Sherman's Meridian Expedition--Capture of Atlanta--Hood Supersedes
Johnston--Hood's Invasion of Tennessee--Franklin and
Nashville--Sherman's March to the Sea--Capture of Savannah--Sherman to
Lincoln--Lincoln to Sherman--Sherman's March through the Carolinas--The
Burning of Charleston and Columbia--Arrival at Goldsboro--Junction with
Schofield--Visit to Grant
While Grant was making his marches, fighting his battles, and carrying
on his siege operations in Virginia, Sherman in the West was performing
the task assigned to him by his chief, to pursue, destroy, or capture
the principal western Confederate army, now commanded by General
Johnston. The forces which under Bragg had been defeated in the previous
autumn at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, had halted as soon as
pursuit ceased, and remained in winter quarters at and about Dalton,
only twenty-eight or thirty miles on the railroad southeast of
Chattanooga where their new commander, Johnston, had, in the spring of
1864, about sixty-eight thousand men with which to oppose the Union
advance.
A few preliminary campaigns and expeditions in the West need not here be
detailed, as they were not decisive. One, however, led by Sherman
himself from Vicksburg to Meridian, must be mentioned, since, during the
month of February, it destroyed about one hundred miles of the several
railroads centering at the latter place, and rendered the whole railroad
system of Mississippi practically useless to the Confederates, thus
contributing essentially to the success of his future operations.
Sherman prepared himself by uniting at Chattanooga the best material of
the three Union armies, that of the Cumberland, that of the Tennessee,
and that of the Ohio, forming a force of nearly one hundred thousand men
with two hundred and fifty-four guns. They were seasoned veterans, whom
three years of campaigning had taught how to endure every privation, and
avail themselves of every resource. They were provided with every
essential supply, but carried with them not a pound of useless baggage
or impedimenta that could retard the rapidity of their movements.
Sherman had received no specific instructions from Grant, except to
fight the enemy and damage the war resources of the South; but the
situation before him clearly indicated the city of Atlanta, Georgia, as
his first objective, and as his necessary route, the railroad leading
thither from Chattanooga. It was obviously a difficult line of approach,
for it traversed a belt of the Alleghanies forty miles in width, and in
addition to the natural obstacles they presented, the Confederate
commander, anticipating his movement, had prepared elaborate defensive
works at the several most available points.
As agreed upon with Grant, Sherman began his march on May 5, 1864, the
day following that on which Grant entered upon his Wilderness campaign
in Virginia. These pages do not afford space to describe his progress.
It is enough to say that with his double numbers he pursued the policy
of making strong demonstrations in front, with effective flank movements
to threaten the railroad in the Confederate rear, by which means he
forced back the enemy successively from point to point, until by the
middle of July he was in the vicinity of Atlanta, having during his
advance made only one serious front attack, in which he met a costly
repulse. His progress was by no means one of mere strategical manoeuver.
Sherman says that during the month of May, across nearly one hundred
miles of as difficult country as was ever fought over by civilized
armies, the fighting was continuous, almost daily, among trees and
bushes, on ground where one could rarely see one hundred yards ahead.
However skilful and meritorious may have been the retreat into which
Johnston had been forced, it was so unwelcome to the Richmond
authorities, and damaging to the Confederate cause, that about the
middle of July, Jefferson Davis relieved him, and appointed one of his
corps commanders, General J.B. Hood, in his place; whose personal
qualities and free criticism of his superior led them to expect a change
from a defensive to an aggressive campaign. Responding to this
expectation, Hood almost immediately took the offensive, and made
vigorous attacks on the Union positions, but met disastrous repulse, and
found himself fully occupied in guarding the defenses of Atlanta. For
some weeks each army tried ineffectual methods to seize the other's
railroad communications. But toward the end of August, Sherman's flank
movements gained such a hold of the Macon railroad at Jonesboro,
twenty-five miles south of Atlanta, as to endanger Hood's security; and
when, in addition, a detachment sent to dislodge Sherman was defeated,
Hood had no alternative but to order an evacuation. On September 3,
Sherman telegraphed to Washington:
"Atlanta is ours, and fairly won.... Since May 5 we have been in one
constant battle or skirmish, and need rest."
The fall of Atlanta was a heavy blow to the Confederates. They had,
during the war, transformed it into a city of mills, foundries, and
workshops, from which they drew supplies, ammunition, and equipments,
and upon which they depended largely for the manufacture and repair of
arms. But perhaps even more important than the military damage to the
South resulting from its capture, was its effect upon Northern politics.
