The Wolves in the Wake of the March to the Sea: Stragglers and Deserters
Every army trails a shadow. Sherman’s army called their foragers bummers—detachments sent out to strip the countryside of food and forage, which was policy. But behind the sanctioned foragers came something else: stragglers, deserters from both sides, escaped criminals, men who’d discovered that a world without law suited them. They preyed on civilians in the […]