CHAPTER XXXV.

AN INTRIGUE IN RICHMOND AGAINST GEN. JOHNSTON.—EVIDENCE OF IT.—GEN. BRAGG'S VISIT TO ATLANTA.-REMOVAL OF GEN. JOHNSTON FROM COMMAND. THE BATTLES OF ATLANTA. -ENGAGEMENTS OF THE 20TH, 22d, and 28TH JULY.-SHERMAN'S DESIGNS ON THE MACON ROAD.-UNSUCCESSFUL RAIDS OF STONEMAN AND M'COOK.-HOOD'S GREAT MISTAKE. HE SENDS OFF HIS CAVALRY TOWARDS CHATTANOOGA.-SHERMAN MOVES ON

THE MACON ROAD.-DEFEAT OF HARDEE AT JONESBORO'.-HOOD EVACUATES ATLANTA, AND RETREATS TO LOVEJOY'S STATION.-SHERMAN'S OCCUPATION OF ATLANTA.—HIS ORDER FOR ITS DEPOPULATION.-ATROCIOUS CHARACTER OF THIS MEASURE.-THE FALL OF ATLANTA A SERIOUS DISASTER FOR THE CONFEDERATES.-VISIT OF PRESIDENT DAVIS TO THE MILITARY LINES IN GEORGIA.-HIS SPEECH AT MACON.-HE BETRAYS TO THE ENEMY THE NEW MILITARY DESIGN.-HOOD'S NEW MOVEMENT TO TENNESSEE.-SHERMAN FOLLOWS TO GAYLESVILLE. HE TURNS BACK AND DETERMINES TO TRAVERSE THE STATE OF GEORGIA TO THE SEA.-HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH GRANT.-HOW THE ENTERPRISE WAS A PLAIN ONE.-NO PERIL OR GENIUS IN IT.-ERRORS OF THE HOOD-DAVIS STRATEGY.HOOD'S TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN. HE LOSES THE GREAT OPPORTUNITY OF THE CAMPAIGN AT SPRING HILL.-SCHOFIELD EFFECTS A RETREAT TO FRANKLIN.-BATTLE OF FRANKLIN. -HEROIO CONDUCT OF THE CONFEDERATE TROOPS.-REMARKABLE LOSS AMONG THEIR GENERAL OFFICERS.-BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. GEN. GRANT'S FEARS THAT HOOD WOULD INVADE KENTUCKY.-PROBABLE EFFECT OF SUCH A MOVEMENT.—THE ENEMY'S PLAN OF BATTLE. THE SECOND DAY'S FIGHT.-HOOD'S ASSURANCE OF VICTORY.—A CONFEDERATE BRIGADE GIVES WAY BEFORE A SKIRMISH LINE OF THE ENEMY.—A DISGRACEFUL PANIO AND ROUT.-HOOD ESCAPES ACROSS THE TENNESSEE RIVER. HIS LOSSES. THE WHOLE SCHEME OF CONFEDERATE DEFENCE TERMINATED WEST OF THE ALLEGHANIES.

GEN. LEE had moved from the Rapidan to Richmond, with an increase of reputation at each stage of the retreat. It is curious that when Gen. Johnston moved from the Northern frontier of Georgia to Atlanta, even with greater success, he should not have experienced similar tokens of approbation. The fact was that he was the subject of a deep intrigue in Richmond, to displace him from the command of an army, whose affections and confidence he had never ceased to enjoy ; and even while he was moving in the march from Dalton, his removal from command was secretly entertained in Richmond. There is a certain delicate evidence of this, which the historian should not spare. While the march referred to was in

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progress, a letter written by Gen. J. B. Hood to one who was supposed to have more than an ordinary concern, an affectionate interest in his career, declared then his confident anticipation of being soon elevated from the position of corps commander to the head of the Army of Tennessee. There was other evidence of the intrigue in Richmond. Gen. Bragg, the “military adviser" of President Davis, visited Johnston in his lines around Atlanta; never apprised him that his visit was of an official nature; put together everything he could to make a case against Johnston, and returned to Richmond with the alarming report that he was about to give up Atlanta to the enemy! Of this nonsense Gen. Johnston has written: "The proofs that I intended to hold Atlanta are, the fact that under my orders the work of strengthening its defences was going on vigorously, the communication on the subject made by me to Gen. Hood, and the fact that my family was in 'the town. That the public workshops were removed, and no large supplies deposited in the town, as alleged by Gen. Bragg, were measures of common prudence, and no more indicated the intention to abandon the place than the sending the wagons of an army to the rear, on a day of battle, proves a foregone determination to abandon. the field."