Until then the presidential campaign in progress throughout the free
States was thought by many to involve fluctuating chances under the
heavy losses and apparently slow progress of both eastern and western
armies. But the capture of Atlanta instantly infused new zeal and
confidence among the Union voters, and from that time onward, the
reëlection of Mr. Lincoln was placed beyond reasonable doubt.
Sherman personally entered the city on September 8, and took prompt
measures to turn it into a purely military post. He occupied only the
inner line of its formidable defenses, but so strengthened them as to
make the place practically impregnable. He proceeded at once to remove
all its non-combatant inhabitants with their effects, arranging a truce
with Hood under which he furnished transportation to the south for all
those whose sympathies were with the Confederate cause, and sent to the
north those who preferred that destination. Hood raised a great outcry
against what he called such barbarity and cruelty, but Sherman replied
that war is war, and if the rebel families wanted peace they and their
relatives must stop fighting.
"God will judge us in due time, and he will pronounce whether it be more
humane to fight with a town full of women, and the families of a brave
people at our back, or to remove them in time to places of safety among
their own friends and people."
Up to his occupation of Atlanta, Sherman's further plans had neither
been arranged by Grant nor determined by himself, and for a while
remained somewhat undecided. For the time being, he was perfectly secure
in the new stronghold he had captured and completed. But his supplies
depended upon a line of about one hundred and twenty miles of railroad
from Atlanta to Chattanooga, and very near one hundred and fifty miles
more from Chattanooga to Nashville. Hood, held at bay at Lovejoy's
Station, was not strong enough to venture a direct attack or undertake a
siege, but chose the more feasible policy of operating systematically
against Sherman's long line of communications. In the course of some
weeks both sides grew weary of the mere waste of time and military
strength consumed in attacking and defending railroad stations, and
interrupting and reëstablishing the regularities of provision trains.
Toward the end of September, Jefferson Davis visited Hood, and in
rearranging some army assignments, united Hood's and an adjoining
Confederate department under the command of Beauregard; partly with a
view to adding the counsels of the latter to the always energetic and
bold, but sometimes rash, military judgment of Hood.
Between these two Hood's eccentric and futile operations against
Sherman's communications were gradually shaded off into a plan for a
Confederate invasion of Tennessee. Sherman, on his part, finally matured
his judgment that instead of losing a thousand men a month merely
defending the railroad, without other advantage, he would divide his
army, send back a portion of it under the command of General Thomas to
defend the State of Tennessee against the impending invasion; and,
abandoning the whole line of railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and
cutting entirely loose from his base of supplies, march with the
remainder to the sea; living upon the country, and "making the interior
of Georgia feel the weight of war." Grant did not immediately fall in
with Sherman's suggestion; and Sherman prudently waited until the
Confederate plan of invading Tennessee became further developed. It
turned out as he hoped and expected. Having gradually ceased his raids
upon the railroad, Hood, by the end of October, moved westward to
Tuscumbia on the Tennessee River, where he gathered an army of about
thirty-five thousand, to which a cavalry force under Forrest of ten
thousand more was soon added.
Under Beauregard's orders to assume the offensive, he began a rapid
march northward, and for a time with a promise of cutting off some
advanced Union detachments. We need not follow the fortunes of this
campaign further than to state that the Confederate invasion of
Tennessee ended in disastrous failure. It was severely checked at the
battle of Franklin on November 30; and when, in spite of this reverse,
Hood pushed forward and set his army down before Nashville as if for
attack or siege, the Union army, concentrated and reinforced to about
fifty-five thousand, was ready. A severe storm of rain and sleet held
the confronting armies in forced immobility for a week; but on the
morning of December 15, 1864, General Thomas moved forward to an attack
in which on that and the following day he inflicted so terrible a defeat
upon his adversary, that the Confederate army not only retreated in rout
and panic, but soon literally went to pieces in disorganization, and
disappeared as a military entity from the western conflict.
Long before this, Sherman had started on his famous march to the sea.
His explanations to Grant were so convincing, that the general-in-chief,
on November 2, telegraphed him: "Go on as you propose." In anticipation
of this permission, he had been preparing himself ever since Hood left
him a clear path by starting westward on his campaign of invasion. From
Atlanta, he sent back his sick and wounded and surplus stores to
Chattanooga, withdrew the garrisons, burned the bridges, broke up the
railroad, and destroyed the mills, foundries, shops and public buildings
in Atlanta. With sixty thousand of his best soldiers, and sixty-five
guns, he started on November 15 on his march of three hundred miles to
the Atlantic. They carried with them twenty days' supplies of
provisions, five days' supply of forage, and two hundred rounds of
ammunition, of which each man carried forty rounds.
