The Savannah Campaign
According to Civil War Historian Anne J. Bailey, the Savannah Campaign was “the most destructive campaign against a civilian population during the Civil War (1861-65)” and is significant because it incorporated psychological warfare (2002). The campaign began in November of 1864 and lasted a little over a month. In this campaign, General William Sherman of the Union Army took his troops across Georgia to the Atlantic Ocean (Bailey 2002). By the time Sherman began his “March to the Sea” as the Savannah Campaign is often called, the Confederate Army of Tennessee had moved to Alabama. This left Georgia unprotected. According to Bailey, Sherman split his 600,000 troops into two wings. One wing marched toward Macon Georgia and the other wing marched toward Augusta Georgia. They stayed relatively close together and then merged and began marching toward Georgia’s capitol, Milledgeville. All that was left of the Confederate troops in Georgia was a small 8000 man Calvary. Milledgeville surrendered to Sherman who took over the governor’s mansion and the state capitol building. Then Sherman turned his sites on Savannah Georgia. The Confederate troop leaders in Savannah feared Sherman’s advance and retreated to South Carolina. Savannah surrendered to Sherman’s troops (2002). Gabriel Rains
Gabriel James Rains was a native of North Carolina. He became a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army and his expertise was bombs. Rains invented a mine that exploded when a wire was tripped or someone stepped on the mine. When Rains was working for the Torpedo Bureau he created torpedoes that were laced along the harbors in Savannah (Civil War Interactive 2013). The Union Army won the Savannah Campaign decidedly but Rains’ work did slow down Union troops. According to historian Peggy Robbins even though the Confederates lost Savannah, Rains was important to Confederate troops for morale reasons and was much lauded by his superior officers. Later he and his brother George Rains, who also worked with weapons, would be described fondly by Confederates “as ‘the Bomb Brothers’ for their creation and use of land mines, torpedoes, booby traps, and other explosives” (2002). At times Confederate troops would dump barrels into their harbors in hopes that Union vessels would fear the barrels were actually bombs and retreat. Robbins notes that in a report from the U.S. Navy the author contended that “The torpedo service of the Confederacy probably contributed more to its defense by far than all the vessels of the Confederate Navy" (2002). Robbins concludes that this report coincides with her deduction that Gabriel Rains possessed clear goals when he created his mining strategy (2002). The Importance of Gabriel Rains to the Savannah Campaign The actions of Gabriel Rains had little effect as far as determining the movements of the Union foot troops. However, his mines in the harbors did make the campaign land-based because Union ships were hesitant to enter Savannah’s harbor. When the Civil War began, there was no protection against a Union marine invasion. Union ships could not only breach the Southern harbors but also enter their rivers. Confederates worked on different weapons to attack the Union ships but it was Gabriel Rains who invented the "Rains Patent" which could be used on land and sea (Robbins 2002). The mines and torpedoes that Rains developed were mostly used for defense during the Savannah Campaign. The bombs had a psychological impact on Union troops who claimed that the use of this type of weapon was unethical. According to Robbins, even some Confederate officers complained that the use of these mines was immoral. However, Rains’ mine-oriented warfare was sanctioned by the Confederate Congress, the Torpedo Bureau, and the South’s War Department (2002). Gabriel Rains Contributions to the Savannah Campaign It is interesting how significant psychology was to these battles and campaigns. Sherman had marched across Georgia to show the civilians there that they could not withstand the Union advance. While Rains’ bombs definitely killed and maimed countless men there was a psychological element to their use as well. The Confederates placed miscellaneous items in rivers and harbors in hopes the Union troops would see them and fear they were bombs. This strategy apparently worked because according to Robbins Union troops were warning each other and their officers about sightings of bombs up to “2,000 pounds in size” in various bodies of water (2002). The bombs were reportedly as small as lumps of coal, the size of barrels, or huge depending on the story. Author Roland puts forth several propositions about war technology. One of his propositions states that “technology, more than any other outside force, shapes warfare; and, conversely, war (not warfare) shapes technology” (2009). Roland goes on to elaborate about military technology during the modern period –that period beginning with the Civil War. Since the Civil War technology has been the central factor in warfare. Every new technology, once it proves efficiently destructive, influences the war, warfare, and military campaigns. This is evidenced by the discussion of Gabriel Rains and his harbor mining system. Rains was not present, sometimes the harbors and rivers did not even have mines in them (or at least active mines), yet their impact was horrible to both body and mind. The idea of mines, bombs, and torpedoes coming without an enemy anywhere in sight was unnerving and terrifying. As Roland has concluded, “Modern military technology is not different in kind, but in degree” (2009). Today’s war technology characterizes the war and warfare. In today’s wars the technology is essentially the same in use and intent, but there is so much more of it; it is used seemingly without much discussion about its ethics; and it is so much more destructive. The Effect of Scientific Knowledge on War Then and Today: War Technology Military historian James Maten asserts that the science and technology invented during the Civil War classifies it as the “first ‘modern’ war” because the technology developed then effected all subsequent wars (2012). Later wars were more destructive and the damage more extensive because of the attitudes that developed during the Civil War about the use of war technology. Another military historian, Alex Roland, write about war technology. In one of his articles he makes the unnerving observation that “Military technology often seems to be the dark side of innovation” (2009). He is referring to the injuries and killings of people by an enemy in absentia. Inanimate objects, war technology, kill soldiers and civilians alike. During the Civil War expressed opinions about how using bombs and mines was unethical. It is not honorable in the classic sense of war not to look one’s enemy in the eye when trying to kill him. The idea of the Civil War as simultaneously an old-fashioned war and a modern war has been posited by Steven Dutch, a science professor at the University of Wisconsin. Dutch contrasts Southern ideas about old word chivalry with the war technology they developed, for example, submarines. Largely unsuccessful, these vessels range up to 40 feet long and carried up to eight men. They were steam-powered and armed with torpedoes. The submarine would manage the torpedo on a long pole and ram it into an enemy ship. These submarines sunk often but they did sink enemy vessels. Unfortunately, for the sailors in the submarine they would succeed in destroying the enemy ship and themselves at the same time (1998). While these scholars make a good argument for the Civil War being the first modern war, the horror and scale of war technology during World War II (especially the atomic bombs) stands in stark contrast to land and sea mines. Today jets, rockets, satellites, and drones are commonplace in military maneuvers. The ethical and moral implication of dropping the atomic bombs, especially on a civilian population, was debated then and has been debated since in numerous books and articles. However, there does not seem much debate today about launching weapons from far away to devastate enemy troops and too often civilians. Roland cites President Dwight Eisenhower, a military man, who called the United States military-industrial complex “a perpetual arms race, not necessarily with any particular enemy” (2009). Today countries focus on amassing weapons and the creation of weapon technology for the sheer sake of inventing new weapons that are more destructive. The Civil War began with pitched battles. These were usually at pre-arranged locations. The soldiers were close together, often in formation, and the battles were brutal. Sometimes spectators from the area would come to watch the battles. By the time the Civil War ended there were torpedoes, bombs, and mines set off by enemies that remained secreted or were no longer even in the area (Dutch 1998). The reasons that the South lost the war have been debated among scholars for many years. Some claim that the South was prepared for war only in a romantic sense, when they seceded and began the fight they held tight to notions of chivalry and valor. Other views cite Southern commanders as having a penchant for attacking when they should have been defending. The North was far more industrialized and there were four times as many citizens in the North as there were in the South. The South seceded, an act of aggression, but was in defensive position from the start. While there has been a focus in this paper on the accomplishments of the war technology developed by Gabriel Rains, Rains’ success must be contextualized by understanding that 97% of the weapons manufactured in the Unites States during this period were made in the North. Additionally the North produced 94% of the nation’s iron (Dutch 1998). Bailey contends that the "war of words was far more devastating to the Southern nation than the actual events along his route" (2002). Here she is referring to Sherman’s March to the Sea aka the Savanah Campaign. Georgia epitomized the Southern attitude, especially prevalent in rural areas, that they were far removed from any actual fighting and would remain so. However, the closer Sherman got to Savannah, the more the people’s confidence in an easy victory for the Confederacy became shaken. Bailey paints a portrait of Savannah residents who changed from confident to terrorized over a very short period of time (2002). By the time Sherman arrived in Savannah the once smug residents surrendered immediately. Bailey’s account includes a strange scenario in which she describes the residents’ there holding celebrations after Sherman and his troops arrived because they did not burn down buildings and destroy farms. Apparently, Sherman even permitted committed Confederates to remain in Savannah. Physical destruction had not been his goal when marching through Georgia. His goal has been to terrorize the people of Savannah psychologically, in hopes that they would transmit that terror to the Confederate troops who were fighting around the South (Bailey 2002). Conclusion By the time the Civil War ended, over 2,000 of Rains’ mines had been used against Union troops. Ironically, Rains went to live in Savanah Georgia for a while after the war. Later he lived in Atlanta and then Charleston where he worked as a US Army Clerk. The South settled into Reconstruction, a period in U.S. History almost as terrible as the Civil War. Reconstruction witnessed the assassination of President Lincoln, carpetbaggers, the institutionalization of Black Codes, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Savannah experienced all of these things plus an influx of freed slaves and deprivation. Because the city was not in ruins, it was able to bounce back quicker than other locations in the South. Soon it took its place as an exporter of cotton (Heidler and Heidler 2002).
Works Cited
Bailey, Anne. “Sherman’s March to the Sea.” New Georga Encyclopedia. (2002).Dutch, Steven. “The First Modern War And the Last Ancient War.” University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. (1998). Coulter, E M. "Sherman and the South." North Carolina Historical Review. 8.1 (1931). Civil War Interactive. “A Civil War Biography: Gabriel James Rains.” (2013).Heidler, David Stephen, Heidler, Jeanne T. and James M. McPherson. “Gabriel Rains.” Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History. (2002).Marten, James. “How Technology Shaped the Civil War.” Civil War Innovations. (2012). Robbins, Peggy. “The Confederacy’s Bomb Brothers.” Journal of Mine Action. (1998). Roland, Alex. “War and Technology.” The Newsletter of FPRI’s Wachman Center. (2009).
