the initiative in the spring campaign, to work all parts of the army. together, and somewhat toward a common centre. For your information, I now write you my programme as at present determined upon. "I have sent orders to Banks, by private messenger, to finish up his present expedition against Shreveport with all disOrders respecting trans-Mississippi patch; to turn over the defense of Red River to Genoperations. eral Steele and the navy, and return your troops to you, and his own to New Orleans; to abandon all Texas except the Rio Grande, and to hold that with a force not exceeding 4000 men; to reduce the number of troops on the Mississippi to the lowest necessary to hold it; and to collect from his command not less than 25,000 To this I will add 5000 from Missouri. With this force he is to commence operations against Mobile as soon as he can; it will be impossible for him to commence too early.

men.

Orders for the Southern Department.

Virginia.

"Gillmore joins Butler with 10,000 men, and the two operate against Richmond from the south side of James's River. This will give Butler 33,000 men, W. F. Smith commanding the right wing of his forces, and Gillmore the left wing. I will stay with the Army of the Potomac, increased by Burnside's corps of not less than 25,000 effective men, and operate directly Orders for West against Lee's army wherever it may be found. Sigel collects all his available force in two columns-one, under Ord and Averill, to start from Beverley, Virginia, and the other, under Crook, to start from Charleston on the Kanawha-to move against the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. Crook will endeavor to get in about Saltville, and move east from there to join Ord. His force will be all cavalry, while Ord will have from 10,000 to 12,000 men of all arms. You I propose to move against Johnston's army, to break it up and get into the enemy's country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.

Orders to
Sherman.

"I do not propose to lay down for you a plan of campaign, but simply to indicate the work it is desirable to have done, and leave you free to execute it in your own way. Submit to me, however, as soon as you can, your plan of operation.

Date of the simultaneous movements.

"As stated, Banks is ordered to commence operations as soon as he can; Gillmore is ordered to report at Fortress Monroe by the 18th, or as soon thereafter as practicable; Sigel is concentrating now. None will move from their places of rendezvous until I direct, except Banks. I want to be ready to move by the 25th instant, if possible; but all I can now direct is that you get ready as soon as you can. I know you will have difficulties to encounter in getting through the mountains to where supplies are abundant, but I believe you will accomplish it."

In a letter, ten days later (April 14th), to Sherman, among other things Grant says:

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Mutual action of

man's armies.

What I now want more particularly to say is that, if the two main attacks, yours and the one from here, should Grant's and Sher- promise great success, the enemy may, in a fit of desperation, abandon one part of their line of defense and throw their whole strength upon a single army, believing a defeat with one victory to sustain them better than a defeat all along their whole line, and hoping, too, at the same time, that the army, meeting with no resistance, will rest perfectly satisfied with its laurels, having penetrated to a given point south, thereby enabling them to throw their force first upon one and then on the other.

"With the majority of military commanders they might do this; but you have had too much experience in traveling light, and subsisting upon the country, to be caught by any such ruse. I hope my experience has not been thrown away. My directions, then, would be, if the enemy in your front shows signs of joining Lee, follow him up to the extent of your ability. I will prevent the concentration of Lee upon your front if it is in the power of this army to do it."

Changes in the

The appointment of Grant to be lieutenant general produced several changes in the army: General army commands. Halleck, with the thanks and approbation of the President for the manner in which his arduous and responsible duties had been performed, was relieved as general-in-chief, and assigned to duty as chief of staff of the army; Sherman succeeded Grant in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, embracing four departments and their armies, the Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland, Arkansas.

Henceforth the chief interest of the war centres on the campaigns of Grant and Sherman.

CHAPTER LXXIX.

THE CAMPAIGN ACROSS THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. CAPTURE OF ATLANTA. ABANDONMENT OF GEORGIA BY THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.

General Sherman, conducting that portion of the campaign in the Atlantic region which had been committed to him, forced a passage across the Alleghany Mountains.

He compelled the opposing Confederate army, under General Johnston, to retreat from one strong position after another, defeating it in many battles, and in face of it accomplishing the passage of the Chattahoochee River.

