Johnston magnanimously assisted Hood in completing the movements of the army during the 18th to the Peachtree Creek position and explained to him his plans. These were, first, to attack Sherman's army when divided in crossing that difficult stream, and, if successful, to press the advantage to decisive results. If unsuccessful, to hold the Peachtree lines till Governor Brown's militia were assembled;[Footnote: Johnston says ten thousand of these were promised him instead of five. Narrative, p. 348.] then, holding Atlanta with these, to draw the army back through the town and march out with the three corps against one of Sherman's flanks, with the confidence that even if his attack did not succeed, with Atlanta so strongly fortified he could hold it forever. [Footnote: Narrative, p. 350.]

In reading his more elaborate statement of the plans of which the above is an outline, one cannot help thinking how unfortunate for him it was that he did not give them to Mr. Davis as fully as he gave them to Hood! In answer to the pressing inquiry of the 16th for "your plan of operations so specifically as will enable me to anticipate events," he had replied, "As the enemy has double our number, we must be on the defensive. My plan of operations must therefore depend upon that of the enemy. It is mainly to watch for an opportunity to fight to advantage. We are trying to put Atlanta in condition to be held for a day or two by the Georgia militia, that army movements may be freer and wider." [Footnote: Id., p. 883.] A good understanding with his government was so essential, just then, that the most reticent of commanders would have been wise in sending in cipher the whole page in which he tells the specific details of his purposes and their alternates as he gave them to Hood. Had he done so, it is quite safe to say that he would not have been removed; but reading, in the light of the whole season's correspondence, the dispatch he actually sent, we cannot say that Mr. Davis was unreasonable in finding it confirm his previous apprehension. Had the general fully and frankly opened to Bragg the same purposes, the latter could not have sent the hopeless message which clinched the President's decision.

Johnston said in his final message to Davis that the enemy had advanced more rapidly and penetrated deeper into Virginia than into Georgia; and that confident language by a military commander is not usually regarded as evidence of competency. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 888.] There was much force in both points, but they do not touch the heart of the matter. Between Lee and his government there was always a frank and cordial comparison of views and perfect understanding; so that even in disaster it was seen that he had done the best he could and was actively planning to repair a mischief. On the other hand, they got from Johnston little but a diarist's briefest chronicle of events with no word of hopeful purpose or plan. It was not necessary that he should use "confident language," but words were certainly called for which expressed intelligent comprehension of the situation and fertility in purposed action according to probable contingencies. His advice to Hood showed that he only needed to be equally frank with the Richmond authorities. [Footnote: Mr. Davis has discussed his relations to Johnston in chapter xlviii. of his "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," vol. ii. pp. 547, etc.; but the most succinct statement of his views is found in a paper prepared for the Confederate Congress, but withheld. See his letter to Colonel Phelan, Meridian, Miss., O. R, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 1303-1311.]

The assignment of Hood to the command was, of course, in the belief that he would take a more energetic and aggressive course. He seems to have been free in his criticisms of his commander, and upon Bragg's arrival had addressed to him a letter which it is hard to view as anything else than a bid for the command. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 880.] It said Johnston had failed to use several opportunities to strike Sherman decisive blows; that yet the losses of the army were 20,000; that under no circumstances should the enemy be allowed to occupy Atlanta; that if Sherman should establish his line at the Chattahoochee, he must be attacked by crossing that river; that he had so often urged aggressive action that he was regarded as reckless by "the officers high in rank in this army, who are declared to hold directly opposite views." He concluded by saying that he regarded it a great misfortune that battle was not given to the enemy many miles north of the present position.

When Johnston learned from Hood's report [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 628.](dated February 15, 1865) the nature of the latter's statements and criticisms, he notified the Richmond government as well as Hood that he should demand that the latter be brought before a court-martial; [Footnote: Id., p. 637.] but it was then April, on the very eve of the collapse of the Confederacy, and the discussion was left for continuance in the private writings of the parties and their friends. Johnston affirmed that in the only instances in the campaign in which it could be said that a favorable opportunity for battle had not been seized, Hood himself had been prominent in protesting against an engagement or had himself failed to carry out the orders given. In his service as commander of the army, Hood became involved in disputes as to fact with Hardee and Cheatham as well as with Johnston, and the result was damaging to his reputation for accuracy and candor. [Footnote: Johnston's case is stated in his "Narrative," chapters x. and xi.; Hood's in his "Advance and Retreat," chapters v. to ix. In connection with these, Hardee's Report of April 5, 1865, is of interest (Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. p. 697), and his letter to General Mackall (Id., pt. v. p. 987).]

The change of commanders undoubtedly precipitated the ruin of the Confederate cause; yet we must in candor admit that the situation was becoming so portentous that human wisdom might be overtaxed in trying to determine what course to take. Of one thing there is no shadow of doubt. We of the National Army in Georgia regarded the removal of Johnston as equivalent to a victory for us. Three months of sharp work had convinced us that a change from Johnston's methods to those which Hood was likely to employ, was, in homely phrase, to have our enemy grasp the hot end of the poker. We knew that we should be kept on the alert and must be watchful; but we were confident that a system of aggression and a succession of attacks would soon destroy the Confederate army. Of course Hood did not mean to assault solidly built intrenchments; but we knew that we could make good enough cover whilst he was advancing against a flank, to insure him a bloody repulse. The dense forests made the artillery of little effect in demolishing the works or weakening the morale of the defenders, and it was essentially an infantry attack upon intrenched infantry and artillery at close range.

The action of the Confederate government was a confession that Sherman's methods had brought about the very result he aimed at. The enemy had been manoeuvred from position to position until he must either give up Atlanta with its important nucleus of railway communications and abandon all northern Georgia and Alabama, or he must assume a desperate aggressive with a probability that this would fatally reduce his army and make the result only the more completely ruinous. This was the meaning of the substitution of Hood for Johnston.



CHAPTER XL

HOOD'S DEFENCE OF ATLANTA—RESULTS OF ITS CAPTURE

Lines of supply by field trains—Canvas pontoons—Why replaced by bridges—Wheeling toward Atlanta—Battle of Peachtree Creek—Battle of Atlanta—Battle of Ezra Church—Aggressive spirit of Confederates exhausted—Sherman turns Atlanta by the south—Pivot position of Twenty-third Corps—Hood's illusions—Rapidity of our troops in intrenching—Movements of 31st August—Affair at Jonesboro—Atlanta won—Morale of Hood's army—Exaggerating difference in numbers—Examination of returns—Efforts to bring back absentees—The sweeping conscription—Sherman's candid estimates—Unwise use of cavalry—Forrest's work—Confederate estimate of Sherman's campaign.

In advancing from the Chattahoochee, the arrangements Sherman made for the supply of his army provided separate lines for the trains of the three columns. McPherson' s wagons would reach him from Marietta by way of Roswell and the bridge which General Dodge built there. Schofield's had their depot at Smyrna and came by the wooden bridge which we built at the mouth of Soap Creek to replace the pontoons. The latter were of canvas, and whilst unequalled for field use, were unfit for a bridge of any permanence, because the canvas would be destroyed by long continuance in the water. As soon as they could be replaced by a pier or trestle-bridge of timber, they were taken up, cleaned and dried, and then packed on their special wagons for transport. This train was in charge of a permanent detachment of troops who became experts in the handling and care of the material and in laying the bridge. The brigade of dismounted cavalry in my division was left at the river as a guard for the wooden bridge which was kept up till the railway bridge was built and opened for use. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 163.] Thomas's troops, who were more than half the army, drew their supplies from Vining's Station byway of bridges at Power's Ferry (mouth of Rottenwood Creek) and Pace's Ferry, a mile below.

Grant sent warning of rumors afloat that reinforcements would be sent Johnston from the east, and in advancing from the Chattahoochee by a great wheel to the right, Sherman extended his left so that McPherson should move to the east of Decatur and break the Georgia Railroad there, whilst Garrard with his division of cavalry should continue the destruction toward Stone Mountain and make the gap as wide as possible. [Footnote: Id., p. 158.]

