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errors in his campaign did not escape the savage criticisms of the Richmond newspapers. It was said, with obvious justice, that his greatest mistake had been at Nashville. He had sat down before that city for a fortnight, and proceeded to invest it on the south. Had he struck boldly across the Cumberland, and settled himself on the Yankee communications, he would have forced Thomas to evacuate Nashville and fall back towards Kentucky. But he adopted another plan, and paid the penalty of his error in defeat and heavy loss.

While at one end of the line of the Tennessee-Georgia campaign the Confederates had thus come to grief, at the other end, stretching towards the sea, there were other more important disasters and occasions of peculiar trial, such as the spirit of the Confederacy had never before experienced. The effect of Sherman's march to the sea on the morale of the Confederacy dates the first chapter of its subjugation.

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CHAPTER VIII.

Sherman's march from the mountains to the sea.-Yankee boasts.-Easy nature of Sherman's enterprise.-"Grand" mistake of the Confederates.-The burning of Atlanta. Five thousand houses in ruins.-Sherman's route to Milledgeville.Second stage of the march to Millen.-Last stage of the march.-Wheeler's cavalry. -THE FALL OF SAVANNAI.-Capture of Fort McAllister.-Probable surprise of Hardee. The Confederates evacuate Savannah.-Sherman's Christmas-gift to Mr. Lincoln. The true value of Sherman's exploit.-His own estimation of it.-Despondency in the South.-Depletion of the Confederate armies.-THE EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS, etc.-Bad faith of the Yankees.-Their misrepresentations.-The question of recaptured slaves.-A Yankee calculation.-The Washington Government responsible for the sufferings of Yankee prisoners.-How capital was made out of their sufferings. A game with "sick" prisoners.-How "rebel barbarities" were manufactured.-Noble conduct of General Grant.-Its commentary on the Washington cabinet.-His "victory" over that body.

THERE was scarcely a Yankee newspaper that did not find more or less frequent occupation in extolling the genius of the march which Sherman had undertaken from the mountains of Georgia to the sea, and placing it above the achievements of Hannibal, Napoleon, and Marlborough. But the simple fact was, that the Davis-Hood strategy was a grand mistake, and Sherman's advantage of it proportionally grand. By this strategy Georgia was uncovered, and Sherman had plain marching to the sea. There was no considerable force to oppose him. The whole plan, which had originated in the brain of President Davis, to compensate for the enemy's offensive movement in Georgia by penetrating Tennessee was outrageously foolish, from the simple consideration that the two invasions were necessarily unequal: for that into the enemy's country could not seriously affect his superabundant resources, while that into the Southern interior went right into the heart of the Confederacy; and having once passed the frontiers, on which the South had necessarily thrown out all its resources in men, was destined to realize General Grant's assertion, that the Confederacy was merely a shell.

Before undertaking his great campaign towards Savannah,

Sherman ordered the destruction of most of the inhabitable part of Atlanta. He destroyed, in all, nearly five thousand houses here, and left behind him a picture of ruin and desolation, such as is seldom to be found in the ravages of war.* On the 15th day of November, Sherman began his march to the sea. He moved forward in two columns, General Howard commanding the right and General Slocum the left, while his cavalry covered his flanks. General Howard's column moved through East Point, Rough-and-Ready, Griffin, Jonesboro',

* An agent of Governor Brown, of Georgia, made the following official report of the extent of the destruction done by the enemy in Atlanta: "The property of the State was destroyed by fire, yet a vast deal of valuable material remains in the ruins. Three-fourths of the bricks are good, and will be suitable for rebuilding if placed under shelter before freezing weather. There is a quantity of brass in the journals of burned cars, and in the ruins of the various machinery of the extensive railroad shops; also, a valuable amount of copper from the guttering of the State depot, the flue pipes of destroyed engines, stop cocks of machinery, etc., etc.

The car-wheels that were uninjured by fire were rendered useless by breaking the flanges. In short, every species of machinery that was not destroyed by fire, was most ingeniously broken and made worthless in its original form -the large steam-boilers, the switches, the frogs, etc. Nothing has escaped. The fire-engines, except Tallulah No. 3, were sent North. Tallulah has been overhauled, and a new fire-company organized. Nos. 1 and 2 fire-engine houses were saved. All the city pumps were destroyed, except one on Marrietta-street. The car-sheds, the depots, machine shops, foundries, rolling mills, merchant mills, arsenal, laboratory, armory, etc., were all burned.

In the angle between Hunter-street, commencing at the City Hall, running east, and McDonough-street, running south, all houses were destroyed. The jail and calaboose were burned. All business houses, except those on Alabamastreet, commencing with the Gate City Hotel, running east to Lloyd-street, were burned. All the hotels, except the Gate City, were burned. By referring to my map you will find about four hundred houses standing. The scale of the map is four hundred feet to one inch. Taking the car-shed for the centre, describe a circle, the diameter of which is twelve inches, and you will perceive that the circle contains about three hundred squares. Then, at a low estimate, allow three houses to every four hundred feet; and we will have thirtysix hundred houses in the circle. Subtract the number of houses indicated on the map as standing, and you will see by this estimate the enemy have destroyed thirty-two hundred houses. Refer to the exterior of the circle, and you will discover that it is more than half a mile to the city limits in every direction, which was thickly populated, say nothing of the houses beyond, and you will see that the enemy have destroyed from four to five thousand houses. Two-thirds of the shade-trees in the park and city, and of the timber in the suburbs have been destroyed. The suburbs present to the eye one vast, naked, ruined, deserted camp."

McDonough, Forsythe, Hillsboro', Monticello, and bridging the Ocmulgee entered Milledgeville on the 20th of November. Here General Sherman made his headquarters for a few days, while Howard moved on through Saundersville, Griswold, towards Louisville, the point of rendezvous, with the left wing. That wing, under the command of General Slocum, had meantime passed through Decatur, Covington, Social Circle, Madison; made a feint of an attack upon Macon; passed through Buckhead and Queensboro', and, dividing one detachment, moved towards Augusta, and the other to Eatonton and Sparta. The second stage of Sherman's march may be taken as from Milledgeville to Millen. The distance was about seventy-five miles, and the time occupied in the march eight days, from November 24th to December 2d.

The Yankee troops left Milledgeville admirably clothed and equipped. Each man had eighty rounds of ammunition: while their wagons contained fixed material without stint. Rations for forty days had been prepared, and they suffered for nothing. The Yankee cavalry, with the left wing, on crossing the Oconee, had visited Sparta, which is on a line between Warrenton and Milledgeville, about equi-distant from both. On the evening of the 24th, General Slocum's advance encamped at Devereux, seven miles west of Sparta, and the cavalry scoured the whole country, one of the most fertile and thickly settled in the whole State, and vast quantities of forage and provisions, many horses, and mules were obtained, and much cotton burned. For several days the Yankees raided through the entire country between the two railroads in the vicinity last described. Abundance of food and forage was secured, and every thing was destroyed which could be useful to the enemy. The march was leisurely-Sherman evidently finding himself master of the situation. He did not start directly for the seaboard until he had all the provisions he desired.

Sherman was now ready to enter upon the third and last stage of his march. Behind him the Georgia Central Railroad lay destroyed for more than a hundred miles, and the Georgia road for full sixty. The railroad-bridge over the Oconee and the Ogeechee, on the Georgia Central, had been destroyed, and also those over Brier Creek and Buckhead Creek, on the

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