On this the Confederate government relieved General Johnston from command, replacing him by General Hood, who at once assumed the offensive, and fought several fierce battles in defense of Atlanta.

The Confederate army was at length compelled to evacuate that city, General Sherman thus bringing his campaign to a triumphant close.

Under the orders of President Davis, disastrous for the Southern cause, the Confederate armies abandoned Georgia.

Sherman's cam

tains.

across the

"It is hardly necessary for me to tell you," said Grant in a letter to Sherman," that I feel you have Alleghany Moun- accomplished the most gigantic undertaking given to any general in this war, and with a skill that will be acknowledged in history as unsurpassed, if not unequaled." "I do not hesitate to say," wrote Halleck, "that your campaign has been the most brilliant of this war." The campaign which thus extorted their admiration was Sherman's forced passage across the Alleghany Mountains, and his descent into the plains of Georgia.

Topography of those mountains.

This range of mountains, commencing near the Canadian frontier, follows in a general manner the course of the Atlantic coast-line for more than 1200 miles, being nearest to it in the Northern States, and gradually receding until, in the cotton regions, its distance is 200 miles. The Indians of the North gave to it the name of the Alleghanies, those of the South the Appalachians. Among Americans it passes indifferently

under both titles. It consists of a series of parallel folds or flexures of the earth's crust, on the eastern side of which is a gently inclining plane descending to the sea.

To that plane great historical significance belongs. It was the seat of the English colonial settlements-the scene of the Revolutionary War.

A traveler from Chattanooga to Atlanta passes for forty miles a succession of mountain ranges; then there is a broad valley intersected by two rivers; then another suc cession of mountains to the Chattahoochee, beyond which is Atlanta, a focus of railroads and manufactures. The plane, thence extending to the sea, was the chief seat of the machine-shops and factories of the Confederacy.

Importance of the

Winding through the dark glens and frowning passes of this rugged region is the railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta. It was along this road, or rather in lines parallel to it, that the march now to be described was made. In the opinion of the best-informed military officers of the Confederacy, "the most injurious blow city of Atlanta, which could be struck against the Confederacy would be the capture of Atlanta." Such was the view of Beauregard, who not only proposed to withdraw from all distant and diverging lines of operations, so as to concentrate at that point an army of 100,000 men, but to 'thoroughly emancipate its commander from the least subordination to the views and control of the heads of bureaus at Richmond" (letter to Soulé, December 8th, 1863). That these views were correct we shall now see. The military power of the Confederacy was broken, and what, perhaps, in the end was of higher importance, its political spirit was destroyed by the capture of Atlanta.

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The military operations which had been conducted in and of the Atlantic the Mississippi Valley had forever wrested that vast country from the Confederacy. It might be troubled by the transitory dashes of marauding

region.

cavalry or infantry sorties, but in a political sense it was completely conquered. Mobile, on the Gulf coast, was the only remaining strong-hold, and that was held by the Confederates merely on sufferance. Unless the requirements of the proposed Georgia campaign should otherwise indicate, it was concluded expedient for the present to leave it untouched. Its possession implied the neutralization of a considerable Confederate force which was idly occupying it. The region beyond the Mississippi was of no strategic importance, and could not in any manner influence the is sue of the war.

Very different was it with the region interposed between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic Ocean. This was the seat of whatever power remained in the Confederacy. The government at Richmond had stripped all other parts of their vast domain to insure the security of this. The people of Georgia and the Carolinas viewed unmoved the disasters they had done so much to bring upon the states of the great valley, believing themselves protected on the west by the impassable rampart of the Alleghanies, and on the north and south by the powerful armies of Lee and Johnston-living walls which, not without reason, they considered as immovable as the mountains themselves.

man's army,

Sherman, having been assigned to the duty of dealing Strength of Sher- with the Confederate army in Georgia, repaired to Chattanooga, the portal through which he must pass to assail his antagonist among the mountains, and there destroy him, or force him down into the open country below.

On the 1st of May, 1864, Sherman's force was as follows: