In the fall of 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman led his infamous “March to the Sea,” a military campaign long mythologized—especially in Gone With the Wind—as a brutal assault on the white South. But over the past several decades, historians have chipped away at that Lost Cause narrative, revealing it as a distortion that casts Confederates as victims rather than instigators of wartime violence. Still, few have offered a full alternative account of what the March truly meant—until now.
In this episode, I speak with historian Bennett Parten about his powerful first book, Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation. In just over 200 pages, Parten reframes the March as a defining moment in the history of slavery and freedom, focusing on the experiences of enslaved people who risked everything to follow Sherman’s army in search of liberation. It’s a gripping, deeply thoughtful work—and a much-needed corrective to long-standing myths.
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