With perfect confidence in their leader, with perfect trust in each
others' valor, endurance and good comradeship, in the fine weather of
the Southern autumn, and singing the inspiring melody of "John Brown's
Body," Sherman's army began its "marching through Georgia" as gaily as
if it were starting on a holiday. And, indeed, it may almost be said
such was their experience in comparison with the hardships of war which
many of these veterans had seen in their varied campaigning. They
marched as nearly as might be in four parallel columns abreast, making
an average of about fifteen miles a day. Kilpatrick's admirable cavalry
kept their front and flanks free from the improvised militia and
irregular troopers of the enemy. Carefully organized foraging parties
brought in their daily supply of miscellaneous provisions--corn, meat,
poultry, and sweet potatoes, of which the season had yielded an abundant
harvest along their route.
The Confederate authorities issued excited proclamations and orders,
calling on the people to "fly to arms," and to "assail the invader in
front, flank, and rear, by night and by day." But no rising occurred
that in any way checked the constant progress of the march. The Southern
whites were, of course, silent and sullen, but the negroes received the
Yankees with demonstrations of welcome and good will, and in spite of
Sherman's efforts, followed in such numbers as to embarrass his
progress. As he proceeded, he destroyed the railroads by filling up
cuts, burning ties, heating the rails red hot and twisting them around
trees and into irreparable spirals. Threatening the principal cities to
the right and left, he marched skilfully between and past them.
He reached the outer defenses of Savannah on December 10, easily driving
before him about ten thousand of the enemy. On December 13, he stormed
Fort McAllister, and communicated with the Union fleet through Ossabaw
Sound, reporting to Washington that his march had been most agreeable,
that he had not lost a wagon on the trip, that he had utterly destroyed
over two hundred miles of rails, and consumed stores and provisions that
were essential to Lee's and Hood's armies. With pardonable exultation
General Sherman telegraphed to President Lincoln on December 22:
"I beg to present to you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with
one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition. Also about
twenty-five thousand bales of cotton."
He had reason to be gratified with the warm acknowledgment which
President Lincoln wrote him in the following letter:
"MY DEAR GENERAL SHERMAN: Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift, the
capture of Savannah. When you were about leaving Atlanta for the
Atlantic coast I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were
the better judge, and remembering that 'nothing risked, nothing gained,'
I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is
all yours, for I believe none of us went farther than to acquiesce. And
taking the work of General Thomas into the count, as it should be taken,
it is, indeed, a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and
immediate military advantages, but in showing to the world that your
army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new
service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of
the whole--Hood's army--it brings those who sat in darkness to see a
great light. But what next? I suppose it will be safe if I leave General
Grant and yourself to decide. Please make my grateful acknowledgments to
your whole army, officers and men."
It was again General Sherman who planned and decided the next step of
the campaign. Grant sent him orders to fortify a strong post, leave his
artillery and cavalry, and bring his infantry by sea to unite with the
Army of the Potomac before Petersburg. Greatly to Sherman's
satisfaction, this order was soon revoked, and he was informed that
Grant wished "the whole matter of your future actions should be left
entirely to your own discretion." In Sherman's mind, the next steps to
be taken were "as clear as daylight." The progress of the war in the
West could now be described step by step, and its condition and probable
course be estimated with sound judgment. The opening of the Mississippi
River in the previous year had cut off from the rebellion the vast
resources west of the great river. Sherman's Meridian campaign in
February had rendered useless the railroads of the State of Mississippi.
The capture of Atlanta and the march to the sea had ruined the railroads
of Georgia, cutting off another huge slice of Confederate resources.
The battles of Franklin and Nashville had practically annihilated the
principal Confederate army in the West. Sherman now proposed to Grant
that he would subject the two Carolinas to the same process, by marching
his army through the heart of them from Savannah to Raleigh.
"The game is then up with Lee," he confidently added, "unless he comes
out of Richmond, avoids you, and fights me, in which case I should
reckon on your being on his heels.... If you feel confident that you can
whip Lee outside of his intrenchments, I feel equally confident that I
can handle him in the open country."
Grant promptly adopted the plan, and by formal orders directed Sherman
to execute it. Several minor western expeditions were organized to
contribute to its success. The Union fleet on the coast was held in
readiness to coöperate as far as possible with Sherman's advance, and to
afford him a new base of supply, if, at some suitable point he should
desire to establish communications with it. When, in the middle of
January, 1865, a naval expedition captured Fort Fisher at the mouth of
Cape Fear River, an army corps under General Schofield was brought east
from Thomas's Army of the Tennessee, and sent by sea to the North
Carolina coast to penetrate into the interior and form a junction with
Sherman when he should arrive.
