in brackets.
moving story, thanks. The suffering experienced by the enslaved is difficult to comprehend. Love the “hope” in the mother that she might find her daughter.
Thanks for your comment.
Excellent recording in real time of aspects of Sherman’s March are found in the later chapters of Mary Chesnut’s diary. In one she recounts how, after Johnson’s surrender, Sherman’s men ransacked her family’s, stealing even their books, letters and other documents along with the silver, paintings and every item of clothing; then burned it to the ground, and stole all her husband’s horses.
Did she write about Sherman’s men liberating her Black enslaved people?
I am always amazed at the Christian forbearance shown by Sherman’s men, and the Union in general. Traitors like the Chesnuts receiving a little….”moderate correction” instead of a noose.
Spoken by a true non-reader. The Federals liberated none of the Chesnuts’ slaves. Not only had they already freed the vast majority of them, but the remainder, as well as the freed ones living on or near their plantations, or in the towns nearby, were terrorized by Federal troops who beat them, looted and burned their homes, stole their horses, mules and farm implements, and raped many of the women. I guess the theory was “We’ll teach those traitors a lesson by raping the women we said we were freeing!”
In one telling instance, Mr. Chesnut’s father established not just a medical clinic, but a summer resort area for elderly or ailing, free or enslaved blacks, and hired nurses to help them. The head nurse was a woman named Myrtilla, whom Mary Chesnut praise as “very good, very sensible, very efficient” and very effective at nursing people back to health. When the Federal swept through town she left with them. Two weeks later, Mary received a letter from Myrtilla, begging her to send a man with a wagon to fetch her back home, so foully abused by the Yankees she had been.
Remember what Confucious said: “He who has never read books but offers opinion, reveals himself to be a stupid, hysterical woman.”
She did not, because she could not. Nearly all had been freed by the Chesnuts years before, who either paid them to work their land or established them in businesses of their own. Those that were still enslaved were terrorized by the Federals; they and the free ones were beaten, their homes looted and burned, their livestock and tools stolen. One of them had to physically protect two of the white women of the house for hours from being raped by Federal officers. A black nurse hired by the elder Mr. Chesnut to care for blacks on their land or in town did depart with Sherman’s troops – and two weeks later wrote to Mary Chesnut begging her to send a man and wagon to bring her home. Gosh, you know – it’s amazing the things you learn if you actually read books.
Eric should reread Chestnut’s writing. Her father and her husband’s father owned hundreds of slaves in both Mississippi and South Carolina. Mary reports that her father in law raped his female slaves.
I have read CHESnut’s writing, as demonstrated by all the corrections I’ve made of flatulent beliefs in this post. I think you should read her writing – perhaps you’d learn to correctly spell her name.
Heather Williams’ “Help Me Find My People” is about the search by the newly freed people for the children and other relatives sold away from them during slavery. It’s quite moving. The reunions were sometimes silent at first, the miracle of reunion too great for words.
Yes, I read that back in 2012. Good book.
Uncertain what Mr. Schafer’s post had to do with this article. But, to continue in that vein; the Chestnuts(slave-holding traitors who hated everything the Founding Fathers fought & died for) deserved everything they got from Sherman’s troops. As a native South Carolinian I’ve wondered how many white folks like me would have enjoyed life on a cotton plantation in June-Sept; working dawn to dusk, for no pay, in brutal heat & humidity, poor food, horrible housing and frequently abusive “masters”. The Chestnuts and everyone like them should have been tried for treason & hung. Worthless plantation idiots who were too damn lazy & shiftless to pick their own cotton & tobacco. And before someone starts yelping about “woke liberals”(how utterly tiresome and uninventive) I’m a born & bred Southerner; proud as hell of South Carolina’s amazing Rev War history. Slavery & the Confederacy were an abomination.