But the Presidential fiat was to go forth in the face of all facts. On the night of the 17th July it was known in the Army of Tennessee, that a despatch had been received from Richmond, removing Johnston from command, and appointing in his place Gen. J. B. Hood. The news struck a chill in the army, such as no act or menace of the enemy had ever done. To Sherman it was the occasion of new spirit. When he heard that Hood was to be his future antagonist, he jumped to his feet, made a significant motion around his forefinger, and exclaimed: "I know that fellow."

Gen. J. B. Hood had been appointed by President Davis as "a fighting General," and was prompt to vindicate the cheap reputation that had procured for him such a command. With some reinforcements from the Southwest and levies of Georgia militia, Gen. Hood had now under his command an effective force of forty-one thousand infantry and artillery, and ten thousand cavalry. With reference to other Confederate forces in the field, his army was a large one, although it gave him but little margin for fanciful attacks and useless sacrifice of life.

THE BATTLES OF ATLANTA.

As Sherman approached Atlanta, two of his corps had swung around upon the Augusta road, destroying this line of communication, while Thomas took his command across Peach Tree Creek, directly in front of the Confederate entrenchments. While the enemy's right on the creek

was in marching column, Hood, in the afternoon of the 20th July, directed an attack upon it, designing to take advantage of a gap between two of its divisions. The attack was led by Walker's and Bates' divisions of Hardee's corps; and the massed troops, in admirable order, burst through the gap in the enemy's lines, and for a time appeared about to destroy his forces on the right. But a double fire was brought to bear upon their lines along the deep hollow they had penetrated; and the attack was drawn off in good order, but after a half hour of deadly work, in which the killed and wounded were counted by thousands. The loss of the enemy was about two thousand; that of the Confederates probably twice as large, as they were the assaulting party, and terribly exposed on the line of attack.

Next day, McPherson moved forward, and established a line east and south of Atlanta, and within three miles of the town. His command stretched beyond the Atlanta and Augusta Railroad, which he had torn up. Hood now hastily swung around Hardee's corps, followed by the others, and brought the bulk of his army against McPherson. Hardee moved against the enemy's extreme left, drove him from his works, and captured sixteen pieces of artillery. Gen. McPherson was shot dead as he rode along the line. Meanwhile, Cheatham attacked the enemy's centre with a portion of his command, and took six pieces of artillery. Affairs looked gloomy for the enemy; he had been repulsed at several points, he had lost much artillery, and the stream of bleeding men going to the rear told how severely he suffered in the conflict. But about this time the enemy succeeded in concentrating his artillery, and Gen. Sherman sent word to Logan, who had succeeded McPherson, to mass his troops in the centre and charge. Exhausted, wasted, and bleeding, the Confederate columns gave way, abandoning most of the artillery they had captured in the early part of the day. The attack of the 22d was like that of the 20th-one of the most reckless, massive, and headlong charges of the war, where immense prices were paid for momentary successes, and the terrible recoil of numbers gave a lesson to the temerity of the Confederate commander.

Hood's attempt on the Federal left being frustrated, he fell back to his inner line of works. The intentions of Sherman appear now to have been to swing his army to Hood's extreme right, threatening the Macon road, and having in co-operation a great cavalry raid upon his rear. Stoneman was sent with five thousand cavalry, and McCook with four thousand men, to meet on the Macon road near Lovejoy's Station, where they were to destroy the rail, and also to attack and drive Wheeler's command. Stoneman requested permission to be allowed to proceed to Macon to release the Federal prisoners confined there. Sherman left this at his own discretion, in case he felt he was able to do so after the defeat of Wheeler's cavalry. But Stoneman did not fulfil the conditions. He got down in front of

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Macon, without going to Lovejoy's, and, in attempting to retreat, was hemmed in by Iverson, and was himself captured, together with one thousand of his men and two guns. McCook returned after losing five hundred men as prisoners. The cavalry raid was a decided failure, or as Sherman mildly expressed it, "not deemed a success."

On the 28th July Hood made a partial attack along the Lickskillet road, which he had occcupied with Stewart's and Lee's corps. The conflict was desultory and without result on either side. After five hours of action, Hood retired with a loss of about fifteen hundred killed and wounded.

We have already noticed that Sherman did not have force enough to invest Atlanta completely. This was the great point in Johnston's calculations, when they were upset at Richmond; for Sherman, reduced to strategy, would have found his master in the cool and dexterous Johnston, whereas in Hood he had plainly his inferiour to deal with-a commander who had indeed abundant courage, but a scant brain with which to balance it. Sherman's army was not large enough to encircle Atlanta completely, without making his lines too thin and assailable. He never contemplated an assault upon its strong works. It was his great object to get possession of the Macon road, and thus sever Atlanta entirely from its supplies. It was not sufficient to cut the road by raids; it must be kept broken, and to accomplish this it was clearly necessary to plant a sufficient force south of Atlanta.

While Sherman meditated such a movement, Hood made the very mistake that would secure and facilitate it, and thrust into the hands of his adversary the opportunity he had waited for. He sent off his entire cavalry towards Chattanooga to raid on the enemy's line of communicationa most absurd excursion, since Sherman had enough provisions accumulated this side of that place to last him, until he could restore his communications, and had also formed a second base at Allatoona.

Instantly, the Federal cavalry was on the Macon road. With his flanks easily protected, Sherman followed quickly with his main army. On the 31st August, Howard, on the right, had reached Jonesboro', on the Macon road, twenty miles southeast of Atlanta; Thomas, in the centre, was at Couch's; and Schofield, on the left, was near Rough-and-Ready, still closer to Atlanta.

Hood had no alternative now but to make a battle on or near the line of the Macon road, and there settle the fate of Atlanta. He might have moved out of the city on the north, and have overwhelmed what of Sherman's army-the Twentieth corps-was left there; but he would then have been in a country destitute of supplies. He determined to make the battle near Jonesboro', and the corps of Lee and Hardee were moved out to attempt to dislodge the enemy from the entrenched position he held

across Flint River. The attack failed with the loss of more than two thousand men. On the evening of the 1st September, the enemy's columns converged upon Jonesboro', and Hardee's corps, finding itself about to be flanked and overwhelmed, withdrew during the night, after having been cut up by two severe engagements, and with the loss of eight guns.

That night, finding his line of supply cut off, and the sum of his disasters complete, Hood determined to abandon Altanta. He blew up his magazines, destroyed all his supplies that he could not remove, consisting of seven locomotives and eighty-one cars loaded with ammunition, and left the place by the turnpike roads. He moved swiftly across the country towards Macon. The next morning Sherman moved south to catch the retreating army, but at Lovejoy's, two miles beyond Jonesboro', he found Hood strongly entrenched, and, abandoning the pursuit, returned to Atlanta.

Sherman announced: "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won." His army entered the city on the morning of the 2d September, and the successful commander rode through the streets to his headquarters without parade or ostentation. He declared that his army, wearied by an arduous campaign, needed rest, and that he proposed to give it an interval of repose within the defences of Atlanta. But the period of military inaction was to be employed in launching measures of the most extraordinary cruelty against the non-combatant people of Atlanta. Gen. Sherman was the author of the sentiment, "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it," which was caught up in the Northern newspapers as a bit of very sententious and elegant philosophy, when, in fact, denying, as it did, that war had any law of order or amelioration, it was a mere plagiarism from the bloody and detestable code of the savage. This extraordinary doctrine Sherman at once proceeded to put in practice by depopulating Atlanta, and driving from their homes thousands of helpless women and children. It was the most cruel and savage act of the war. Butler, the tyrant of New Orleans, had only banished registered enemies. Sherman issued a sweeping edict, covering all the inhabitants of a city, and driving them from their homes to wander as strangers, outcasts and exiles, and to subsist on charity. Gen. Hood, while he received the exiles within his lines, took occasion to protest, writing to Gen. Sherman himself of the measure his sinister mind. had devised: "It transcends in studied and ingenious cruelty all acts ever before brought to my attention in the dark history of war." But all protests were unavailing. In vain the Mayor of Atlanta had pointed out to Gen. Sherman that the country south of the city was crowded already with refugees, and without houses to accommodate the people, and that many had no other shelter but what they might find in churches, and out-buildings; that among the exiles were many poor women in an advanced state of pregnancy; that the consequences would be woe, horrour, and suffering,