This movement made the distance travelled by McPherson and Schofield a long one, and extended their front largely, whilst Thomas was much more compact. But when once the railway should be so broken that Johnston's direct communication with the east would be interrupted, McPherson and Schofield would both move toward their right, and in closing in upon Atlanta, come into close touch with Thomas. [Footnote: Id., p. 167.]

It was whilst this movement was progressing, on the 20th of July, and was near its completion, that Hood made the attack already planned by Johnston, upon Thomas's columns, crossing Peachtree Creek by several roads converging at Atlanta. It involved the right of Howard's corps, the whole of Hooker's, and the left of Palmer's. It was a fierce and bloody combat, in which the Confederates lost about 6000 men in killed and wounded, whilst the casualty lists of Thomas's divisions amounted to 2000. Again, on the 22d, the second part of Johnston's plan was tried, and Hardee's corps, moving by night through Atlanta and far out to the southward of Decatur, advanced upon the flank of McPherson's army, whilst Cheatham at the head of Hood's own corps advanced from the Atlanta lines and continued the attack upon the centre and left of McPherson and upon the right of Schofield. A great battle raged along five miles of front and rear, but at evening the worsted Confederates retired within the fortifications of the city, a terrible list of 10,000 casualties showing the cost of the aggressive tactics. The losses on the National side were 3500, heavy enough, in truth, but with very different results on the relative strength of the armies and their morale. But the end was not yet. On the 28th McPherson's army, now under the command of Howard, was marching from the left wing to the right, to extend our lines southward on the west side of Atlanta, when once more Hood struck fiercely at the moving flank at Ezra Church, but again found that breastworks grew as if by magic as soon as Howard's men were deployed in position, and again the gray columns were beaten back with a list of 5000 added to the killed and disabled. Howard had less than 600 casualties in the action. It was only a week since Johnston had been relieved, and matters had come to such a pass in his army that the men stolidly refused to continue the assaults. From our skirmish line their officers were seen to advance to the front with waving swords calling upon the troops to follow them, but the men remained motionless and silent, refusing to budge. [Footnote: For details of these engagements, see "Atlanta," chaps, xii.-xiv.]

During the first half of August Sherman extended his lines southward, until my own division, which was the right flank of the infantry lines, was advanced nearly a mile southeast of the crossing of the Campbelltown and East Point roads on high ground covering the headwaters of the Utoy and Camp creeks. We were here somewhat detached and encamped accordingly in a boldly curved line ready for action on the flanks as well as front. It was now the 18th of August and Sherman devoted the next week to the accumulation of supplies, the removal of sick and wounded to the rear, getting rid of impedimenta, and general preparation for a fortnight's separation from his base. My position had been selected with reference to this plan, as a pivot upon which the whole of the army except the Twentieth Corps should swing across the railways south of Atlanta.



The movement began on the 25th, and we stood fast till the 28th, when we began our flank movement on the inner curve of the march of the army, taking very short steps, however, as we must keep between the army trains and the enemy. On the 30th Schofield moved our corps from Red Oak Station, on the West Point Railroad, a mile and a half directly toward East Point, so as to cover roads going eastward toward Rough-and-Ready Station on the Macon road. We were hardly in position before our skirmishers were briskly engaged with an advancing force of the enemy's cavalry, and we felt sure that it was the precursor of an attack by Hood in force. It proved to be nothing but a reconnoissance, and showed that Hood was strangely misconceiving the situation. Its chief interest to me at the moment was in the experiment it enabled me to make of the speed with which my men could cover themselves in open ground in an emergency. The division was astride the East Point road, the centre in open fields where no timber could be got for revetment, and only fence rails to give some support to the loose earth. Giving the order to make the light trench of the rifle-pit class, where the earth is thrown outward and the men stand in the ditch they dig, in fifteen minutes by the watch the work was such that I reckoned it sufficient cover to repel an infantry attack, if it came. It would be an extraordinary occasion when we did not have more warning of an impending attack; and the incident will illustrate the confidence we had that in forcing the enemy to assume aggressive tactics, the campaign was practically decided.

On the 31st, as Sherman's left wing, we held the Macon Railway at Rough-and-Ready Station, Howard, as right wing, was across Flint River, closing in on Jonesboro, whilst the centre under Thomas filled the interval. Hood had sent Hardee with his own and Lee's (late Hood's) corps to defeat what was supposed to be a detachment of two corps of Sherman's army, and a sharp affair had occurred at the Flint River crossing, where Howard succeeded in maintaining his position on the east side. On hearing of our occupation of Rough-and-Ready, Hood jumped to the conclusion that it was preliminary to an attack on Atlanta from the south, and ordered Lee's corps to march in the night and rejoin him at once. Getting a better idea of the situation before morning, he stopped Lee and prepared to evacuate Atlanta. On September 1st Sherman closed in on Jonesboro, his latest information indicating that two corps of the enemy were assembled there. Late in the day he learned of the disappearance of Lee's corps, but assumed that Hood was assembling somewhere near. He tried hard to concentrate his forces to prevent Hardee's escape, but his scattered army could not be united till nightfall.

In the night Hood blew up the ordnance stores at Atlanta, and hastening to join Lee by roads east of Sherman's positions, he marched on Lovejoy Station. Hardee evacuated Jonesboro also, and before morning the Confederate army was assembled again upon the railroad, five miles nearer to Macon. Atlanta was occupied by the Twentieth Corps on the 2d, and Sherman ordered his army to return to the vicinity of that city for a period of rest. Hood's conduct for the past three days had been the result of complete misapprehension of the facts; but its very eccentricity had been so incomprehensible that no rule of military probabilities could be applied to it, and before Sherman could learn what he was doing, the time had passed when full advantage could be taken of his errors.

The condition of Hood's army at the close of the campaign was anything but satisfactory to him. His theory was that his offensive tactics would keep up the spirit and energy of his men and constantly improve their morale. When he found that they were, on the contrary, discouraged and despondent, and could not be induced to repeat the assaults upon our positions which had followed each other so rapidly in the last days of July, he querulously laid the blame at the door of his subordinates. He called the attack upon Howard's advance at Flint River "a disgraceful effort" because only 1485 were wounded, and asked to have Hardee relieved and sent elsewhere. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. pp. 1021, 1023, 1030. Hardee had before asked to be relieved. (Id., pp. 987, 988.) For Hood's final, urgent request and the result, see vol. xxxix. pt. ii. pp. 832, 880, 881.] True, he had telegraphed Hardee that the necessity was imperative that the National troops should be driven into and across the river, and that the men must go at them with bayonets fixed; but it was his own old corps, now under Lieutenant-General S. D. Lee, that made the principal attack and was repulsed. Lee was not one of the officers who might be presumed to be discontented with Johnston's removal, but had been brought from the Department of Mississippi, at Hood's suggestion, to take the corps when the latter was promoted, and had won Davis's admiration by his zeal. [Footnote: Id., p. 892, and vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 713.] It would be hard to find better proof that the trouble lay in the consciousness of the men in the line that they were asked to lay down their lives without a reasonable hope of benefit to their cause. The discouragement pervaded the whole army, and is seen in Hood's own dispatches hardly less than in others. [Footnote: Hood to Davis, September 3, two dispatches, Id., vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 1016. In another, p. 1017, he repeated an earlier suggestion to remove the prisoners from Andersonville. When Johnston had done this, it was made one of the charges against him. See Davis to Lee, Id., vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 692. For Hardee's opinion of the situation, see Id., vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 1018.] In a labored letter to Bragg on September 4th, he unconsciously shows how his own total misunderstanding of Sherman's movements was the prime cause of his disaster, whilst the shame at the result leads him to charge it upon others. As to the spirit of the army, nobody has given more telling testimony, for he says, "I am officially informed that there is a tacit if not expressed determination among the men of this army, extending to officers as high in some instances as colonel, that they will not attack breastworks." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 730. This letter seems to have come to light since the first publication of the records of the campaign, and is found in the supplemental volume.]

