He spoke of the deep disgrace of the Confederate army The indiscreet ad- falling back from Dalton to the interior of dresses of Davis. Georgia. He denounced the governor of that state as a scoundrel who had been uttering falsehoods; and, if thus he did not spare those who had been his colaborers, he assailed with vulgarity his antagonists, informing his audience that Butler the Beast had been engaged in an effort to get himself whitewashed by holding intercourse with gentlemen. With inconceivable indiscretion he announced that two thirds of the soldiers were absent from the army, and that, though some were sick and some were wounded, most of them were absent without leave; he added that the disparity of numbers in Virginia was as great as it was in Georgia. He depicted the exhaustion of the country: "You have not many men between eighteen and forty-five." He called upon the matrons of the South to come forward to the public help, and told them of some who had given all their children to the cause. To the young women he frantically appealed to reject the addresses of the suitor who did not join the army.

At Augusta he declared that the enemy must be driven from the soil of Georgia; that "we must march into Tennessee and push the enemy back to the Ohio." To Hood's soldiers he said, "Be of good cheer, for within a short time your faces will be turned homeward, and your feet pressing Tennessee soil."

On the 4th of October he made a speech at Columbia, South Carolina, the object of which was to incite every one in the South capable of bearing arms to join the army. "Does any one," said the Confederate President," does any one imagine that we can conquer the Yankees by retreating before them? Do you not all know that the only way to make spaniels civil is to whip them? And you can whip them, if all the men capable of bearing arms will do their duty by taking their places under the standard of their country." He denounced all attempts for obtaining

peace by the separate negotiations of the seceding states with the national government.

Another Confederate sortie to the North is resolved

on.

Johnston had been removed from command because he had retreated from Dalton to the Chattahoochee; it was politically impossible to permit Hood to follow the same course and continue his retreat from Atlanta. The Richmond government had ever been clamorous for an invasion of the North. It was so even in its dying hours. A dream of blood and fire in Northern cities was flitting before its eyes. A sortie into Tennessee would not only destroy Sherman's communications, it might, perhaps, cross the Ohio, and, in the sack of Louisville, compensate for the capture of Atlanta.

The abandonment of Georgia, an invasion of Tennessee -such was the result of Davis's consultations with Hood. When Sherman heard of it he with difficulty could cause himself to credit the intelligence. He knew well that if he could once bring Hood's army fairly to battle, it would be destroyed; he expected that that destruction would place the Atlantic States at his mercy.

The Confederate

Hood crossed the Chattahoochee on the 29th of September on his perilous, and, as it was to prove, army abandons fatal expedition to the North; and Sherman's Georgia. campaign, justly spoken of by great military authorities as the most brilliant of the war, reached, both in a military and in a political sense, a successful issue. There was nothing now to prevent him sweeping through the Atlantic States.

CHAPTER LXXX.

THE MARCH OF THE ARMY OF THE WEST FROM THE ALLEGHANY

MOUNTAINS TO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.

The Confederate government attempted to compel the Army of the West to retreat from Georgia by threatening its communications.

That army, under General Sherman, followed the Confederate army, under General Hood, to the confines of Alabama; then, swiftly retracing his steps, Sherman, having dispatched General Thomas to Nashville to resist the Confederate sortie, destroyed his own supplying railroads, burnt the city of Atlanta, and pursued his march to the sea.

Notwithstanding the great difficulties encountered, the march was successfully completed. Milledgeville, the capital of Georgia, was taken, Fort McAllister carried by assault, and Savannah compelled to surrender, damage to an amount estimated ' at one hundred millions of dollars having been inflicted on the state. Sherman thus came in connection with the national fleet, and established a new base of supply on the Atlantic Ocean for the Army of the West.

Position of the na

erate

SHERMAN, after the fall of Atlanta, camped his army in the vicinity of that place, refitting and sup tional and Confed-plying his men. He strengthened the garri the fall of Atlanta. sons in his rear, and, among other movements, sent Corse's division of the 15th Corps to Rome. He also remodeled the works of Atlanta, so that a smaller garrison would suffice to defend them.

