This December marks the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War’s surrender of Savannah, where in 1864 Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman ended his infamous March to the Sea. His scorched-earth tactics changed the history of warfare and are still studied and taught in military institutions all over the world.
The March followed Sherman’s successful Atlanta Campaign of May through September 1864, when Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood and his army tried to slug it out with the Yankees and were badly beaten. Hood soon moved his army north to Tennessee, giving Sherman no real opposition as he moved 60,000 thousand troops southeast to Savannah. Only a few thousand Confederates stood between Sherman and his goal, including members of the First Georgia Cavalry. One member of that cavalry was my great-great-grandfather James Young, of Youngs Station, Polk County, Ga. (See photo on page 48).
Young was born in 1832, the son of Augustin and Catherine Pounds Young, early pioneers of Polk County, near Cedartown. He served in the Confederate Army as a second lieutenant, Company G, First Georgia Cavalry, which was called Floyd Legion. The unit was under the command of the skillful Maj. Gen. “Fighting Joe” Wheeler.
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