States: Georgia
Start near: Savannah (starts here)
the left wing, Milledgeville to Savannah
Sherman's March to the Sea is a ~185-mile back-roads route from Milledgeville to Savannah on GA 24 and GA 21, driven in 2 days, that stays off I-16 through the Deep South.
In November 1864 Sherman cut loose from Atlanta and marched 60,000 men to the sea in two great wings. This route shadows the left: the abandoned capital at Milledgeville where his troops held a mock legislature, the prison stockade at Camp Lawton, and Ebenezer Creek, where a Union general pulled up the pontoons and left hundreds of freed refugees to drown. It ends at the Savannah mansion where Sherman wired Lincoln the city as a Christmas gift.
📍 March to the Sea heritage-trail markers pace GA 24 and 21; read Ebenezer Creek's carefully.
The Gothic statehouse, Sherman's mansion headquarters, and Georgia's earlier capital at Louisville with its grim old market.
The Gothic statehouse the legislature fled in 1864; Union troops convened a mock session and repealed secession for laughs.
A Palladian landmark where Sherman headquartered in November 1864; the restoration is museum-grade.
An open-air market from Georgia's 1790s capital era, long associated with sales of enslaved people; the town keeps it standing to say so plainly.
The enormous stockade built to relieve Andersonville, now under Magnolia Springs' pines.
A crystalline spring inside a state park that was briefly the world's largest prison stockade; archaeology keeps recovering the prisoners' buried lives.
The Salzburgers' Jerusalem Church, the creek crossing's tragedy, and the Christmas-gift city.
In December 1864, Union Gen. Jefferson C. Davis pulled his pontoon bridge, stranding hundreds of freed people who drowned fleeing Confederate cavalry. The marker holds nothing back.
The 1769 brick church of the Salzburger exiles, often called Georgia's oldest standing church, swan weathervane and all.
Sherman's Savannah headquarters, where he telegraphed Lincoln the city as a Christmas gift, 1864's most theatrical war dispatch.
Sherman's March to the Sea is about 185 miles and takes 2 days at a back-roads pace.
It runs from Milledgeville to Savannah.
It follows GA 24 and GA 21.
It avoids I-16, using GA 24 and GA 21 instead.
7 stops are mapped, including Georgia's Old Capital, Old Governor's Mansion, Louisville Market House, Magnolia Springs & Camp Lawton and Ebenezer Creek.
Sherman's March to the Sea (2 days) and Atlanta to Savannah to Charleston (4 days).
Sherman's March to the Sea (2 days) · Atlanta to Savannah to Charleston (4 days)
Connects with: Golden Isles & the First Coast · Kings Highway & the Lowcountry · Plains & Andersonville
More in the Deep South: The Blues Highway · Natchez Trace Parkway · Grant's Vicksburg Campaign · The Civil Rights Trail · The Hill Country Ramble · Hank's Lost Highway · Sherman to the Swamp · US 11: The Valley South · The Shoals · The Black Belt & Gee's Bend · The Old Federal Road · US 84: Wiregrass to Mockingbird · The Free State of Jones · US 49: Jackson to the Sound · US 41: Dixie Highway & the Atlanta Campaign · The Chattahoochee Trace · Plains & Andersonville · US 341: The Golden Isles Highway · North Georgia Gold & Apples · The Trail of Tears: Georgia to Kentucky