In the correspondence between Johnston and the Confederate government regarding the numerical force of his army, he naturally emphasized his inferiority to Sherman in numbers as an explanation of his cautious defensive tactics and his retreating movements. The introduction into the Southern returns of a column of "effectives" as distinguished from the number of officers and men "present for duty," [Footnote: Ante, vol. i. p. 482.] led to a habitual underestimate by their commanding officers. On several occasions Johnston defended his conduct of the campaign by asserting that his army was less than half the size of Sherman's, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 795.] and this necessarily led to an examination of his returns. These regular numerical reports are of course the ultimate authority in all disputes, and we find the Richmond government doing just what the historian has to do,—comparing the estimates of the general with his official returns. Officers of all grades and of the highest character fall into the error of memory which modifies facts according to one's wish and feeling. Thus at the beginning of this campaign we find General Bragg, speaking for the President, saying that General Polk's "estimates and his official returns vary materially." [Footnote: Id., vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 659.] Nobody could be freer from intentional misstatement than the good bishop-general. We find the same discrepancies at the East as well as the West. Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, and their subordinates fall into the same error. It is therefore the canon of all criticism on this subject, that nothing but the statistical returns in the adjutant-general's office shall be received as proofs of numbers, though, of course, the returns must be read intelligently.

Conscious of straining every nerve to reinforce the great armies in the field, Mr. Davis naturally asked what it meant when the army in Georgia was said to be so weak. General Bragg assisted him with an analysis of Johnston's last returns. Writing on June 29th, he refers to the last regular return, that of June 10th, which is the same now published in the Official Records. In using it, therefore, we agree with the Confederate government at the time in making it conclusive. It shows that Johnston's army had present for duty 6538 officers and 63,408 enlisted men, or, in round numbers, was 70,000 strong. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 805; Id., pt. iii. p. 677.] The "effectives" are given as 60,564; but this, as we know, is the result of subtracting the number of the officers and non-commissioned staff from the aggregate present for duty. But in addition to the troops named, Bragg very properly adds that Johnston "has at Atlanta a supporting force of reserves and militia, estimated at from 7000 to 10,000 effective men, half of whom were actually with Johnston near Marietta." We thus have from Confederate authorities the proof that the army was nearly 80,000 strong on June 10th, after the first month of the campaign had closed, including the engagements at Dalton, Resaca, New Hope Church, Dallas, and Pickett's Mill.

To complete the examination of the same return, it is necessary to notice that the "aggregate present" is given at 82,413, or 12,500 more than the "present for duty." This includes "extra-duty men," such as clerks at headquarters of the organizations from Johnston's own down to brigades and regiments, men permanently detailed for any special service, men in arrest, etc. [Footnote: Hood's dispatch of September 5, Id., pt. v. p. 1021; and his Order No. 19, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 835.] It is here that good administration in an army seeks to reduce the number of those who are withdrawn from the fighting ranks, and to make the "aggregate present" agree as closely as possible with the "present for duty." I shall presently note the result of such an effort.

Sherman's return of "present for duty" on May 31st, just after Blair had joined him with the Seventeenth Corps, was the largest of the campaign, being 112,819. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. i. p. 117.] By the end of June it was reduced to 106,070, when Johnston's was 59,196 without the reserves and militia. [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 679.]

When Hood assumed the command, Bragg visited the army a second time, and gave new impulse to the effort to increase its effective force. On July 27th, in a very full report to Mr. Davis, he says, "the increase by the arrival of extra-duty men and convalescents, etc., is about 5000, and more are coming in daily. The return of the 1st of August will show a gratifying state of affairs." [Footnote: Id., vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 714.] This promise was fulfilled when that return showed a diminution in the "present for duty," since the 10th of the month, of only 7403, [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. p. 680.] although the period included the bloody engagements of Peachtree Creek, Atlanta, and Ezra Church.

The Confederate conscription included the whole able-bodied population, and details as for extra duty were the means by which physicians, clergymen, civilian office-holders, etc., were exempted from service in the army. These lists were rigidly scrutinized, and the laxity which had grown was corrected as far as possible. The aggregate of Hood's army, "present and absent," on August 1st, was 135,000, though his "aggregate present" was only 65,000. [Footnote: Ibid.] It included, of course, prisoners of war, deserters, and men otherwise missing, besides the class last mentioned. The extent to which the efforts to bring back absentees succeeded, is shown by the return for September 20th, when the aggregate of the "present and absent" falls to 123,000, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. p. 637.] though the "present for duty" are almost as numerous as at the end of July. The difference of 12,000 shows how many were added to the army in this way, and these are in addition to the thousands which Bragg spoke of as gained by transferring non-combatants present with the army to the list of those present for duty.

It is only by examining Hood's returns in this way that they become intelligible, for his rolls of those present for duty hardly diminish at all during the whole month of August, being 51,793 on the 1st, 51,946 on the 10th, and 51,141 on the 31st. [Footnote: Id., pp. 680-683.] On September 10th he reports 46,149, and on the 20th 47,431, the first of these returns including his losses in the final combats of the campaign and the fall of Atlanta, and the latter indicating a gain by the exchange of prisoners with General Sherman. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxix. pt. ii. pp. 828, 850.] By ignoring all the additions to his fighting force from the sources which I have enumerated, Hood was able to claim that his total losses while in command of the army were 5247. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. p. 636.] The absurdity was indicated by Hardee, who replied in his official report that the losses in his own corps, which was only one third of the army, "considerably exceeded 7000" during the same period. [Footnote: Id., p. 702.]

Sherman's returns show a steady diminution of his available numbers during July and August, though, as he himself has said, it was not altogether from casualties on the battlefield and the diseases of the camp. [Footnote: Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 134.] The term of service of all the troops enlisted in the spring and summer of 1861 for three years was now ended, and an interval occurred in which the new levies under the law to enforce the draft had not yet reached the field, and the army was depleted by the return home of the regiments which had not "veteranized" in the last winter. He had present for duty, on July 31st, 91,675 officers and men; on August 31st, 81,758. Sherman's statement of his losses in battle and his comparison of them with his opponents is a model of candor and fairness. With the light we now have, he might properly have increased considerably his estimate of Johnston's casualties. [Footnote: Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 131-136.]

General Hood was quite right in arguing, in his memoirs, that the wounded in a campaign are not all a permanent loss to an army, "since almost all the slightly wounded, proud of their scars, soon return to the ranks." [Footnote: Advance and Retreat, p. 217.] But what I have said above shows that he was entirely astray when he concluded that the difference in the returns of his effective force at the beginning and end of the campaign would show the number of killed and permanently disabled. The absence of data as to the additions to his field force through the means which I have analyzed, shows how absurd a result was drawn from his premises. The reports of casualties are not unfrequently faulty, but with all their faults they would be much more valuable if a complete series existed which could be compared and tested. It would require a minute examination of all returns, from companies to divisions, to determine accurately how many men returned to duty after being wounded or captured. The imperfect state of the Confederate archives would prevent this, if it were otherwise practicable. The statistical returns are conclusive for what they actually give, but inferences from them must be drawn with care. As an illustration (in addition to those already given) it may be noted that the Confederate cavalry made no returns of casualties or losses, and they do not appear at all in the Medical Director's report which General Hood makes the basis of his own assertions. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. p. 687.] How grave an omission this is will be partly seen from the fact that Wheeler's corps, which reported 8000 men present for duty on August 1st (the last return made), was in such condition when he reached Tuscumbia after the raid in the rear of Sherman's army, that its adjutant-general doubted if more than 1000 men could be got together. [Footnote: Letter of General Forrest to General Taylor, Sept. 20, 1864, Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 859.]

The use of the cavalry in "raids," which were the fashion, was an amusement that was very costly to both sides. Since Stuart's ride round McClellan's army in 1862, every cavalry commander, National and Confederate, burned to distinguish himself by some such excursion deep into the enemy's country, and chafed at the comparatively obscured but useful work of learning the detailed positions and movements of the opposing army by incessant outpost and patrol work in the more restricted theatre of operations of the campaign.

