to return to the Union it should be received at once, with CHAP. XI. a full guarantee of all its constitutional rights. . . But the Union must be preserved at all hazards. I could not look in the face of my gallant comrades of the army and navy, who have survived so many bloody battles, and tell them that their labors and the sacrifice of so many of our slain and wounded brethren had been in vain, that we had abandoned that Union for which we have so often periled our lives. A vast majority of our people, whether in the army and navy or at home, would, as I would, hail with unbounded joy the permanent restoration of peace, on the basis of the Union under the Constitution without the effusion of another drop of blood. But no peace can be permanent without union.

Having thus absolutely repudiated the platform upon which he was nominated, he coolly concluded, "Believing that the views here expressed are those of the Convention and the people you represent, I accept the nomination." 1

McClellan to Committee, Sept. 8, 1864.

Upon this contradictory body of doctrine McClellan began his campaign. The platform of the convention was the law, his letter was the gospel, and the orators of the party might reconcile the two according to their sympathies or their ingenuity. The Ohio wing had no hesitation in taking its stand. "The Chicago platform," said Mr. Vallandigham, speaking from the same platform with Mr. Pendleton on the 16th of September, “enunciated its policy and principles by authority and was binding upon every Democrat, and by them the Democratic Administration must and should be governed. Pherson, It was the only authorized exposition of the Democratic creed, and he repudiated all others." And a

1 We have been shown several General McClellan received the copies of this letter in the posses- judicious and intelligent advice sion of Pierre T. Barlow, which and assistance of Samuel L. M. indicate that in its composition Barlow.

Mc

"History

of the Rebellion,"

p. 423.

At Sidney,

Ohio,

Sept. 24.

1864.

CHAP. XI. Week afterwards he went still further and specifically contradicted General McClellan. He said, "The two principal points in that letter of acceptance to which I object were brought before the committee. The one containing the threat of future war was unanimously rejected. The other, to the effect that until the States and people of the South had returned to the Union we would not exhaust these arts of statesmanship,' as they are called, received but three votes in that committee, though presented almost in the very words of the letter itself."

CHAPTER XII

ATLANTA

ON

1864.

N the 17th of July Sherman began his march CHAP. XII. upon Atlanta. Thomas moved directly towards that city; Schofield took the road to Decatur, and McPherson, still further to the left, was to strike the railroad between Decatur and Stone Mountain. Johnston being instantly apprised of this order of march, took up his position for defense on Peach Tree Creek, a little rivulet north and east of Atlanta, which flows into the Chattahoochee near the railroad bridge. He resolved to throw the greater part of his own force against the right wing of Sherman, under Thomas, before Schofield and McPherson could come up from the left; but while planning his attack he received this dispatch from the Confederate adjutant-general: "I am directed by the Secretary of War to inform you that as you have failed to arrest the advance of the enemy to the vicinity of Atlanta, far in the interior of Georgia, and express no confidence that you can defeat or repel him, you are hereby relieved from the command of the Army and Department of Tennessee, which you will immediately turn over to General Hood." This action of the Confederate Government was entirely unexpected

Johnston, "Narrative of Military Operations," p. 349.

CHAP. XII. by General Johnston. He was aware of the hostile feeling existing towards him in the Confederate executive; but only a few days before General Bragg had passed through his camp on his way to Kirby Smith's department to ascertain, as he said, what reënforcements could be forthcoming from that region to General Johnston; and he had also received from Governor Brown of Georgia the gratifying intelligence that within a few days he could give him reënforcements of 10,000 State militia. It is true he had received dispatches from Richmond indicating a certain degree of dissatisfaction with his policy of retreat, and he had only recently had a telegram from the Secretary of War demanding positive information as to his plans and purposes, to which Johnston had replied in his usual manner, declining to commit himself positively to any especial course of action. It was this reply of Johnston's, Jefferson Davis says, which induced him to take the decisive step. He had long hesitated to do this, knowing Johnston's popularity in the Confederacy, and conscious that his own prejudice against him was well known and criticized throughout the country.

"Rise and

Fall of the

Confederate

Gover

ment." Vol. II., p. 557.

Johnston at once wrote and published an order transferring the command of the army to General Hood; and the next morning, announcing his action to the Secretary of War, he permitted himself to say: 'As to the alleged cause of my removal, I assert that Sherman's army is much stronger compared with that of Tennessee, than Grant's compared with that of Northern Virginia. Yet the enemy has been compelled to advance much more slowly to the vicinity of Atlanta than to that of

Richmond and Petersburg, and penetrated much CHAP. XII. deeper into Virginia than into Georgia." Replying to the Secretary's charge that he expressed no confidence in his ability to defeat the enemy, he Johnston, added, "Confident language by a military commander is not usually regarded as evidence of competence."

General Hood, though he had been extremely free in his criticisms of Johnston, and had in fact done what he could to undermine the confidence of the Confederate War Department in his chief, felt himself greatly embarrassed by this sudden and unexpected promotion. He was, he himself says, comparatively a stranger to the Western army. He was a fanatical admirer of Stonewall Jackson, and could see no merit in any military operations which differed from those of that energetic commander. He had not succeeded in inspiring that army with confidence or enthusiasm; and on the other hand he entertained an opinion of the troops whom he was to command which was in itself a presage of disaster. He says: "The troops of the Army of Tennessee had for such length of time been subjected to the ruinous policy pursued from Dalton to Atlanta that they were unfitted for united action in pitched battle... They had become wedded to the 'timid defensive' policy, and naturally regarded with distrust a commander likely to initiate offensive operations."

On the morning of the 18th of July, General Hood, after a sleepless night, took General A. P. Stewart, who had succeeded to the command of Polk's corps, and rode to the quarters of General Johnston, and there requested that Johnston should

"Narrative of Military Opera

tions,"

p. 349.

J. B. Hood, "Advance and

Retreat," p. 162.

1864.