Major General William T. Sherman entered Meridian in a chilling Sunday afternoon rainstorm on St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 1864, at the head of two full army corps (over 23,000) of battle-hardened Union veterans, mostly farm boys from the Midwest. The blue troops, completing a twelve-day march from Vicksburg, met only light opposition from rear-guard cavalry, as General Leonidas Polk's Rebel army had retreated to Demopolis without giving battle. By the time Sherman's men broke camp for the return march at daybreak on Saturday, the 20th, Meridian was a smoldering ruin. Sherman reported to Washington that "Meridian, with its depots, store-houses, arsenal, hospitals, offices, hotels, and cantonments no longer exists."
Historians have speculated that Sherman's cruel application of what came to be known as "total war," first extensively utilized by him during the Meridian Campaign, may have resulted from the unbearable grief and resulting depression he suffered because of the death of his nine year old son, Willie, in October, 1863. Sherman undoubtedly blamed himself for bringing his family to Vicksburg, where Willie had contracted the deadly yellow fever that killed him, and he may also have blamed Mississippi and the south in general for his son's untimely death.
General Sherman's official report of The Meridian Campaign appears in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Reports and orders of Polk's Confederate army also are published there. Sherman's Memoirs, written after the war, also are available online.
A first-hand account of the Meridian Campaign as seen through the eyes of one Yankee soldier may be accessed here: Albert Underwood Civil War Diary. Albert S. Underwood was a member of the 9th Indiana Light Artillery, one of Sherman's Federal units which conquered and laid waste to Meridian in February, 1864. Follow this link to see a full month-long chronology of Sherman's devastating Meridian Campaign of February, 1864.
The civilian Confederate viewpoint is represented in contemporary accounts as well. The March 27, 1864 issue of The New York Times (then a relatively minor newspaper) carried a remarkable first-hand account of the occupation penned by a woman resident of the stricken Confederate town. This Meridian lady (identified only by her initials) gave a vivid description of the destruction in a letter to her mother in Mobile written only eight days after Sherman left town. As was customary for that day, the letter was widely-circulated as war news, apparently reprinted in various Southern newspapers, and eventually published for Northern readership as well. Reprinted below, in its entirety, is one woman's personal story of how war and desolation came to her own Meridian doorstep 140 years ago.
MERIDIAN, Sunday, Feb. 28, 1864
My Dear Mamma:As one of our neighbors goes down to Mobile to-morrow, I will send you a few lines to let you know how we came out in this "terrible raid." My husband left here at 10 o'clock A.M., as guide to Gen. Polk. The Yankees came in at 4 P.M. in full force. They skirmished a little in our front yard, which frightened us very much. The small portion of our servants went away with my husband, so no one remained with me but Violetta, Louisa, Lucinda, my mother-in-law and three children.
After the skirmishing stopped, the mob ran around going into houses, breaking open doors, trunks, locks &c. tearing up and destroying everything they could. Caught all the chickens in the place in half an hour. I begged for my things, and saved nearly everything; for while I was talking to the part of the mob who entered my house, I sent Mother off to look up some of the Generals, and try to get a guard, telling them I was being run over. General Hurlbut gave us a guard. Only five men entered my house, and demanded my keys. I took some time to get them, showing a willingness, told them I hoped they would not take my clothes. They said no: they only wanted all arms and gold and silver I had. I told them they might have all of both they could find, but I had none. They searched the bureau drawers and trunk before the guard arrived. One man ran up the stairs and took three sacks of flour and three or four blankets, and was moving off with them just as the guard came who made them return the blankets and pretended to go off for the flour but that was never returned. The guard stayed all night, Sunday and Monday.
General Leggett and staff came and asked me for all the house room I could give them. I knew it was only a demand and granted it; so I only occupied two rooms, and Mother kept her own room. I did my cooking in one of my rooms, as I had already moved into the house all the cooking utensils, coffee mill, in fact even the axe. I by that means saved them all. I met the general and told him that I, three little children and one old mother-in-law claimed his protection. He answered, "I will take care of you, madam, as long as I am here." I said "I hear all Meridian is to be burned down; will my house be burned, too?" "I hope not, Madam." We then passed a few more words, when I took the children back into my room.
Brig. Gen. Mortimer D. Leggett
I did not see the general any more till the next day when I met him in the passage. He was very pleasant. One of his officers asked me where my husband was, I told him he left on Sunday. He asked if I was a Southerner. I replied, "Yes, a genuine Southerner, and had never been in a Northern state." He said, "You take everything very cooly." I said, "I try to, but I find it very hard to do, as I am frightened all the time." He said, "You need not be, as you shall not be disturbed."