Uncertain why Mr. Crossin, who clearly has never read a book about the Civil War – and by the shape of his spelling, probably any book – is posting here, but like any fire, histrionics have to be sprayed – be it with flame retardant foam or urine. Even more clearly, he never read Mary Chesnut’s diary – or he’d know exactly what her politics, patriotism, and views on slavery were – he’d got all three dead wrong. But to clear up his confusion first, as Mary Chesnut and her husband were Southerners and landowners, well, books about Reconstruction concern them. This is the problem with 21st century virtue signalers foaming at the mouth in order to attempt to make themselves feel better by attempting to get others to think kindly of them. Somehow, he grew up in South Carolina yet doesn’t know that only 7% of Southerners owned slaves, that the tobacco and cotton agriculture and the slaves to pick it was started by the English and New Englanders, that to its last breath – in the North, eight months after the Civil War ended – slavery enriched bankers, financiers and mill owners in the North far more than it did anyone in the South, nor has he ever read the Constitution; had he done so, he’d realize no one in the Southern Confederacy was a traitor. It cannot go without being said that he clearly has never read a book about the post-war treason trials because…oh jeez!…there is no such book, because no one, not even the President of the Confederacy, was tried for treason. Last, had he read any book on the war, he’d have learned that six slave states remained in the Union during the war…slavery intact. That’s the thing about mouth-foamers – they only scream about the (heavily-distorted) facts that suit them, and ignore the facts that don’t. That is what dishonesty and hypocrisy are all about.
Finally, it’s sad to see he supports war crimes. Actions highly questionable under the law during war are outright crimes after it; you cannot burn people’s homes and steal their property after a war has ended. But that brings us back to his failure to read any books on this topic: Not just the Chesnuts – that’s one T, not two – but thousands of other whites and blacks wrote about how Federal troops not only burned the homes and stole the property of whites, but that they burned the homes, stole the property, and raped and murdered blacks as well. The Chesnuts in particular had freed nearly all their slaves, and helped them build or buy homes, establish businesses, own horses and mules – and these were burned, robbed and looted too. Apparently, those crusading knights of the North were purely colorblind when it came to crime.
War crimes, Mr. Schafer? And exactly how do you refer to Jubal Early’s burning of Chambersburg? And how do you “square” your diatribe(s) with Ms. Chesnut’s very own admission that her father-in-law was a rapist? Of course that’s not at all Ms. Chesnut’s fault or frankly, even problem But it sure seems to speak to my earlier reference to plantation owners as lazy, slave-owning scum who were(again) too damn lazy to pick their own cotton or tobacco. I guess they were just a bit too busy flitting around Miss Scarlett on Tara’s front porch to actually work. Thank goodness for them they were able to persuade under-educated, illiterate Southern boys to go do their fighting for them; since the great majority of Confederate soldiers owned no slaves themselves. From the sorry as hell plantation owners aspect; pretty good hustle when you can get away with it. Your far-right approach to every single solitary issue on the blog is mighty wearisome.
And…this is the problem with people who are interested in the Civil War, yet are non-readers. You think everyone in the South owned slaves and raped all the women and walked with their knuckles dragging on the ground, and everyone lived like Scarlett O’Hara on plantations like Tara. And it’s easy to see why – you’re too lazy to do the necessary reading on American history, law, politics, economics, industry, agriculture, society and culture from the colonial days up through the beginning of the 20th century, so you rely on myths, lies and cliches. Facts are brutal: Only 7% of Southerners owned slaves, so the Scarletts were greatly in the minority. Read several hundred books – you’ll see. And elsewhere in this thread there was a wild-eyed, mouth-foaming claim that Mary Chesnut had written that her father-in-law “raped hundreds of his slaves.” Well…that’s a lie. First, Chesnut, Sr. never owned “hundreds of slaves.” And what Mary actually wrote was that some slave owners fathered children by their slaves – not that her father-in-law did so, nor that he raped any; and this matter certainly did not occur with her husband or on their two plantations.
The Truth – it’s a powerful thing. Sadly, there are those out there too bigoted and too lazy to actually seek it out.