chief of engineers.
There was one critically important piece in the mosaic of Sherman’s planning that he could not control, though, characteristically, he thought he could—the weather. The prospect of heavy rains was Sherman’s nightmare, for it would mire his columns as effectively as a major enemy effort. Yet accurate forecasting was much more a folk art in 1864 than a codified science. The concept that weather wasn’t a purely local phenomenon but the product of a dynamic process whose origins could lie many hundreds of miles distant was only beginning to take hold. America’s great generic genius Benjamin Franklin had grasped this on an intuitive level, but until it was possible to record simultaneous weather observations from stations located across the country, it remained an unproven inspired hunch. Telegraphic communication made such a reporting network technically possible, and a scientist at Washington’s Smithsonian Institution named Joseph Henry was taking the first steps in that direction before the war. Henry’s efforts halted abruptly when the military commandeered the whole communication infrastructure for its use.
Most of Georgia’s weather in November and December was generated by systems spawned in the Colorado region, where cold Canadian air tumbled in with warmer Gulf air in a natural spin cycle. A whirling mass acquires motion with steering largely provided by strong upper-atmosphere wind currents that would remain unknown until the mid-twentieth century, when they would be named after a technology of that era—the jet stream. The irony was that had the knowledge base been there, the network of wires was in place for the military to have provided officers like Sherman with weather reporting information that could have aided their prognostications.
Lacking such a knowledge base, Sherman was left to his own understanding as he pondered the all-important question of when to set off. Politics played a part by dictating that he wait until after the election, but how long after? Some nineteen years into the future, one of Sherman’s division commanders in the upcoming campaign, Brigadier General William B. Hazen, would oversee the government’s publication of a national anthology of weather proverbs. In the book’s preface, Lieutenant H. H. C. Dunwoody, widely recognized for his forecasting acumen, had praise for the folk wisdoms, provided they were looking only a short time ahead (“A mackerel sky, Not twenty-four hours dry”), but pure disdain for those predicting several days or weeks in advance. Yet it was upon one such augury that Sherman now timed the beginning of his march.
Sherman shared this meteorological insight with his military secretary, Major Henry M. Hitchcock, who told his wife about it in a November 10 letter. “The rains seem to have ended,—last night’s storm winding up with a bracing wind from the N.W., and this morning being bright and beautiful,” Hitchcock reported. “We hope this means just what the General has been desiring,—that the fall rains should come altogether, early in November, and give us fine weather for some weeks, which is what we want now.” Sherman had already made this clear to his subcommanders on November 8, when he informed them: “This is the rain I have been waiting for and as soon as it is over we will be off.” That same day he told the secretary of war that it “is now raining, which is favorable as the chances are, after it clears away, we will have a long spell of fine weather for marching.”
He was blissfully unaware that hundreds of miles to the northwest the elements were beginning to mix and would soon organize themselves into the first of several rain-producing storms, while well overhead the prevailing steering winds were solidly in place to set the storms on a course directly across Sherman’s route.
CHAPTER 5
“Paradise of Fools”
S ATURDAY , N OVEMBER 12, 1864
T he last “up” trains departed
There was one critically important piece in the mosaic of Sherman’s planning that he could not control, though, characteristically, he thought he could—the weather. The prospect of heavy rains was Sherman’s nightmare, for it would mire his columns as effectively as a major enemy effort. Yet accurate forecasting was much more a folk art in 1864 than a codified science. The concept that weather wasn’t a purely local phenomenon but the product of a dynamic process whose origins could lie many hundreds of miles distant was only beginning to take hold. America’s great generic genius Benjamin Franklin had grasped this on an intuitive level, but until it was possible to record simultaneous weather observations from stations located across the country, it remained an unproven inspired hunch. Telegraphic communication made such a reporting network technically possible, and a scientist at Washington’s Smithsonian Institution named Joseph Henry was taking the first steps in that direction before the war. Henry’s efforts halted abruptly when the military commandeered the whole communication infrastructure for its use.
Most of Georgia’s weather in November and December was generated by systems spawned in the Colorado region, where cold Canadian air tumbled in with warmer Gulf air in a natural spin cycle. A whirling mass acquires motion with steering largely provided by strong upper-atmosphere wind currents that would remain unknown until the mid-twentieth century, when they would be named after a technology of that era—the jet stream. The irony was that had the knowledge base been there, the network of wires was in place for the military to have provided officers like Sherman with weather reporting information that could have aided their prognostications.
Lacking such a knowledge base, Sherman was left to his own understanding as he pondered the all-important question of when to set off. Politics played a part by dictating that he wait until after the election, but how long after? Some nineteen years into the future, one of Sherman’s division commanders in the upcoming campaign, Brigadier General William B. Hazen, would oversee the government’s publication of a national anthology of weather proverbs. In the book’s preface, Lieutenant H. H. C. Dunwoody, widely recognized for his forecasting acumen, had praise for the folk wisdoms, provided they were looking only a short time ahead (“A mackerel sky, Not twenty-four hours dry”), but pure disdain for those predicting several days or weeks in advance. Yet it was upon one such augury that Sherman now timed the beginning of his march.
Sherman shared this meteorological insight with his military secretary, Major Henry M. Hitchcock, who told his wife about it in a November 10 letter. “The rains seem to have ended,—last night’s storm winding up with a bracing wind from the N.W., and this morning being bright and beautiful,” Hitchcock reported. “We hope this means just what the General has been desiring,—that the fall rains should come altogether, early in November, and give us fine weather for some weeks, which is what we want now.” Sherman had already made this clear to his subcommanders on November 8, when he informed them: “This is the rain I have been waiting for and as soon as it is over we will be off.” That same day he told the secretary of war that it “is now raining, which is favorable as the chances are, after it clears away, we will have a long spell of fine weather for marching.”
He was blissfully unaware that hundreds of miles to the northwest the elements were beginning to mix and would soon organize themselves into the first of several rain-producing storms, while well overhead the prevailing steering winds were solidly in place to set the storms on a course directly across Sherman’s route.
CHAPTER 5
“Paradise of Fools”
S ATURDAY , N OVEMBER 12, 1864
T he last “up” trains departed
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