All of the children were questioned very closely but got on finely. Mary said just what she pleased. Told them she did not like Yankees. One of the Captains told her if she would only go home with him, she would not be in any more war. She replied, "No: I am a rebel, and I do not want to be with the Yankees."
Our store was burned to the ground, and so was another one of our new houses. My two milch cows were killed, and every one in the town; and for eight or ten miles around all cattle and horses. Our horse was not at home. The printing office and all public buildings were burned up, and Mr. Ragsdale's Hotel, Terrill's and the Burton House.
All the railroad is torn up, both up and down for miles and all the ties burned and the iron bent and destroyed. Oh, such destruction! I do not believe you or anyone else would know the place. There's not a fence in Meridian. I have not one rail left. Some of the ladies about town have but one bed left, and but one or two quilts. Mrs. McElroy, (her son is Colonel in our army) has not one thing left, except what she and her daughter ran out of the house with, on their backs -- just one dress. The soldiers told me when I asked them the reason she was done so, that Mrs. McElroy and her daughter had insulted an officer and a private the day her house was burned down. Ragsdale, her son-in-law, brought her here, and asked me to take care of them. I went out in the passage and encountered the General, and told him what Ragsdale had asked of me. He said, "If you do, your house will be burned in an hour, for I cannot prevent it." So I had I to tell them that I could not take them.
I could not write you of everything. If I were to it would consume the whole day; but I can tell you that I got on better than any other lady in Meridian, and I will say that the general and officers who stayed at my house acted the gentlemen to me; but I could not, would not go through what I have, again, for all that is in Meridian.
Mrs.___ was grossly insulted; Mrs. D. was cursed blue; but you must send her folks down there word she is still alive. Mr. Taylor, her uncle, has not a second change, or any of his family. I did not lose a particle of clothing and only those things that I have mentioned. My groan girl, Violetta, got ready to go, but as good fortune would have it, I had heard an officer express himself of slavery, so I went to him, and got him to scare it out of her. I was lucky, so many negroes went from about here. All of Mr. McElmore's, Semmes and Dr. Johnston's -- he had but two old ones -- all are gone.
Two Army Corps were here with Gens. Sherman, Hurlbut, McPherson, and Leggett. Mother has been sick since the Yankees left. How glad I am that I did not get sick. No one need want to be with the Yankees even for a few days. They staid here from Sunday until Saturday morning, and it appeared like a month.
I have no time to write more: will write again soon.
Love to all.Your daughter
S.E.P.B.
[NOTE: The Federal general quartered in this lady's home was Brigadier General Mortimer D. Leggett, commanding the Third Division of Major General James B. McPherson's Seventeenth Army Corps of Sherman's army. Major General Stephen A. Hurlbut, also mentioned, commanded Sherman's other corps, the Sixteenth. Leggett survived the war, as did Hurlbut and Sherman. McPherson was killed a few months later during the Atlanta Campaign, as was the Confederate commander, Leonidas Polk.]
The Emancipation Proclamation announced by Abraham Lincoln nominally had taken effect on January 1, 1863, but it was not until the week of Valentines in 1864 that freedom first came to Meridian's blacks. Confederate General Stephen D. Lee estimated that 8,000 slaves from all across central Mississippi left with the Federal army, while Union officials estimated the number at 5,000. Sherman, who had lived in the South before the war and was himself no abolitionist, did not encourage them; the hungry and homeless black throngs trekking in his army's wake posed serious problems. But as the letter-writer herself makes clear, despite whatever delusions their white masters may have held as to the loyalties of their servants, Mississippi's black men and women would not willingly remain in slavery when the reality of freedom finally beckoned. Thousands left their bondage and eagerly followed a Union army that really didn't want them to come along. An account of Emancipation in Meridian was published in the February 15, 2004 issue of The Meridian Star.
Only four homes remained standing in Meridian when Sherman departed; even the house where he himself had headquartered (situated on the southeast corner of today's 7th Street and 27th Avenue) was burned to the ground. During the year that followed Sherman would repeat the destruction perfected here throughout much of Georgia and the Carolinas. An early practitioner of total war, Sherman was unrepentant: "War is cruelty," he said. "There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."
In foreshadowing the terrible work yet before him, the man who had annihilated Meridian grimly mused: 'Three years ago, by a little reflection and patience, they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late. All the powers of earth cannot return to them their slaves, any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken; for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives."
Is it any wonder that many years passed before local citizens again would celebrate with "hearts and flowers" on St. Valentine's Day -- that fateful day in 1864 when Sherman for the first time in three years unfurled the Stars and Stripes over a prostrate Meridian, and a way of life ended forever?