From Chattanooga to the Chattahoochee, good work was done by Stoneman and McCook in scouting upon the front and flanks of the army, and by Colonel Lowe in vigilant guard of the railway close in rear of Sherman's movements; but the use of mounted troops in mass was not satisfactory, and as to the raids on both sides, the game was never worth the candle. Men and horses were used up, wholesale, without doing any permanent damage to the enemy, and never reached that training of horse and man which might have been secured by steady and systematic attention to their proper duties. Forrest, of the Confederates, was the only cavalry officer whom Sherman thought at all formidable, and he showed his high estimate of him by offering, in his sweeping way, to secure the promotion of the officer who should defeat and kill him. In another form he expressed the same idea, by saying he would swap all the cavalry officers he had for Forrest. [Footnote: The matter took an odd turn, when on the report that General Mower had defeated Forrest in West Tennessee and that the brilliant cavalry leader had fallen in the action, Mower got his promotion, but it turned out that it was Forrest's brother, a colonel, who was killed—"a horse of another color." Mower, however, was worthy of promotion "on general principles." See Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 471; vol. xxxix. pt. i. p. 228; Id., pt. ii. pp. 130, 142, 219, 233.]

High as was the National estimate of the importance of Sherman's campaign, Southern men rated it and its consequences quite as high as we did. In the conferences at Richmond, at which Mr. Hill had represented the strong desire of Governor Brown and General Johnston for reinforcements, Mr. Davis had made his apprehension of the disastrous results which would follow the loss of Atlanta the reason of his urgency for a more aggressive campaign. In closing the interviews, Mr. Seddon, the Secretary of War, and Mr. Hill showed their sense of the importance of the crisis by exchanging letters which were diplomatic memoranda of the conversations. Mr. Hill repeated his conviction that the fate of the Confederacy hung upon the campaign. He said that the failure of Johnston's army involved that of Lee; that not only Atlanta but Richmond must fall; not only Georgia but all the States would be overrun; that all hopes of possible foreign recognition would be destroyed; in short, that "all is lost by Sherman's success, and all is gained by Sherman's defeat." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 706.] Governor Brown had accompanied Mr. Hill's effort by a dispatch in which he declared that Atlanta was to the Confederacy "almost as important as the heart is to the human body." [Footnote: Id., p. 680.] So far from taking exception to these strong expressions, Mr. Davis based his action in regard to General Johnston upon the absolute necessity of a military policy in Georgia, which would hold Atlanta at all hazards. When the city fell, the whole South as well as the North knew that a decisive step had been taken toward the defeat of the rebellion.



CHAPTER XLI

THE REST AT ATLANTA-STAFF ORGANIZATION AND CHANGES

Position of the Army of the Ohio at Decatur—Refitting for a new campaign—Depression of Hood's army—Sherman's reasons for a temporary halt—Fortifying Atlanta as a new base—Officers detailed for the political campaign—Schofield makes inspection tour of his department—My temporary command of the Army of the Ohio—Furloughs and leaves of absence—Promotions of several colonels—General Hascall resigns—Staff changes—My military family—Anecdote of Lieutenant Tracy—Discipline of the army—Sensitiveness to approval or blame—Illustration—Example of skirmishing advance—Sufferings of non-combatants within our lines—A case in point—Pillaging and its results—Citizens passing through the lines—"The rigors of the climate"—Visit of Messrs. Hill and Foster—McPherson's death—The loss to Sherman and to the army—His personal traits—Appointment of his successor.

At the close of the first week in September the Army of the Ohio encamped at Decatur, and prepared for a month's rest. My division took position on the east of the little town, Hascall's on the south, and our division of cavalry under Colonel Israel Garrard was east of us, with outposts and patrols watching the roads in that direction as far as Stone Mountain. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 828.] The Army of the Cumberland was encamped about Atlanta itself, and the Army of the Tennessee was at East Point. As Sherman cheerily announced in general orders, we might expect "to organize, receive pay, replenish clothing, and prepare for a fine winter's campaign." [Footnote: Id., p. 801.]

It was of course probable that Hood would use the interval, which was even more welcome to him than to us, in similar preparation for resuming the struggle, though the resources of the Confederacy were so strained that the Treasury was in debt to the soldiers for ten months' pay. He told the government that "it would be of vast benefit to have this army paid," [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 1027.] but this expressed his desire rather than a hope. Depression reigned in his camps about Lovejoy's Station, of which the name was a mockery. Dissent was rife among his general officers, and with the whole army he had lost prestige by the costly failure of his campaign. A period of rest might relieve the discouragement somewhat, and stringent means were to be used to bring absentees and conscripts to the ranks. Hardee was transferred to Savannah; Mackall, Johnston's devoted friend, was removed from the head of the staff, and other changes of organization were made with a view to give Hood the men of his own choice in important positions. [Footnote: These were mostly in accordance with Hood's recommendations to General Bragg when the latter visited him at the end of July. See Bragg to Davis, Id., vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 713.]

Sherman was fully aware that he would have many advantages in pushing after Hood at once, but besides his army's real need of rest, he was clear in his judgment that he must, at this stage of affairs, prepare for a campaign on a great scale to be continued through the winter till great results should be achieved. If the line of operations was to be extended toward Mobile, as was contemplated by General Grant at the opening of the campaign, or if Hood should retreat toward the east, in either case he must make Atlanta a fortified base. Experience had proven that his long line of communications was liable to interruption, and would be still more so as he penetrated further into Georgia. He must have a well-supplied and well-protected depot in the same relations to the next forward movement that Chattanooga had been to the campaign just finished. He wanted to get his share of the drafted men under the conscription law now in operation, to fill up the places of regiments whose terms had expired, and to be assured that Canby from New Orleans would co-operate in a settled plan. He was already revolving in his mind other problems which Hood might possibly open for solution; but the probability seemed strong that the Confederate army would bar the way to his advance, and must be beaten and driven back again. His first task, therefore, was to prepare Atlanta for his uses. "I want it," he said, "a pure Gibraltar, and will have it so by October 1st." [Footnote: Dispatch to Halleck, September 9th. See also that of September 4th, in which his ideas were fully outlined. Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. pp. 794, 839.] This use of the town made it necessary to remove the resident citizens, sending north those who were loyal and ordering south those who adhered to the Confederacy. As a fortified depot must be ready for a siege, trade and free intercourse with the surrounding country could not go on. The inhabitants, therefore, would be dependent on the army for food, their industries must cease, and it was more merciful to them, as well as a military necessity, to send them away. [Footnote: Sherman to Hood, Id., p. 822.]

The temporary interruption of active campaigning was eagerly seized upon as an opportunity for leaves of absence by those whose private and family affairs urgently called for attention. The presidential campaign was on, and in consultation with Governor Morton of Indiana, Secretary Stanton selected half a dozen officers from that State, which was politically a doubtful one, to vary their labors in the field by "stumping the State" for a month. The form of the request indicates the feeling as to the character of the civil contest. "In view," said the Secretary, "of the armed organizations against the Government of the United States that have been made throughout the State of Indiana and are now in active operation in the campaign for Jefferson Davis, this department deems it expedient that the officers named should have leave to go home, provided they can be spared without injury to the service." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 802. Among these appears the name of Colonel Benjamin Harrison, 70th Indiana, afterward President. Sherman's characteristic reply was sent from camp near Jonesboro, on 6th September: "The officers named in your dispatch of the 5th will be ordered to report to the Governor of Indiana for special duty, as soon as I return to Atlanta, which will be in a day or two unless the enemy shows fight, which I am willing to accept on his own terms if he will come outside of his cursed rifle-trenches." Id., p. 809. I don't recall any other instance of a regular military detail for a political campaign.] Generals Logan and Blair also went North for similar work in Illinois and Missouri.

