This week in the Civil War: Dec. 7, 1864

Sherman's forces reach Savannah, Georgia

This month 150 years ago in the Civil War, the Union army led by Maj. Gen. William Sherman neared the major port city of Savannah, Georgia. Sherman's soldiers, after capturing Atlanta in a decisive Union victory earlier in the year, had spent weeks crossing Georgia while destroying farms and property in their path. The arrival of the Union forces at Savannah in December 1864 would culminate a chapter of the war known since as the "March to the Sea." Once Savannah was taken, the Union troops would eventually move on in early 1865 into South Carolina in the culminating months of the war.