General Sherman's Christmas: Savannah, 1864

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.