SHERMAN AT ATLANTA
Sherman occupied Atlanta on the second day of September, 1864, the
Confederates retiring without a further struggle to a strong position
east of the city.
Sherman almost immediately decided to depopulate the town and make
of it a rigidly military stronghold. To that end he ordered all the
inhabitants, old and young, sick and well, men, women and children
alike, to leave the place. He gave to each the choice of fleeing
northward or southward as each might elect, but all must go. All
these helpless non-combatants must abandon their homes, surrender
whatever they possessed of bread-winning employments and go forth among
strangers helpless and forlorn objects of charity.
Even that "hellishness" which Sherman attributed to war, could scarcely
have given birth to a crueller order than this. Sherman always
justified it in apparent apology to his own conscience, upon the
ground that his army was placed in a perilous position in the heart
of an enemy's country with a long and exceedingly vulnerable line of
communication by one single-track railroad, and that the presence of
non-combatants in Atlanta, most of them hostile to his purposes, must
be an additional source of danger.
The necessities of war have always been held to justify or at least
excuse many things that would otherwise be deemed barbaric and even
savage in their cruel inhumanity. That plea of military necessity rests
upon the assumption that the purposes of war are of so supreme moment,
and in themselves so clearly righteous, that they should be prosecuted
to success regardless of human suffering and regardless of all other
considerations; that they should be insisted upon in utter disregard of
the suffering even of those non-combatant women and children upon whom
such war-decrees as this fall with an excess of cruelty.
In every such case as this, the commander who issues the decree is
himself sole and arbitrary judge of the extent of his necessity. What
if he judges wrongly? What if he permits considerations of his own
convenience to outweigh all other arguments, and, for the sake of
his own repose in his headquarters wantonly condemns many innocent,
helpless, and in no way offensive, women and little children and men
sorely stricken with age, to a banishment which must mean to many of
them a long period of suffering with lingering and painful death by the
wayside as an incident? What if he is moved to the issue of such an
order merely by way of saving himself and his army from the trouble of
effectually guarding a position which due diligence might sufficiently
protect?
At the beginning of the war and indeed throughout its progress,
Washington City had multitudes of people in it whose sympathies were
with the Southern cause, and who daily communicated by one means
or another with the Confederates in Virginia. Would McClellan have
been justified by the facts, in ordering the utter depopulation of
the Federal city, and the sending into exile of every man, woman and
child dwelling there and not enlisted in the military service? Did any
commander on either side ever think of depopulating Harper's Ferry
or Winchester or Martinsburg, although throughout the struggle those
points of strategic importance were inhabited about equally by Northern
and Southern sympathizers.
It is true that at Atlanta General Sherman was in a position of
considerable danger and difficulty. But he had deliberately placed
himself in that position, for the sake of the military advantages
it might yield to him; and moreover, he had almost phenomenally
overwhelming resources in men, money, food stuffs, and all the other
appliances of war, with which to maintain himself there, in spite of
anything and everything that the non-combatants of the town could have
done to annoy him. Impartial history must therefore earnestly challenge
his order for the depopulation of Atlanta, asking whether its cruelty
was really a military necessity or whether it was merely a resort of
convenience, intended to save an invading army and its commander from
petty annoyance. Did not General Sherman by this order of depopulation
needlessly add to the suffering of non-combatants? Was his military
necessity at that time so great--when he had only a badly crippled army
to contend against, and when he had three or four men to its one--was
his military extremity so great, history will ask, as to justify this
enormous cruelty?
General Sherman always contended that it was. In his correspondence
with Hood at the time, in his letters of explanation to Halleck and
Grant, and finally in his "Memoirs" published years afterwards,
he defended his action vigorously and even angrily, as a military
necessity, but always in such fashion as to suggest that he felt it
necessary to defend himself and his fame, in the forum of civilization,
and to make out a sufficient case of military necessity to excuse
that which he felt that humanity shrank from as a cruel and barbaric
expedient.
These questions belong to biography and the literature of personal
controversy. It is the function of history merely to record the facts.
The facts in this case are that Sherman depopulated Atlanta, sending
its helpless people into exile, and ruthlessly destroying the greater
part of their homes in order, as he himself explained, to contract his
lines of defense, reduce the city and all its suburbs to the dimensions
of a military post easily held, and spare himself the necessity of
maintaining a multitude of provost guards and detailing large bodies of
troops to hold a populated place, where very small bodies might hold
one depopulated.
It is certain that enormous human suffering resulted from his decree.
