Savannah, 1864

Sherman's army left Atlanta on November 15, 1864, and disappeared. For nearly a month no one in Washington knew where 62,000 men were. They marched southeast across Georgia, living on the country and wrecking railroads. On December 10 they reached the outskirts of Savannah and found the city fortified and the rice fields flooded.

What Sherman needed was the sea — the Navy's supply ships waiting off the coast. On December 13 Hazen's division stormed Fort McAllister on the Ogeechee in about fifteen minutes, and that evening Union soldiers looked out over the marsh at the masts of Dahlgren's squadron in Ossabaw Sound. The march was over.

Hardee's garrison slipped out across a pontoon bridge on the night of December 20. Sherman entered the next day and telegraphed Lincoln to offer him the city as a Christmas gift.

A dozen men have stopped at the edge of the pines. One of them points. Out past the flooded marsh, right on the line where water meets sky, sits a row of ships — small and unmistakable. That is the whole story, and the painter tells it with almost nothing: a great gray-gold sky and figures in silhouette.

The light comes from behind the ships, so the men are dark and the water is bright. Their packs are still on. They have not put anything down yet.