Samuel Hawkins Marshall Byers (July 23, 1838 – May 24, 1933) was an American soldier and poet who wrote the poem "Sherman's March to the Sea", which was the origin of the eponymous term.

[1] Byers' budding law career was cut short by the outbreak of the American Civil War in early 1861.

The prisoners of Camp Sorghum were eventually transferred to the property of the state mental asylum in Columbia.

Byers wrote a poem about the March, which was set to music by fellow prisoner W. O. Rockwell.

The song was smuggled out of the prison in the wooden leg of Lt. Daniel W. Tower, and became an immediate hit in the north.

[2] Most of the prisoners of war in Columbia were removed from the city on February 12, 1865, as the Union Army under William T. Sherman approached.

He was a prolific author, he wrote Switzerland and the Swiss and Twenty Years in Europe, drawing on his diplomatic service.