It is certain that women and children and aged persons perished because
of it. Whether it was really a measure of military necessity, or only a
measure prompted by ill temper, or a measure intended to save trouble
to an invading army, each reader must judge for himself. In judging,
the reader should remember that no such thing was done at Memphis or
Nashville or Chattanooga; that Grant adopted no such measure after he
conquered Vicksburg; that even Benjamin F. Butler, whose disposition it
always was to employ all the technicalities of the law in defense of
arbitrary measures against his enemies, never for one moment thought
of depopulating New Orleans during his occupancy of that city. The
depopulation of Atlanta by the fiat of a military commander stands out
in relief as the only occurrence of the kind that marked or marred
the conduct of the war on either side. It must be judged upon its own
merits without parallel or precedent to guide the mind that inquires
concerning its humanity or its inhumanity.
In securing possession of Atlanta Sherman had fully accomplished one
of the supreme purposes of the campaign which Grant had marked out as
the objects of all the operations of all the armies during the summer
of 1864. He had indeed accomplished quite all that Grant had set him
to accomplish during that season. His success had been completer than
Grant's own in fact, for he had overcome the Confederate army in his
front and, after a series of hotly contested battles and a brilliant
display of grand strategy on both sides, he had completely achieved the
objective of the campaign marked out for him. Hood's further resistance
was both problematical and well nigh hopeless in view of the enormous
disparity of numbers between the two armies. On the other hand Grant
had failed in his twin purposes of crushing the Army of Northern
Virginia in the field, and making himself master of the Confederate
capital city.
In his dispatches to Sherman at the time, Grant fully and generously
recognized all this, taking pains even to emphasize the fact that his
great lieutenant's success had been completer than his own.
But when he had settled himself in Atlanta, depopulated the town and
sent its helpless people into exile, Sherman found himself in a sore
predicament. His sole base of supplies was at Chattanooga--a hundred
miles away--and his only line of communication with that base was a
single track railroad running through a hostile country and subject to
interruption at any hour. His enemy occupied a position near Atlanta
from which he could not be dislodged without fearful slaughter, and
the enterprise of that enemy in attacks upon the Federal line of
communications was hourly made evident. Sherman's problem of future
operations was an exceedingly perplexing one. But whatever its decision
might ultimately be, he prepared himself for it by bringing forward
great quantities of provisions and ammunition and strengthening his
rear in every possible way. At every station on the line of railroad
between Atlanta and Chattanooga, he placed small bodies of men,
entrenching them to resist cavalry. At important points he built strong
blockhouses for further defense.
More important still, in anticipation of a northward advance of the
Confederates, he asked for and secured strong reinforcements for
Thomas, whom he had stationed at Nashville, with command of all the
strategic points in Tennessee and Northern Georgia.
In the meanwhile Sherman himself was watching Hood, and meditating
upon the question of what further movements he might undertake with
his army at Atlanta, now that he had effectually secured Nashville,
Chattanooga and the other strategic points north of his position.
He was also busily engaged in diplomacy. At that time there was
widespread discontent at the South with the conduct of the war and
not a little despair. To many minds, including those of a number of
influential statesmen, the conviction had come that all hope of the
ultimate success of the Confederate cause had passed away, and that
it was high time to give up the effort and make peace while yet the
South's resisting power was great enough to serve as an argument in
behalf of favorable terms.
In North Carolina this sentiment took form in the open candidacy of Mr.
Holden for the governorship on a platform which advocated the secession
of that state from the Confederacy, and the conclusion of peace between
the United States and North Carolina as an independent sovereignty
entirely free to return at will to the Union.
This was logical enough, but it was of course impracticable. The
foundation stone of the Confederacy was the contention that each state
was independently sovereign and could withdraw at its own good pleasure
from any union or confederacy into which it might have entered. But
logic or no logic, law or no law, sovereignty or subjection, it was
certain that while war was on the Richmond government would never
permit North Carolina to withdraw from the Confederacy and become again
one of the United States. The geographical position of North Carolina
was such that Confederate consent to such a program would have been
Confederate suicide. Nevertheless, and in face of the certainty of
Confederate warfare, the candidate who advocated this course received
20,000 votes against his adversary's 54,000.
In Georgia the discontent took a form even more dangerous to
Confederate interests. The Governor of that state, Joseph E. Brown,
was almost in open rebellion against the Richmond government. On the
tenth of September he recalled and furloughed all the Georgia militia
that had been serving under Johnston and afterwards under Hood, thus
seriously weakening Hood's already inferior force at a time when it
stood in peculiar need of strengthening. He still further claimed for
his state the right to recall from the Confederate armies everywhere
all the Georgia troops that were enlisted in that service. With
the scarcely disguised purpose of thus taking Georgia out of the
Confederacy and making a separate peace for that state, he issued a
summons for the legislature to meet almost immediately.