Having had five weeks for rest and preparation, Sherman began the third
stage of his campaign on February 1, with a total of sixty thousand men,
provisions for twenty days, forage for seven, and a full supply of
ammunition for a great battle. This new undertaking proved a task of
much greater difficulty and severer hardship than his march to the sea.
Instead of the genial autumn weather, the army had now to face the
wintry storms that blew in from the neighboring coast. Instead of the
dry Georgia uplands, his route lay across a low sandy country cut by
rivers with branches at right angles to his line of march, and bordered
by broad and miry swamps. But this was an extraordinary army, which
faced exposure, labor and peril with a determination akin to contempt.
Here were swamps and water-courses to be waded waist deep; endless miles
of corduroy road to be laid and relaid as course after course sank into
the mud under the heavy army wagons; frequent head-water channels of
rivers to be bridged; the lines of railroad along their route to be torn
up and rendered incapable of repair; food to be gathered by foraging;
keeping up, meanwhile a daily average of ten or twelve miles of
marching. Under such conditions, Sherman's army made a mid-winter march
of four hundred and twenty-five miles in fifty days, crossing five
navigable rivers, occupying three important cities, and rendering the
whole railroad system of South Carolina useless to the enemy.
The ten to fifteen thousand Confederates with which General Hardee had
evacuated Savannah and retreated to Charleston could, of course, oppose
no serious opposition to Sherman's march. On the contrary, when Sherman
reached Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, on February 16, Hardee
evacuated Charleston, which had been defended for four long years
against every attack of a most powerful Union fleet, and where the most
ingenious siege-works and desperate storming assault had failed to wrest
Fort Wagner from the enemy. But though Charleston fell without a battle,
and was occupied by the Union troops on the eighteenth, the destructive
hand of war was at last heavily laid upon her. The Confederate
government pertinaciously adhered to the policy of burning accumulations
of cotton to prevent it falling into Union hands; and the supply
gathered in Charleston to be sent abroad by blockade runners, having
been set on fire by the evacuating Confederate officials, the flames not
only spread to the adjoining buildings, but grew into a great
conflagration that left the heart of the city a waste of blackened walls
to illustrate the folly of the first secession ordinance. Columbia, the
capital, underwent the same fate, to even a broader extent. Here the
cotton had been piled in a narrow street, and when the torch was applied
by similar Confederate orders, the rising wind easily floated the
blazing flakes to the near roofs of buildings. On the night following
Sherman's entrance the wind rose to a gale, and neither the efforts of
the citizens, nor the ready help of Sherman's soldiers were able to
check the destruction. Confederate writers long nursed the accusation
that it was the Union army which burned the city as a deliberate act of
vengeance. Contrary proof is furnished by the orders of Sherman, leaving
for the sufferers a generous supply of food, as well as by the careful
investigation by the mixed commission on American and British claims,
under the treaty of Washington.
Still pursuing his march, Sherman arrived at Cheraw March 3, and opened
communication with General Terry, who had advanced from Fort Fisher to
Wilmington. Hitherto, his advance had been practically unopposed. But
now he learned that General Johnston had once more been placed in
command of the Confederate forces, and was collecting an army near
Raleigh, North Carolina. Well knowing the ability of this general,
Sherman became more prudent in his movements. But Johnston was able to
gather a force of only twenty-five or thirty thousand men, of which the
troops Hardee brought from Charleston formed the nucleus; and the two
minor engagements on March 16 and 19 did little to impede Sherman's
advance to Goldsboro, where he arrived on March 23, forming a junction
with the Union army sent by sea under Schofield, that had reached the
same point the previous day.
The third giant stride of Sherman's great campaign was thus happily
accomplished. His capture of Atlanta, his march to the sea and capture
of Savannah, his progress through the Carolinas, and the fall of
Charleston, formed an aggregate expedition covering nearly a thousand
miles, with military results that rendered rebellion powerless in the
central States of the Southern Confederacy. Several Union cavalry raids
had accomplished similar destruction of Confederate resources in Alabama
and the country bordering on East Tennessee. Military affairs were
plainly in a condition which justified Sherman in temporarily devolving
his command on General Schofield and hurrying by sea to make a brief
visit for urgent consultation with General Grant at his headquarters
before Richmond and Petersburg.