By 1864, the Confederacy was struggling.

Tens of thousands of soldiers were killed.

Its defenses were weakened, and its access to supplies was limited.

Sensing the South's vulnerability, Union forces prepared a bold plan that would strike at the very center of Georgia.

What followed first in the Atlanta Campaign and then in the March to the Sea, would reshape the course of the Civil War and change Georgia forever.

(upbeat music) (paper rustling) Union Military Commander, General William Sherman, sought to help end the Civil War by destroying vital military supplies and infrastructure, which would disrupt the Confederacy's trade routes, and war efforts.

So he set his eyes on Atlanta, a key transportation and supply center for the Confederacy.

Because the city was the South's main railroad hub, Sherman knew that destroying Atlanta's rail lines would stop weapons and supplies from traveling in or out of the region.

So in May, 1864, he launched the Atlanta Campaign.

For the next four and a half months, the Union Army carried out a series of assaults against the Confederates as they worked to take control of the city.

Confederate forces fought hard to hold their ground, but Union troops steadily advanced.

With each battle, Sherman tightened the pressure aiming to cut off supply lines and force the city's surrender.

By early September, 1864, Union forces finally captured Atlanta, delivering a major blow to the Confederacy and boosting Northern morale.

With the city in his control, Sherman turned his attention and his soldiers to Savannah.

As his troops departed, Atlanta was set on fire, leaving much of the city in ashes.

In the fall of 1864, Sherman began his infamous March to the Sea, aiming to bring the war to a swift end through the control and destruction of Georgia.

[Narrator] It was a scene repeated again and again on the March to the Sea.

Sherman's men wiped out property from Atlanta to Savannah on a path up to 60 miles wide and 300 miles long.

They destroyed many Southerners' will to fight, especially when rebel soldiers on the front lines got word of what was happening back home.

- I snatch a moment to advise you of the destruction committed by the enemy here.

Many of us are utterly ruined.

Hundreds of our people or without anything to eat.

- We didn't have no hogs.

We have no chickens.

Your children are hungry.

What are you gonna do about it?

And when you get a letter like that, there's something very, very basic involved.

You gotta go home.

[Narrator] There are reports that Sherman spared beautiful homes like these along the way, but you won't find the town of Griswoldville outside of Macon on any map today.

The pistol factory there turned out this Navy Colt Revolver, one of the best of that era.

So Sherman had the whole torched never to be rebuilt.

- He did over $250,000 worth of damage just to Mr.

Griswold's property.

He did $20 million worth of damage in Jones County.

He did $100 million dollars worth of damage in the state of Georgia.

$80 million of that was pure waste in his own words.

- Fire!

[Narrator] Griswoldville will be remembered as the site of the only major battle of the March to the Sea, a battle which turned out to be both tragic and senseless.

By some accounts, the Confederate commander had been drinking all day.

He defied orders to avoid a fight because his men outnumbered theirs two to one, but his troops were made up of amateurs, boys too young, men too old to be in the real Army.

And the Union forces were armed with new superior repeating rifles.

The rebel soldiers were slaughtered.

- These men were untried and untrained.

They were going against some of the best infantry that the United States Army had at that point in time.

The tragedy of it was the entire affair could have been avoided.

(upbeat drum music) [Narrator] The Union soldiers literally cried when they saw who their victims were.

These words were written by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Wills.

[Charles] I was never so affected at the sight of dead and wounded before, old gray haired and weakly looking men and little boys, not over 15 years old, lay dead writhing in pain.

I hope we will never have to shoot at such men again.

They knew nothing at all about fighting, and I think their officers knew as little.

- Sherman's strategy was brutal, but effective.

During the March to the Sea, Union soldiers burned buildings and factories, looted supplies, and even took civilians' valuables as treasures.

When Sherman and his troops reached Savannah, the city quickly surrendered not wanting to face the same fate as Atlanta.

General Sherman even wrote to President Lincoln, offering Savannah as the President's Christmas gift.

Though Sherman's Atlanta Campaign and March to the Sea left much of Georgia in ruins, his strategy forced a turning point in the war.

One that sped the collapse of the Confederacy and shaped how Georgia and the nation would rebuild.

(upbeat music)