Sherman's neckties

Since the Confederacy had limited supplies of iron, and few foundries to roll the rails, this destruction was very difficult to repair.

[1] Although the destruction was ordered by Sherman during his Atlanta Campaign, the "necktie" shape formed by bending the rails around a tree was not; his orders specified a different method of track destruction which was not as popular: In case of the sounds of serious battle [Major-General McPherson] will close in on General Schofield but otherwise will keep every man of his command at work in destroying the railroad by tearing up track, burning the ties and iron, and twisting the bars when hot.

Pile the ties into shape for a bonfire, put the rails across and when red hot in the middle, let a man at each end twist the bar so that its surface becomes spiral.After three days, only one Confederate railroad line leading into Atlanta remained intact.

Sherman implemented "scorched earth" policies; he and Union Army commander Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant believed that the Civil War would end only if the Confederacy's strategic, economic, and psychological capacities for warfare were decisively broken.

In the early days of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of late 1864, the Confederates employed similar tactics against Sherman's supply line, the Western and Atlantic Railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta.