CHAP. I. This weighty load was well placed. Sherman said, "General Thomas is well alive to the occasion, and better suited to the emergency than any man I have." He might have gone further and said that no man then alive on the continent was better suited to the work in hand. Grant, it is true, never rated Thomas at his real value; but he acquiesced in Sherman's opinion on this as on almost all other occasions. Sherman's confidence was full and unlimited. He issued an order that "in the event of military movements or the accidents of war separating the general in command from his military division, Major-General George H. Thomas, commanding the Department of the Cumberland, would exercise command over all the troops and garrisons not absolutely in the presence of the General-in-Chief." The Departments of the Ohio and Tennessee were thus placed completely under his command. Thomas had not sought these honors or responsibilities; he accepted them most reluctantly. "I do not wish," he said, "to be in command of the defense of Tennessee unless you and the authorities in Washington deem it absolutely necessary"; but having once accepted the charge he executed it with all that human courage and human wisdom could bring to the task. During the whole month of November the situation was extremely grave. Hood's army had, by the utmost exertion, been recruited up to its full strength. He himself says that desertions had ceased, and he started, at least, with his organization perfect and his subordinate generals entirely in harmony with him, now that Hardee was gone; with three corps of infantry, commanded by Gen 1864. Report of Committee on Conduct Supplement, Part I., p. 369. erals S. D. Lee, Cheatham, and Stewart, comprising CHAP. I. a force variously estimated at from 40,000 to 45,000; and he was accompanied besides by a formidable body of cavalry, under Forrest, of 10,000 to 12,000. Thomas's force was, on the 1st of November, greatly inferior to that of Hood. A large part of it was dispersed along the garrisoned posts of the southern frontier of Tennessee, and this, of course, could of the War. not be displaced. His movable force he estimated at 22,000 infantry, and a little over 4000 cavalry. He received about this time some 12,000 new recruits from the North; but these did not make up his losses by the expiration of terms of service and by the furloughing of soldiers going North. The forces upon which he most relied were the Fourth Corps, under Stanley, and the Twenty-third Corps, under Schofield; and he was promised in addition to these an excellent corps under A. J. Smith, which had been serving temporarily under Rosecrans. At the time of the battle of Nashville, however, Thomas had at hand of all arms, about 55,000. As soon as Thomas learned that Hood had appeared in force on the Tennessee, Schofield and Stanley were ordered to be concentrated at Pulaski; but before this could be accomplished Forrest had made an attack at Johnsonville, one of Thomas's bases of supply on the Tennessee River, and, after a feeble and discreditable resistance on the part of the garrison of the place, had caused the destruction of several transports and a large amount of valuable Government property. Schofield arrived at Nashville on the 5th, when the Nov., 1864. advance of his corps was immediately dispatched to Johnsonville by rail; but on reaching there he CHAP. I. found that Forrest, having done all the damage possible, had retreated. Schofield left the place sufficiently garrisoned, and with the rest of his command marched to join the Fourth Corps at Pulaski, and to assume command of all the troops in that vicinity. Though Stanley's commission as major-general antedated his, Schofield had the higher rank as commander of a department. His orders from Thomas were to retard the advance of Hood into Tennessee as much as possible, without risking a general engagement, until Smith's command should arrive from Missouri, and General J. H. Wilson, who had been put in command of all the cavalry in the department,- and who came indorsed by Grant with the prediction that he would increase the efficiency of that arm fifty per cent.,- had time to remount the cavalry regiments whose horses had been taken for Kilpatrick. 1864. Hood, "Advance and Retreat," p. 273. A fortnight had been spent by Hood and Beauregard at Tuscumbia and the contemplated campaign discussed by them in all its bearings. On the 6th of November Hood telegraphed to Jefferson Davis his intention to move into Tennessee, to which Mr. Davis answered, that if Sherman, as reported, had "sent a large part of his force southward, you may first beat him in detail and subsequently, without serious obstruction or danger to the country in your rear, advance to the Ohio River." On the 12th, which was the day on which communication ceased between Sherman and Thomas, Hood telegraphed again to the Confederate President, giving his reasons for not having fought Sherman; saying he did not then regard his army as in proper condition for a pitched battle, but that it was now in excellent spirits and confidence. He also accounted for his delays of the last few weeks by saying that Forrest had not been able to join him; that as soon as he could come up, which would be in a few days, he should move forward. He moved across to Florence on the north bank of the Tennessee on the 13th; Forrest reported the next day, and Hood brought his entire army across the river. CHAP. I. Hood, "Advance and Retreat," p. 274. Nov. 20, 1864. Sherman's intentions were not long a secret to the Confederates, and, his formidable movement to the south being now fully developed, Beauregard ordered Hood, on the 17th of November, to "take the offensive at the earliest practicable moment striking the enemy while thus dispersed, and by these means distract Sherman's advance into Georgia"; and on the same day, telegraphing to Ibid., p. 277. General Howell Cobb, who was reporting in panic and terror the advance of Sherman, Beauregard said, "Victory in Tennessee will relieve Georgia." Three days later Beauregard again charged Hood to 66 push on active offensive immediately," and on the Ibid., p. 281. 21st, Hood, with his usual alacrity, put his army in motion, feeling sure that he was to gain the victory so much needed and desired. The storms which in Sherman's neighborhood had been no more than refreshing showers, in Middle Tennessee had turned Dispatches the roads to mire; neither Schofield nor Thomas believed that it was possible for the Confederates Schofield to move in such weather, but nevertheless Hood pushed forward with his habitual vigor intent on coming upon Schofield's rear and cutting him off from Columbia; and in this daring plan he almost succeeded. In spite of snow, sleet, and rain he pushed northward, and it was only by an equally of Nov. 19, from Thomas and to each other. CHAP. I. 1864. Cox, "Franklin and Nashville," p. 65. vigorous and energetic march on the night from the 23d to the 24th of November that Schofield reached Columbia first. Forrest's cavalry was on the Mount Pleasant pike almost in sight of the town when Cox's division moved at double-quick, marched across from the Pulaski road, and held back the Confederates until Stanley's head of column arrived and a strong position was taken up by the whole command, covering the town on the south. Disappointed in his first effort to march around Schofield, Hood determined to proceed by the right flank, crossing the river some distance above Columbia, and move upon Schofield's line of communications at Spring Hill. He had not yet given up his hope of renewing in the West the exploits of Stonewall Jackson. "I had beheld," he said, "with admiration the noble deeds and grand results achieved by the immortal Jackson in similar manœuvres." He waited only one day to prepare this movement, and as he had always thought, since the 22d of July, that if he had been present in Hardee's flanking movement he could have destroyed McPherson's army, he determined this time to accomplish a closer imitation of Jackson at Chancellorsville, by riding at the head of his own flanking column. He bridged Nov., 1864. the river during the night of the 28th, three miles above Columbia, and crossing at daybreak he rode at the head of Granbury's brigade of Cleburne's division, giving instructions to remaining corps to follow and to keep well closed up. He left General + Columbia with two divisions and most ry to make a heavy demonstration ofield and to follow him if he retired. |