In the middle of September General Schofield left the army for a time, to visit Knoxville and Louisville, within his department, on official business, and extended his absence for a brief reunion with his family north of the Ohio. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 379; pt. iii. p. 10.] This left me in command of the Army of the Ohio, and Hood's later movement upon our communications prevented Schofield's return till the end of our active campaign in October. A liberal issue of furloughs to enlisted men, especially convalescents in hospital, was made, so that we might get them back in robust health and good spirits when the fall campaign should open. General Hascall resigned and left us, and the command of his division passed to General Joseph A. Cooper, who had been promoted from the colonelcy of the Sixth East Tennessee. My own division was temporarily commanded by General James W. Reilly, who had been promoted on my recommendation from the colonelcy of the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio. Hascall had commanded his division with marked ability throughout the campaign, but had become discouraged by the evidences that he need expect no recognition from the Indiana governor, [Footnote: See ante, vol. i. pp. 406, 485; vol. ii. p. 253.] whose influence was potent if not omnipotent in the promotion of Indiana officers. The recently announced promotion of Hovey over him seemed to him equivalent to an invitation to resign, and he acted upon it.

The resting-spell at Decatur was the natural time for such changes in organization as had become necessary. The death of my adjutant-general, Captain Saunders, in June, made it necessary to fill that very important position, and my aide, Lieutenant Theodore Cox, was promoted to it. His regiment (the Eleventh Ohio) was just completing its term of enlistment, and he would be mustered out of service with it, unless a new appointment were given him, fairly won, as it had been, by two years of meritorious service. My request was so cordially backed by Generals Schofield and Sherman that there was no hesitation at Washington, and I secured for the rest of the war an invaluable assistant, whose system, accuracy, and neat methods made the business of my headquarters go on most satisfactorily.

My inspector-general, Lieutenant-Colonel Sterling, felt obliged to resign for business reasons connected with events in his father's family, and I had to part with another faithful friend and able officer. As the adjutant-general is the centre of the formal organization, keeping its records, carrying on its correspondence, and formulating the orders of his chief, so the inspector-general is the organ of discipline and of soldierly instruction as well as the superintendent of the outpost and picket duty, which makes him the guardian of the camp and the head of the intelligence service when no special organization of the latter is made. He should be one of the most intelligent officers of the command, and a model of soldierly conduct. It was no easy thing to fill Colonel Sterling's place, but I was fortunate in the selection of Major Dow of the One Hundred and Twelfth Illinois, a quiet, modest man, a thorough disciplinarian of clear and strong intellect, and of that perfect self-possession which is proof against misjudgment in the most sudden and terrifying occurrences.

I had brought with me from East Tennessee, as my chief of artillery, Major Wells, who had commanded an Illinois battery, and who directed the artillery service of the division with great success. My medical director was Surgeon-Major Frink, of Indiana, who, though he took the position by virtue of his seniority in the division medical staff, was as acceptable as if I had chosen him with fullest knowledge of his qualifications. The topographer was Lieutenant Scofield of the One Hundred and Third Ohio, educated in civil engineering, and indefatigable in collecting the data by which to correct the wretched maps which were our only help in understanding the theatre of operations. He was a familiar figure at the outposts, on his steadily ambling nag, armed with his prismatic compass, his odometer, and his sketch-book. The division commissary of subsistence was Captain Hentig, a faithful and competent officer who worked in full accord with Captain Day, the energetic quartermaster who had come with me over the mountains the preceding year.

A general officer's aides-de-camp are usually his most intimate associates in the military family, and were sometimes selected with too much regard to their social qualities. Those of a major-general were appointed on his nomination, but a brigadier-general must detail the two allowed him, from the lieutenants in his command. When commanding a division, custom allowed him to detail a third. They were the only officers technically called the personal staff, the others being officers of the several staff corps, or merely detailed from regiments to do temporary duty. Thus, no inspector-general was allowed to a brigadier, but when commanding a division or other organization larger than a brigade, he was permitted to detail an officer of the line for the very necessary and responsible duty. The aides are authorized to carry oral orders and to explain them, to call for and to bring oral reports, and as the general's confidential and official representatives they should be of the most intelligent and soldierly men of their grade. All the other staff officers may be called upon to act as aides when it is necessary, but these are ex officio the ordinary go-betweens, and, if fit for their work, are as cordially welcomed and almost as much at home with the brigade commanders as with their own chief.

My senior aide, after my brother's promotion, was Lieutenant Coughlan of the Twenty-fourth Kentucky, a handsome young Irishman of very humble origin, to whom the military service had been the revelation of his own powers and a noble inspiration. He was lithe and well set up, though by no means a dandy; would spring at call for any duty, by night or by day, and delighted the more in his work, the more perilous or arduous it was. He was captured in the last days of our operations about Atlanta; [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 623.] but the exchange of prisoners negotiated by Sherman gave me the opportunity to secure his return after a month's captivity and imprisonment at Charleston. Two months later he died heroically in the battle of Franklin. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 356.]

Lieutenant Bradley of the Sixty-fifth Illinois was second on the list, an excellent officer who was competent and ready to assist the adjutant-general in his department when work there was pressing.

The third was Lieutenant Tracy of the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio, a man of original character. Tall and angular, there was a little stoop in his shoulders and a little carelessness in his dress. His gait was a long stride, and he was not a graceful horseman. His exterior had a good deal of the typical Yankee, and our Connecticut Reserve in Ohio, from which he came, has as pure a strain of Yankee blood as any in New England. But whoever looked into his sallow and bony face was struck with the effect of his large, serious eye, luminous with intelligence and will. Devotion to duty and perfect trustworthiness, with zeal in acquiring military knowledge, were the qualities which led to his selection for staff duty. When we were preparing for the great swing of the army to the south of Atlanta, my division had been advanced close to the enemy's position near East Point, where, from a strong salient in their works, their line curved back toward the east. Our position was to be the pivot of the movement, and we intrenched the top of a forest-covered knoll separated from the Confederate lines by a little hollow in which ran a small affluent of Camp Creek. Our pickets were directed to advance as close to the enemy as practicable, so that any attempt to make a sally would be detected promptly. Tracy had been directed to accompany the officer of the day and see that the outposts were in proper position. Early next morning General Schofield visited me, and desired to see in person the point most advanced. I called Tracy for our guide, and from the trenches we went down the slope, through the woods, on foot. A spur of the hill went forward, and as we neared the edge of the forest Tracy signalled to go quietly. Stooping carefully in the undergrowth, we noiselessly advanced to a fence corner where a sentinel stood behind a tree. Halting a few paces away, Tracy motioned to us to avoid moving the bushes, but to approach the fence and look between the rails. Doing so, we found the fence at the border of a little strip of hollow pasture in which the brooklet ran, and across it on the other slope, frowning upon us, was a formidable earthwork, an embrasure and the muzzle of a great Columbiad looking directly at us. The enemy's sentinels had been driven in, so that, where we looked, one was pacing his beat at the counterscarp of the ditch. As we drew back to a distance at which conversation was prudent, Tracy asked with a grim little smile whether the picket line was sufficiently advanced. The whole was characteristic of his thoroughness in the performance of duty and his silent way of letting it speak for itself. He was struck in the breast and knocked down by a spent ball in the assault by Reilly's brigade at Utoy Creek on August 6th, but in a week was on duty again, though he never wholly recovered from the injury to his lungs. [Footnote: Being in delicate health after the war, he was made Governor of the National Home for disabled soldiers at Dayton, Ohio, and died in 1868 from an abscess of the lung caused by the old injury.]

Officers were detailed from the line for other staff duty, such as ordnance officer, commissary of musters, etc., and there was no lack of good material. The general officer who sought for sober, zealous, and bright young soldiers for his staff could always find them. They were his eyes and his hands in the responsible work of a campaign, yet their service was necessarily hidden a good deal from view, and their opportunities for personal distinction and rapid promotion were few compared with those of their comrades in actual command of troops.