Further than this, Georgia's most famous statesman and by all odds
that state's most influential citizen was Alexander H. Stephens. Mr.
Stephens had opposed secession to the bitter end and his selection
to be Vice-President of the Confederacy had clearly been dictated
by the desire of the politicians to placate him and the multitude
of strong Union men who looked to him for leadership. Mr. Stephens
had at no time during the war been on terms of intimacy with Mr.
Davis. Mr. Davis could not distrust the integrity of such a man, but
he always distrusted his sympathy with the plans and purposes of the
Richmond Government, and when the grave discontent arose in Georgia, he
attributed it largely to the influence of Mr. Stephens's sentiments.
For these were everywhere known.
Mr. Stephens believed firmly in the constitutional right of secession,
but, in common with many others, and especially in common with the
Virginians, he had from the first held that secession was uncalled for
by anything that Mr. Lincoln's election in 1860 implied or threatened.
He had insisted upon love for the Union as stoutly as Alexander
Hamilton himself--for whom Mr. Stephens was named--could have done.
Believing as he did firmly in the right of a state to secede and in
the paramount obligation of every citizen to yield allegiance to his
state, Mr. Stephens accepted Georgia's secession without in the least
approving it.
In the autumn of 1864 he was convinced, as many other thinking men
at the South were, that the military problems of the war had been in
effect decided; that there was absolutely no further ground for hope of
Southern success, and that further continuance of the war could mean
nothing else than a needless sacrifice of life and of the substance of
the people. He made no concealment of these views and the number of
Southern men who shared them grew daily greater.
These men felt that in view of the inevitableness of Confederate
failure in the end, it was the duty of the Richmond government to
seek terms while yet it had something to offer in exchange for
terms. Mr. Lincoln's supreme desire, it was well known, was to secure
the restoration of the Union. He had often, emphatically, and very
eloquently, proclaimed that as the sole purpose of his mind and heart,
and had declared insistently his readiness and eagerness to sacrifice
all other considerations for the sake of that one object. His influence
at the North was so clearly all dominating that there could be no doubt
of the ready acceptance by Congress and the people, of any arrangement
he might make with the seceding states for their restoration to the
Union. Mr. Stephens and those who agreed with him in mind, held that
now was the time to recognize facts and take the utmost possible
advantage of conditions as they existed. Mr. Lincoln was anxious
well nigh to the verge of sacrifice, to crown his lifework by the
restoration of the Union, and "the people said 'Amen.'"
While the Southern cause was obviously hopeless of ultimate success
the South still had veteran armies in the field, under command of
generals who perfectly knew how to use them destructively. It was
manifest that if the war were to continue, these armies would inflict
vast slaughter--as in the event they did--upon the Federal forces,
and enormously increase the already stupendous cost of the war to
the North. In brief it was certain that if negotiations should be
undertaken then the South could secure better terms than would be
granted if the struggle should be prolonged until the South could fight
no more. So long as Lee's army was intact--however surely its ultimate
destruction could be counted upon--its very existence, and its
matchless fighting capacity, must offer to the Washington government a
very strong inducement to give lenient terms for the sake of ending the
war without the further effusion of blood and the further expenditure
of treasure.
In commercial parlance the South at that time had something to trade
on--something with which to buy favorable terms of peace; a little
later, as these wise men foresaw, she would have nothing and must
accept whatever terms her triumphant adversary might see fit to impose.
This condition of things was revealed to General Sherman about the
time of his occupation of Atlanta, and he eagerly sought to take
such advantage of it as might lead to a prompt ending of the war by
the political disintegration of the Confederacy. About that time two
men of prominence in Georgia sought permission to enter the Federal
lines under safe conduct in order to secure and take home the body of
a Confederate officer who had been killed in battle. Both of these
men were influential and one of them had been a member of Congress
before the war. Sherman not only granted their request but received
and entertained them at his headquarters. Having got some inkling
of Governor Brown's attitude and state of mind, Sherman seized the
opportunity to send messages to that revolting state executive. He
intimated to him a purpose presently to march over a great part of the
state, and declared that if Governor Brown would withdraw Georgia's
quota of troops from the Confederate army, he, Sherman, would confine
his men on march to the high roads and pay for all supplies taken from
the country. Otherwise, it was plainly suggested, his march would be a
desolating one.
The negotiations came to no practical result. The march was made, and
the desolation of it was well-nigh unmatched in the world's annals.