Hood had collected his forces about half a dozen miles south of Jonesborough, at Lovejoy's Station, from which he moved westward toward the Chattahoochee, and took a position at Palmetto, covering the West Point Railroad. The three corps of his army were commanded by Cheatham, S. D. Lee, and Stewart, his cavalry by Wheeler. Lee had succeeded Hardee, the latter going to Charleston to relieve Beauregard, who was placed at the head of all the armies operating in the central region. Sherman had already experienced the facility with which his railroad communications might be broken. Two cavalry attempts had been made by the Confederates to destroy the roads in his rear.

Attempt to break the railroads in Sherman's rear.

The first was during the latter part of August, when Sherman's movements were culminating in the capture of Atlanta. Wheeler, who was in command, was repulsed at Dalton, and driven into East Tennessee. He moved westward through McMinnville, Murfreesborough, and Franklin, and was finally expelled south of the Tennessee. The damage he did was repaired in a few days.

The second was at the close of September. It was under Forrest, who crossed the Tennessee near Waterloo, Alabama, and on the 23d of September attacked the garrison at Athens, consisting of 600 men. It capitulated on the next day; soon after the surrender two regiments of re-enforcements arrived, and were likewise compelled to surren der. Forrest now began destroying the railroad, captured the garrison at Sulphur Branch Trestle, skirmished with the garrison at Pulaski on the 27th, and on the same day cut the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad near Tullahoma and Decherd. On the morning of the 30th one column of Forrest's command, under Buford, summoned the garrison at Huntsville to surrender. This was refused. Hereupon he withdrew to Athens, which had been regar risoned, and attacked it on the afternoon of October 1st, without success. Renewing the attack, he was repulsed.

Another of his columns appeared before Columbia on the 1st. On the 3d Forrest moved toward Mount Pleas ant. General Thomas made every exertion to destroy these forces before they could recross the Tennessee, but was unable to prevent their escape to Corinth in Mississippi.

Not without reason did Johnston bitterly complain, as we have seen in the last chapter, of the manner in which the Confederate cavalry was employed. Had Forrest's been united with Wheeler's, it would have given a force 15,000 strong—a force which Johnston or Hood might have successfully thrown on Sherman's long line of railroad at any point.

Very different was Grant's action. He sent Wilson from Organization of the Virginia to report to Sherman, with powers national cavalry. to reorganize and bring into the field the scattered cavalry forces of the three armies of the Military Di vision of the Mississippi. Wilson reported at Gaylesville early in October, and was assigned to duty as chief of cav alry, having command of 72 regiments. These were withdrawn from the control of the army commanders, and or ganized into a corps of 7 divisions and 15 brigades.

remove Sherman

from Georgia.

The Richmond authorities saw that it was absolutely Necessity for the necessary that Sherman should be either Confederates to forced or drawn out of Georgia. They expected to accomplish their object by thor oughly breaking the railroad between the Chattahoochee and Chattanooga, and by destroying the great bridge over the Tennessee at Bridgeport. By these operations Atlanta would be isolated from Chattanooga, and Chattanooga from Nashville. Sherman would not only be compelled to retreat, but perhaps he would be placed at their

mercy.

They might have succeeded had their antagonist been an ordinary routine general, but he was a soldier at all times full of resources; and more than that of all American officers, he was distinguished by the highest attribute of military skill—the ability to produce a maximum result with a minimum waste of force. He helped them to do the very thing they wanted. He cut his own supplying railroads, and then, turning round, delivered a death-blow at their Confederacy.

Hood marches to

hoochee.

Vainly, but in the hope of blinding Sherman to the movement about to be executed, the Governward the Chatta- or of Georgia, with great publicity, withdrew his state militia from Hood, who then moved toward the Chattahoochee to carry out the purpose of breaking Sherman's communications.

As soon as Sherman became satisfied of the character of