It was interesting to observe the rapid progress in all the essentials of good discipline made in commands which were permanent enough to give time for development of order and system. We were fortunate in Sherman's army in having in himself and in the three commanders next in rank examples of courteous treatment of subordinates coupled with steady insistence upon the prompt and right performance of duty. Under such a regime intelligent men grow sensitive to the slightest indication of dissatisfaction, and a superior officer has to weigh his words lest he give more pain than he intended. An amusing instance of this occurred during the campaign just ended. Late one evening my division was directed to make a movement at sunrise next day, and the camp was quiet in sleep before my orders were sent out to the brigade commanders. He who was assigned to lead the column was an excellent officer, but irascible, and a little apt to make his staff officers feel the edge of any annoyance he himself felt. Some strain of relations among his assistants at his headquarters happened to be existing when my order came. He had turned in for the night and was asleep when his adjutant-general came to his tent to report the order. Not fully aroused, he made a rough and bluff reply to the call, really meaning that the staff officer should issue the proper orders to the brigade, but in form it was a petulant refusal to be bothered with the business. The adjutant took him literally at his word and left him. Next morning I was in the saddle at the time set, and with my staff rode to the brigade to accompany the head of the column, when, lo, his command was not yet astir, though in the rest of the camp breakfast was over, the tents struck, and officers and men were awaiting the signal to fall in. I rapped with my sword-hilt on the tent-pole, and when the dishevelled head of the colonel appeared, his speechless astonishment told the story of some great blunder. I did not stop for particulars, but only said, "Your brigade, colonel, was to have had the place of honor in an important day's work; as it is, you will fall in at the rear of the column. Good-morning, sir." He stood, without a word, till we rode off, and then turning to an aide who had come to him, exclaimed, "I wish to God he had cursed me!"

In the movement upon Atlanta, after crossing the Chattahoochee, we were not met in force till we came to Peachtree Creek and the extension of that line southward. The country was similar in character to that near Marietta, with openings of farming lands along the principal roads, but probably three fourths of the country was covered with forest. In answer to questions from home as to what our continuous skirmishing in such advances was like, I took as a sample the 20th of July, when we were pushing in to connect with General Thomas's right, and he was making his way to and across Peachtree Creek, where the battle was to rage in the latter part of the day.

"My camp last night," I said, "was formed of three brigades in two lines across the principal road, another brigade in reserve, and the artillery in the intervals, all in position of battle. A strong line of pickets and skirmishers covered the front and flanks some three hundred yards in advance. In the morning we drew in the flanks of the skirmish line, reducing it to about the length of one brigade across the road, and it was ordered to advance. The men go forward, keeping the line at right angles to the road, stopping for neither creek nor thicket; down ravines, over the hills, the skirmishers trotting from a big tree to a larger stone, taking advantage of everything which will cover them, and keeping the general form of the line and their distance from each other tolerably correct. The main body of the troops file into the road marching four abreast, with a battery near the leading brigade. Presently a shot is heard, off on the right, then two or three more in quick succession, and a bullet or two comes singing over the head of the column. 'They've started the Johnnies,' say the boys in the ranks, and we move on, the skirmish line still pushing right along. It proves to be only a rebel picket which has fired and run to apprise their comrades that the 'Yanks' are coming. Forward a few hundred yards, when, bang, bang, and a rattle of rifles too fast to count. The column is halted, and we ride to the skirmish line to see what is up. A pretty strong body of 'rebs' is about some old log houses with a good skirmish line on either side where our men must approach over two or three hundred yards of open fields. A regiment is moved up to the nearest cover on each side of the road, a section of artillery rattles up to the front, the guns are smartly unlimbered and pointed and a couple of shells go screaming into the improvised fort, exploding and scattering logs and shingles right and left. Out run the rebs in confusion, and forward with a rush and a hurrah go our men over the open, getting a volley from the other side. Into the woods they go. The rebs run; two or three are caught, perhaps, as prisoners, two or three of ours are carried to the rear on stretchers, and on we go again for a little way. This is light skirmishing. Sometimes we find extemporized breastworks of rails or fallen trees, requiring more force to dislodge the enemy, and then, finally, we push up to well-constructed lines of defence where we halt for slower and heavier operations."

The inhabitants within our lines about Atlanta had a hard time of it, in spite of all efforts to mitigate their suffering. Their unwillingness to abandon their homes was very great, and it was very natural, for all they had was there, and to leave it was to be beggared. They sometimes, when within range of the artillery, built bomb-proofs near their houses, and took refuge in them, much as the people of the Western plains seek similar protection from tornadoes. In closing in on the west side of the town, near the head of Utoy Creek, we took in a humble homestead where the family tried to stay, and I find that I preserved, in another of my home letters, a description of the place and their life there.

"Just within my lines" (this was written on August 11th), "and not ten paces from the breastworks, stands a log house owned by an old man named Wilson. A little before the army advanced to its present position, several relatives of his, with their families, came to him from homes regarded as in more imminent danger, and they united their forces to build, or dig, rather, a place of safety. They excavated a sort of cellar just in rear of the house, on the hillside, digging it deep enough to make a room some fifteen feet square by six feet high. This they covered over with a roof of timbers, and over that they piled earth several feet thick, covering the whole with pine boughs, to keep the earth from washing. In this bomb-proof four families are now living, and I never felt more pity than when, day before yesterday, I looked down into the pit, and saw there, in the gloom made visible by a candle burning while it was broad day above, women sitting on the floor of loose boards, resting against each other, haggard and wan, trying to sleep away the days of terror, while innocent-looking children, four or five years old, clustered around the air-hole, looking up with pale faces and great staring eyes as they heard the singing of the bullets that were flying thick above their sheltering place. One of the women had been bed-ridden for several years before she was carried down there. One of the men was a cripple, the others old and gray. The men ventured up and took a little fresh air behind the breast-works; but for the women there is no change unless they come out at night. Still, they cling to home because they have nowhere else to go, and they hope we may soon pass on and leave them in comparative peace again."

In an earlier chapter I have spoken of the easy descent from careful respect for the rights of property to reckless appropriation of what belongs to another, to robbery and pillage. [Footnote: Ante, pp. 233-235.] I find an instance of it given in one of the letters I have been quoting, which is the contemporary record of the thing itself which we had to deal with. It occurred on July 5th, when the whole army was in motion, hurrying past our position southeast of Marietta and following up Johnston's retreating army. "Some soldiers went to a house occupied only by a woman and her children, and after robbing it of everything which they wanted, they drove away the only milch cow the woman had. She pleaded that she had an infant which she was obliged to bring up on the bottle, and that it could not live unless it could have the milk. They had no ears for the appeal and the cow was driven off. In two days the child died, of starvation chiefly, though the end was hastened by disease induced by the mother's trying to keep it alive on food it could not digest. I heard of the case when the child was dead and two or three of the neighbors were getting together stealthily to dig its grave." One of them came to me to beg permission to assist, and to explain that the little gathering meant nothing hostile to us. I got the facts only by cross-questioning, for the old man was abject in his solicitude not to seem to be complaining, and did not give the worst of the story till my hot indignation at what I heard assured him of sympathy and of a desire to punish the crime.

"A woman came to me the same morning, and said the cavalry had taken the last mouthful from her, telling her they were marching and hadn't time to draw their rations, but that she would be fed by applying to us of the infantry column. The robbers well knew that we were forbidden to issue rations to citizens. They sacked the house of an old man with seven daughters by a second wife, all young things. He came to me in utter distress—not a mouthful in that house for twenty-four hours, their kitchen garden and farm utterly ruined, the country behind in the same condition, and he without means of travelling or carrying anything if he tried to move away." I added, "Of course in such extreme cases I try to find some way of keeping people from death, and usually send them to the rear in our empty wagon trains going back for supplies, but their helpless condition is very little bettered by going."

Such things were done chiefly by the professional stragglers and skulkers, and the stringent orders which were issued in both Sherman's and Hood's armies did not easily reach men who would not report for duty if they could help it. The country people could not tell who had done them the mischief, and the rascals would be gone before the case came before any superior officer who would interest himself in it. I must not, however, suppress the comment I made in the letter quoted. "The evil is the legitimate outgrowth of the hue and cry raised by our Christian people of the North against protecting rebel property, etc. Officers were deterred from enforcing discipline in this respect by public opinion at home, and now the evil is past remedy. The war has been prolonged, the army disintegrated and weakened, and the cause itself jeoparded, because discipline was construed as friendliness to rebels." Straggling and its accompanying evils may be said to be the gauge of discipline in an army. There were brigades and divisions in which it hardly occurred; there were others in which the stragglers were a considerable fraction of the whole.

During the evacuation of Atlanta by the citizens, there was a good deal of migration beyond our lines among those who were not compelled to go. In Decatur applications were made to me daily, and we kept a record of the passes we issued, trying to know the purpose and motives of those going away, for, of course, a good deal of it was with the intent to carry intelligence to the enemy. The reasons given were often amusing. Two ladies applied, one day, for leave to go to Florida, which they claimed as their home. They said they had been visiting kinsmen in Decatur when the advance of our army brought them within our lines before they were aware of it. When asked why not stay with their friends till the armies should move away, they answered that they were sure they could not endure the rigors of the climate! The phrase became a byword at our headquarters, where we were longing for the invigorating breezes of the North.

We had a visit, about the middle of September, from two gentlemen of some prominence in the public affairs of Georgia,—Mr. Hill and Mr. Foster. They came ostensibly to seek to obtain and remove the body of Mr. Hill's son, who had fallen in the campaign, but I suspected that they represented Governor Brown, who was known to be in a state of exasperation at the results to Georgia of a war begun to assert an ultra doctrine of State rights, but which had destroyed every semblance of State independence and created a centralized government at Richmond which ruled with a rod of iron. Mr. Hill was the same who had represented Governor Brown and General Johnston at Richmond in the mission in July, [Footnote: Ante, p. 272.] and whilst he did not formally present any subject except that of getting his son's body, our conversation gave me sufficient knowledge of his views on the subjects of controversy to make me deeply interested in the outcome of the visit to General Sherman which I arranged for him. [Footnote: See Sherman's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 137.] Nothing of present practical importance came of the interviews, but the voluminous and bitterly controversial correspondence between the Georgia Governor and the War Department of the Confederacy is a curious revelation of the antagonistic influences which had sprung up in the progress of the war. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. lii. pt. ii. pp. 736, 754, 778, 796, 803.]

The death of General McPherson in the battle of Atlanta had been a great loss to the army, but to Sherman it was the loss of an intimate friend as well as an able subordinate. They had been closely associated under Grant in all the campaigns of the Army of the Tennessee, and their mutual attachment and confidence was as strong as their devoted loyalty to their great chief. My own acquaintance with McPherson had been slight, but yet enough to enable me to understand the warm personal regard he inspired in those who came to know him well. I met him first on the day we passed through Snake Creek Gap into Sugar Valley, before the battle of Resaca. We had to learn from him the positions of the troops already advancing toward the town, and I rode with General Schofield to his tent for this purpose. Schofield and he had been classmates and room-mates at West Point, and McPherson revealed himself to his old friend as he would not be likely to do to others. His affability and cordial good-will struck one at once. His graceful bearing and refined, intelligent face heightened the impression, and one could not be with him many minutes without seeing that he was a lovable person. An evenly balanced mind and character had given him a high grade as a cadet, and at the beginning of the war he was serving as a captain of engineers. Being appointed to General Grant's staff, he won completely the general's confidence, and his promotion was rapid, following closely behind that of Sherman.

His death was sincerely mourned, and his place as a soldier was not easy to fill. Sherman would have given the command of the Army of the Tennessee to General Logan, who was next in rank in it, but the strong opposition of General Thomas made him conclude that this would be unwise. [Footnote: See Sherman, in The Great Commanders Series, pp. 229, 332.] If he made a selection outside of the Army of the Tennessee, Hooker had first claim by seniority of rank, but both Sherman and Thomas lacked confidence in him. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 272.] When Howard was selected on Thomas's suggestion, Hooker was doubly offended, for Howard had been his subordinate at the beginning of the year, and there had been no love lost between them. Hooker now asked to be relieved from further service in Sherman's army, and he retired from active field service,—Slocum, another of his former subordinates, with whom he had a violent quarrel, being appointed to the command of his corps on Thomas's nomination. [Footnote: Id., pp. 272, 273.] Halleck, in a letter to Sherman of September 16th, gave pointed testimony to facts which showed why Hooker was personally an unacceptable subordinate. [Footnote: Id., p. 857.] Sherman insisted, with good reason, that Hooker had no real grievance, as he was left in command of his corps, and Howard's promotion was in another and independent organization, the Army of the Tennessee. He also declared that no indignity was intended or offered, and that he simply performed his own duty of selection in accordance with what he believed to be sound reasons. As to Logan, he took pains to praise his handling of the Army of the Tennessee after McPherson's death, and to emphasize his own high opinion of him as an officer and the respect in which he was held by the whole army. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 522.]



CHAPTER XLII

CAMPAIGN OF OCTOBER—HOOD MOVES UPON OUR COMMUNICATIONS

Hood's plan to transfer the campaign to northern Georgia—Made partly subordinate to Beauregard—Forrest on a raid—Sherman makes large detachments—Sends Thomas to Tennessee—Hood across the Chattahoochee—Sherman follows—Affair at Allatoona—Planning the March to the Sea—Sherman at Rome—Reconnoissance down the Coosa—Hood at Resaca—Sherman in pursuit—Hood retreats down the Chattooga valley—We follow in two columns—Concentrate at Gaylesville—Beauregard and Hood at Gadsden—Studying the situation—Thomas's advice—Schofield rejoins—Conference regarding the Twenty-third Corps—Hood marches on Decatur—His explanation of change of plan—Sherman marches back to Rome—We are ordered to join Thomas—Hood repulsed at Decatur marches to Tuscumbia—Our own march begun—Parting with Sherman—Dalton—Chattanooga—Presidential election—Voting by steam—Retrospect of October camp-life—Camp sports—Soldiers' pets—Story of a lizard.

General Hood had been pretty well informed of what was going on in Sherman's army, and was disposed to take advantage of the reduction of our forces by furloughs and the absence of numerous officers on leave. The Confederate President had visited him, and changes in his army had been ordered which made the organization more to his mind. Hardee being sent to Savannah to command a department on the coast, General Cheatham succeeded to the command of the corps. Hood proposed to cross the Chattahoochee some twenty miles west of Atlanta, and move on Powder Springs, where he could reach the railroad and force Sherman to attack him or to move south. In the latter case he proposed to follow, and had urged that the forces in central Georgia be increased so as to resist Sherman's progress if it should be toward Augusta or Macon. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. pp. 847, 862.]

Mr. Davis had been convinced by the campaign just ended that Hood's fiery energy needed the guidance of a better military intellect, and the plan of placing a common head over Hood's and Taylor's departments had occurred to him. Beauregard was the officer whose rank, next to Johnston, indicated him for the command, but he was disaffected toward Davis, and his friends in Congress were active in opposition to the government. [Footnote: Ante, p. 183.] General Lee had suggested Beauregard to take Hood's place, and had sounded him as to his willingness to do so after discussing with him the whole situation in Georgia. Lee felt able, thereupon, to assure the President that Beauregard would accept the assignment; saying, "I think you may feel assured that he understands the general condition of affairs, the difficulties with which they are surrounded, and the importance of exerting all his energies for their improvement." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 846.] But having learned Hood's plan of operating upon Sherman's communications, and being impressed anew by his visit with the energy of Hood's nature, which quickly reacted from the discouragement following the fall of Atlanta, he partly accepted Lee's suggestion, modifying it by giving Beauregard the supreme direction of affairs in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, whilst leaving Hood free to carry out the plan of campaign which he proposed, and to retain the command of his army except when Beauregard might be actually present with it. [Footnote: Id., p. 880.]

General Forrest with his cavalry corps had already been ordered to make a raid upon the railways in Tennessee in pursuance of a suggestion of his own, and on September 16th he started northward. [Footnote: Id., pp. 818, 835.] This plan very well accorded with Hood's, and when the latter determined, later in the campaign, himself to invade Tennessee, Forrest's orders were extended so as to direct a junction with him. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 843.]