But the historical fact that such a negotiation was carried on between
a Federal commanding general and the governor of a Confederate
state, with distinguished and influential citizens of that state for
go-betweens, is interesting in itself and still more interesting as
an illustration of the condition into which the events of the great
struggle had brought the Southern mind.
About this time President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy visited
the South and made speeches there not only to the people but to the
men of Hood's army. In these speeches he bitterly assailed not only
Governor Brown but also General Joseph E. Johnston, plainly suggesting
that he regarded both as scarcely better than traitors to the Southern
cause. Governor Brown's attitude and action in withdrawing the Georgia
militia from Hood's army, in negotiating with Sherman and in summoning
the legislature with the scarcely disguised purpose of recalling
all Georgia troops from the Confederate armies at the time of their
sorest need, legitimately bore such construction, perhaps. But General
Johnston's only offense was his inability, with a vastly inferior army,
to overcome Sherman and prevent his advance toward Atlanta. Johnston's
fighting retreat is very differently judged by all historians and all
military critics. General Sherman himself, to the end of his life,
always spoke of it as one of the most masterly operations of the war,
and no impartial mind can come to any other conclusion after studying
the conditions and considering the factors of the problem.
But Mr. Davis's animosity toward Johnston was of long standing and
it was implacable. History will scarcely reckon Johnston among the
great commanders, but it will always account him a very capable one.
Certainly it will reckon his retirement toward Atlanta in presence
of Sherman's vastly superior and most capably commanded force, as an
enforced retreat conducted with all the skill that any military genius
could have brought to bear upon it, and so conducted as to inflict the
maximum of injury upon the enemy, while suffering the minimum of hurt
in return.
The simple fact, as history sees it clearly, is that Johnston's force
was utterly inadequate to check Sherman's advance. He did the best he
could and far better than most commanders in like circumstances could
have done. He made Sherman's advance as costly and as slow as it was
possible for any general with so inferior a force to make it.
But he had not destroyed Sherman's army or prevented its approach to
Atlanta. He had not been able to make one man equal to three, and Mr.
Davis bitterly resented his incapacity to work these wonders. Mr.
Davis had removed Johnston from command and had put Hood in his place.
So he told the Confederate soldiers, in his speeches, that a new era
was dawning, and explained to them Hood's plan of campaign, which,
insane as it was, appealed to their imaginations and fired them with an
enthusiasm which meant enormous slaughter in the operations presently
to be undertaken by the madman who had replaced a wise and discreet
general in command of the Confederate army before Atlanta.
A more important fact is that Davis's speeches, outlining the plan of
campaign, were published in the Southern newspapers, copies of which
came to Sherman every day. Thus the Federal general learned in advance
precisely what his adversary intended to do or to attempt, and was
forearmed by the forewarning.
Hood's plan thus revealed to Sherman was to operate toward the north,
destroying the Federal general's communication with Chattanooga, and
then advancing against the strongholds of Chattanooga and Nashville.
It is doubtful that an insaner plan of campaign than this was ever
devised by any man in command of a great army. It left Sherman free to
work his will in Georgia. It withdrew practically all resistance from
his front, while the threat to his rear which it implied was scarcely
worthy of consideration. For with Thomas at Nashville and adequate
forces at Chattanooga and elsewhere it was as certain as anything in
war can be, that Hood could accomplish nothing in his northward march
except his own destruction.
About the beginning of October Hood cut loose from his communications,
abandoning every trustworthy and secure source of supply and, leaving
his enemy in overwhelming force in his rear, moved northward. It was
easy for him to break the railroad line by which Sherman had received
supplies, but Sherman had already brought vast stores of food and
ammunition to Atlanta and was for the time being quite independent of
his communications. He promptly pushed a column out in pursuit of Hood
and by signals called General Corse from the northward to the support
of a small force that was holding Allatoona. There a sharp fight
occurred, ending in a check to the Confederates. General Corse had an
ear shot off and a cheek bone carried away by a bullet, but, treating
his wounds lightly, he telegraphed to Sherman, "I am short a cheek bone
and an ear, but am able to whip all hell yet."
Hood did great damage to the railroad and then continued his march
northward. After following him for a while Sherman decided to leave
Thomas to take care of him, and himself to begin the march to the sea.
Thomas was amply able to meet and defeat any effort that Hood might
make, as the event proved, and Sherman, with no adversary south of him,
was free to carry out his purpose of marching through the Confederacy,
again splitting it into halves and demonstrating his theory, that all
that remained of it was "an empty eggshell which only needs to be
punctured." He decided at once to puncture it.