The dangers of propaganda, or, just one more thing I missed while getting my History degree.........

     The march of Sherman's army from Atlanta to the sea and north to Goldsboro, while not accompanied with the danger that was anticipated, yet was magnificent in its results, and equally magnificent in the way it was conducted.  It had an important bearing, in various ways, upon the great object we had in view, that of closing the war.  All the States east of the Mississippi River up to the State of Georgia, had felt the hardships of the war.  Georgia, and South Carolina, and almost all of North Carolina, up to this time, had been exempt from invasion by the Northern armies, except upon their immediate sea coasts.  Their newspapers had given such an account of Confederate success, that the people who remained at home had been convinced that the Yankees had been whipped from first to last, and driven from pillar to post, and that now they could hardly be holding out for any other purpose than to find a way out of the war with honor to themselves.
     Even during this march of Sherman's the newspapers in his front were proclaiming daily that his army was nothing better than a mob of men who were frightened out of their wits and hastening, panic-stricken, to try to get under the cover of our navy for protection against the Southern people.  As the army was seen marching on triumphantly, however the minds of the people became disabused and they saw the true state of affairs.  In turn they became disheartened, and would have been glad to submit without compromise.
-The Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant