Preview
  • General Sherman's Christmas

  • Savannah, 1864
  • By: Stanley Weintraub
  • Narrated by: Ed Sala
  • Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (25 ratings)

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General Sherman's Christmas

By: Stanley Weintraub
Narrated by: Ed Sala
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Publisher's summary

General Sherman's Christmas opens on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 24, 1864, one month before Christmas. Sherman was relentlessly pushing his troops across Georgia, reaching Savannah days before Christmas. His methodical encroachment of the city from all sides eventually convinced Confederate general W. J. Hardee to slip away in darkness across an improvised causeway toward South Carolina to the north. In freezing rain and terrifying fog, soldiers with their equipment crossed an improvised pontoon bridge across the mile-wide Savannah River.

Three days before Christmas, the mayor, Richard Arnold, surrendered the city, populated now mostly by women and children and slaves who had not fled. Then General Sherman telegraphed to Abraham Lincoln, "I beg to present you as a Christmas-gift the city of Savannah." The end of the long war was in sight.

The siege of Savannah took place as its inhabitants were preparing for Christmas, and Stanley Weintraub explores what remained of the holiday in the South by the last full year of the war. On Christmas Eve, the 33rd Massachusetts Regiment band serenaded Sherman and "a constant stream" of freed slaves filed by the house he had taken over for his headquarters. That he had come at Christmas was immensely symbolic to them.

Including the voices of soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict, General Sherman's Christmas is the perfect holiday present for the history buff.

©2009 Stanley Weintraub (P)2009 Tantor
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
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Editorial reviews

This work of popular history is a splendid account of William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea" during the Civil War. Famous to Northerners and infamous to Southerners, the march and subsequent capture of Savannah took place in November-December 1864, just before Christmas. Narrator Ed Sala's easygoing style helps moderate Weintraub's descriptions of the cost to civilians and soldiers alike as Sherman's Army looted and burned its way from Atlanta to Savannah, while pursued by Confederate troops who did the same. Sala's Midwestern accent and almost-conversational delivery help listeners imagine themselves living this moment in history.

Critic reviews

"Beautiful, brutal, and deeply moving." ( The Baltimore Sun)

What listeners say about General Sherman's Christmas

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very interesting- lots of first hand accounts.

narrator does a great job. lots of first-hand accounts which is why I listen or read these books.

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Great information

Loved this book and the information given. Didn’t gloss over sticky parts and left it all out there rawly.

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Concise summary and analysis of the Savannah Campaign

Ed Sala is my favorite narrator on Audible. Too often Civil War campaign books are overly ambitious and demonstrate the extent of research as opposed to entertainment value. This book is not about the Atlanta Campaign or the Carolinas Campaign, but almost entirely devoted to the March to the Sea. A popular history filled with value-add primary sources, Sherman’s Christmas is a concise, but informative overview of the Savannah Campaign. It was so entertaining I finished it in 48 hours.

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