On September 24th Sherman learned that Forrest was at Athens and Pulaski on the railway from Decatur to Nashville. He had sent a detachment to burn bridges on the Memphis road also, and the whole of middle and western Tennessee was afire with the excitement of the new raid by the doughty Confederate leader. He received the surrender of the garrison at Athens without serious resistance, but by the time he approached Pulaski, burning bridges as he went, General Rousseau, who was in command of the district, had concentrated force enough to repulse him. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. pp. 450, 455, 456, 870, 876, 879.] After that Forrest attacked no considerable post, and did not reach Sherman's principal line of communications, but making circuitous routes in the region about Columbia, finally retreated across the Tennessee River at Florence on the 5th and 6th of October. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 547.]

On getting the news of Forrest's raid, Sherman sent back two divisions of the Army of the Cumberland to Chattanooga, and one from the Army of the Tennessee to Rome. He also sent General Thomas to Chattanooga to bring into co-operation all the troops posted in Tennessee and northern Georgia. This scattering of his forces to protect his railways proves how low an estimate he put upon the efficiency of Hood's army, and his willingness to receive an attack from it. When he moved northward after Hood, a week later, he left the Twentieth Corps to hold Atlanta, and had with him little more than half of the forces with which he had made the Atlanta campaign; but they proved enough.

My own command had been quietly resting at Decatur with nothing more exciting to do than to send out foraging parties and reconnoissances, when on Friday, September 30th, I got a dispatch from General Sherman which put us on the alert. He told me that Hood had part of his infantry over the Chattahoochee, and was evidently combining desperate measures to destroy our railways. After referring to his arrangements to checkmate Forrest, he gave the "nub" of his own ideas as follows: "I may have to make some quick countermoves east and southeast. Keep your folks ready to send baggage into Atlanta and to start on short notice.... There are fine corn and potato fields about Covington and the Ocmulgee bottoms. We are well supplied with bread, meat, etc., but forage is scarce, and may force us to strike out. If we make a countermove, I will go out myself with a large force and take such a route as will supply us and at the same time make Hood recall the whole or part of his army." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 540.] I answered that we would be "minute men," and also informed General Schofield by telegraph that we might resume active work any moment. [Footnote: Id., p. 541.]

Next day Sherman had evidence that Hood was crossing the Chattahoochee with his whole army, and wrote to General Howard and to me that if Hood should swing over to the Alabama railroad and try to get into Tennessee, he would, if Grant consented, draw to him the troops south of the Etowah, leave Thomas with the rest, and make for Savannah or Charleston by way of Milledgeville and Millen. By the destruction of the east and west roads, Georgia would thus become a break in the Confederacy. But should Hood move upon our communications between the Chattahoochee and the Etowah, he would turn upon him. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 6.] The latter was the movement Hood actually made, and the March to the Sea was postponed for a few weeks.

I need not repeat here the details of the October campaign, which I have given elsewhere. [Footnote: See "Atlanta," chap. xvii.; and for the growth and completion of the plan of the March to the Sea, reference is made to the Life of General Sherman (Great Commanders Series), chap. x.] On the 2d Sherman was aware that the enemy was advancing on Marietta; but far from hurrying to anticipate him there, we were held back yet another day that Hood might be lured far enough to let us strike him in rear. General Corse at Rome was ordered to reinforce Allatoona pass and hold stubbornly there, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 8.] and then, on the 3d and 4th, Sherman was in motion, trying to catch the enemy in that rough country on the border of the Etowah. On the 2d I had sent a division to make a strong reconnoissance eastward to Flat Rock, and a brigade to Stone Mountain to make sure that no enemy was near us in that direction, [Footnote: Id., p. 33.] and on its return we followed the rest of the army northward, Slocum's corps remaining in garrison at Atlanta, as before mentioned.

There had been continuous heavy rains, and all the rivers were swollen, which retarded Hood's movements as well as ours; but he showed commendable prudence, did not advance with his main body beyond Dallas, and operated by detachments on the railway, which he broke near Ackworth, but did no serious damage. On the 5th Corse and Tourtelotte made their fine defence of the position at Allatoona against French's division, and on the 6th my reconnoissance proved that Hood had concentrated again in the neighborhood of Dallas. The two most important bridges on the railroad were now safe, those crossing the Chattahoochee and the Etowah; and as Forrest had failed to reach the line from Chattanooga to Nashville, Hood's plan of campaign had failed and Sherman's communications were unbroken. Unwilling to confess defeat, Hood now determined to make a considerable circuit westward, cross the Coosa below Rome and march by the Chattooga valley upon Resaca, where the bridge over the Oostanaula was next in importance to that at Allatoona. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 804.] As the enemy's first movement from Dallas was westward, Sherman had to look for information as to his further course. Strengthening the garrison at Rome, he waited at Allatoona for news, discussing with General Grant by telegraph his own plan of marching upon Savannah if Hood moved far westward. The latter repeated to his government his purpose to follow Sherman if he did so. [Footnote: Ibid.] The storms and floods had done much more damage than Hood, several of the large bridges being injured and smaller ones carried away.

At Allatoona Sherman's headquarters were close to my own, and he opened to me his views of the situation. He did not propose to leave the railway line to follow Hood far; but if the opportunity offered to fight him near the line, he would seize it. If Hood entered Tennessee near the Georgia line, he would follow and destroy him; but he was already confident that his enemy would not dare do this, and pointed to Muscle Shoals as the nearest point at which he was likely to cross the Tennessee River. He hoped that General Grant would consent, in this case, to his own march on Savannah, and promised to lead Hood a lively chase if the latter turned back to follow him. Once a new base on the sea was reached, he would turn upon and crush his opponent.

His plan had a personal interest for myself, for as we were out of communication with General Schofield and might march southward any day, he thought it probable that he should separate the Twenty-third Corps from the Department of the Ohio and take it with him, making my command of it permanent. He assumed that Schofield would prefer to remain in the higher position of department commander, rather than leave it for the field command of the corps, which was a good deal weakened by the hard service of the summer.

From the 10th to the 13th of October the army moved in echelon by short marches to Rome, and on the date last named I was ordered to push a reconnoissance with the corps and General Kenner Garrard's division of cavalry down the Coosa far enough to settle the question where Hood had gone. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 230.] We started early and made thirteen miles in the forenoon, routing the enemy's cavalry holding that road and capturing two cannon. It was definitely learned that Hood had taken up the pontoon bridge and gone north. [Footnote: Id., p. 250.] Meantime the enemy had appeared at Resaca, and as soon as it was certain that they were in force Sherman put everything in rapid motion in that direction. He had warned Thomas on the 11th, and directed him to reinforce Chattanooga and Bridgeport. [Footnote: Id., p. 251.] There was again a chance that Hood might be caught between the forces. He had approached Resaca from the west, by the north bank of the Oostanaula, on the 12th, but his summons of the place being defied, he did not assault, but after some threatening demonstrations marched north to Dalton. He plainly felt that he had no time to spare, but it was just as plain that in his haste he was accomplishing nothing.

My march down the Coosa had put me in the rear on the movement north from Rome. I reached Resaca on the 15th, in the early afternoon, having received authority from Sherman to pass the trains and push forward. [Footnote: Id., p. 294.] The Army of the Cumberland had followed Hood to Dalton and Buzzard Roost, the Army of the Tennessee had driven his cavalry out of Snake Creek Gap and occupied it, and we were halted at Resaca to support either. General Schofield had reached Chattanooga on the 13th, and was given command of all troops in that vicinity by General Thomas, who was at Nashville. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 253.] Schofield had in hand the two divisions which had been sent back from Atlanta a fortnight before, besides the garrison; and other troops were on the way to him from Nashville. But communication with Sherman was interrupted, and Hood had better knowledge of the full situation. Learning that Chattanooga was held strongly, Hood marched from Buzzard Roost by way of Villanow over Taylor's Ridge into the Chattooga valley, up which he had just come. Prisoners told us that his army was out of provisions, as they had failed in the hope of capturing depots of stores. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 791.] He must get back within reach of his own depots. Gadsden had been made a temporary base, and he made haste to reach the valley of the Coosa, in which it lay.