Good morning, Whitewater.
Thursday in town will be mostly sunny with a high of twenty-one. Sunrise is 6:54 AM and sunset 4:27 PM, for 9h 33m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with just 4.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1864, General Sherman continues his March to the Sea through Georgia:
…nearly a week into the famous March to the Sea, the army of Union General William T. Sherman moves toward central Georgia, destroying property and routing small militia units it its path. Advanced units of the army skirmished with scattered Rebel forces at Clinton, Walnut Creek, East Macon, and Griswoldville, all in the vicinity of Macon.
The march began on November 15 and ended on December 21, 1864. Sherman led 62,000 troops for some 285 miles across Georgia and cut a path of destruction more than 50 miles wide. He divided his force into two columns and widened the swath of destruction. The Yankees cut away from their supply lines at Atlanta and generally lived off the land. What they did not consume, they destroyed. More than 13,000 cattle fell into Union hands, as well as 90,000 bales of cotton and numerous sawmills, foundries, cotton gins, and warehouses.
Sherman’s superiors, President Abraham Lincoln and General in Chief Ulysses S. Grant, endorsed his controversial tactic. Sherman planned, in his words, to “make Georgia howl,” and argued that, although it would be brutal, destroying the resources of the South could bring the war to a quicker end….
For an assessment that finds Sherman’s campaign more restrained and disciplined than critics have contended, see historian W. Todd Groce’s Rethinking Sherman’s March.
Google-a-Day asks a question about reptiles:
What reptile is the most vocal, with some species able to communicate more than 20 distinguishable messages through sound alone?