Nearly exhausted, Hood and his army retired to their entrenchments around the city to await developments. He had attacked Sherman north, east, and west and failed to break him. Even attack-minded Jefferson Davis, appalled at the nearly fifteen thousand casualties since Hood had taken command, wired the Confederate general, “The loss consequent upon attacking the enemy in his entrenchments requires you to avoid that if practicable.” For the next few weeks things quieted down again, or would have, except that Sherman had sent away to Chattanooga for some huge siege guns, and these he set to shelling Atlanta’s business and residential districts, terrorizing and, in many cases, killing and maiming the citizens. He seemed to delight in this activity, reporting to Washington, “We can pick out almost any house in town,” and urging the newcomer Howard, “Let us destroy Atlanta, and make it a desolation.” But eventually Sherman tired of the inactivity and idleness that affected everyone but the artillerymen. He had sent his cavalry on several missions to destroy the railroads, and they had failed miserably each time—in one case an entire brigade was captured, and its commander General George Stoneman thrown into a Confederate prison camp. Sherman continued to be galled as fat Confederate supply trains chugged into the Atlanta depot every morning; finally, he determined to re-employ his infantry and “proceed to the execution of my original plan.”
Meantime, Hood began to realize that in his present posture he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. After the grand successes of Wheeler’s cavalry against Sherman’s, he concluded that the Union horse troopers no longer posed a threat to him and so decided to send Wheeler’s five thousand troops to the north to break up Sherman’s railroads and communications and force him to retreat for lack of supplies. For nearly a month Wheeler’s men operated behind Sherman’s lines from Atlanta nearly to Nashville, smashing track, exploding bridges, stealing cows, raiding supply cars, knocking down telegraph poles, and generally creating a lot of havoc. But Sherman’s repairmen stayed on the job, and about as quickly as Wheeler destroyed something, the federals patched it up again. As Sherman watched his own bulging rail cars arrive intermittently from Tennessee, he concluded that Wheeler’s cavalry—and, for that matter, any cavalry, including his own—“could not or would not work hard enough to disable a railroad properly.”
As the month of August opened hot and sultry, Sherman wired the War Department, “We keep hammering away all the time, and there is no peace, inside or outside of Atlanta,” adding that he was “too impatient for a siege.” He took his time, however, preparing “the execution of his original plan.” By the 26th he was ready, and the astonished Confederates next morning reported that “the Yankees were gone.” There was great rejoicing in Atlanta, and, according to Sherman himself, “Several trains of cars (with ladies) came up from Macon to assist in the celebration of their grand Victory.” The people of Atlanta could scarcely believe it as they emerged that morning from their dark basements and bomb-proof dugouts into the steamy sunlight to hear the pealing of church bells. It was the first quiet day in weeks, after a bombardment that had reduced much of the city to rubble. Some residents and soldiers timidly wandered out to the old federal lines and began picking up souvenirs—discarded cookwear, furniture, clothing, and other things Sherman’s men had left behind. In Atlanta itself, there was jubilation; bands played in the streets, and people began congratulating each other on their deliverance.
Sherman had “gone,” but not far. Strangely, it took Hood two days to figure that out. Sherman had ordered Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland and Howard’s Army of the Tennessee to fall back from their positions and, pivoting on Schofield’s Army of the Ohio, begin a great “left wheel” the following day, aimed directly at the Macon Railroad, south of town. This irresistible force pounced on a section of the line on the 29th and thoroughly wrecked it. As Sherman’s three armies continued their deliberate hook around the Confederate left flank, Hood ordered Hardee to rush his corps down to Jonesboro, with Lee’s corps following, and attack at first light on the 31st. But again, as in two of the other three sorties, tardiness ruined the plan. Somewhere between, “I told him to do it,” and, “I ordered it done,” Hardee didn’t get off his attack until 2 P.M., which meant, Hood bitterly recalled, “The Federals had been allowed time, by the delay, to strongly entrench.” Moreover, in exercise of a mentality later exhibited by French generals in the First World War, Hood complained that Hardee’s assault “must have been rather feeble,” since his casualties were comparatively small in relation to the forces engaged. In any case, Sherman now had control of the Macon Railroad, and Hood knew Atlanta was doomed. What remained was to try to save his army.
The night of September 2, Sherman, at the head of his column near Jonesboro, said he “was so restless and impatient” that he could not sleep and round about midnight was startled by a series of stupendous explosions that lit the sky and trembled the earth from the direction of Atlanta, twenty miles away. At first he worried that the Confederate’s main force was overrunning General Henry W. Slocum’s corps, which he had left behind and directed to “feel forward to Atlanta.” But next morning he learned to his delight that Hood had evacuated Atlanta and had ordered eighty-one rail cars of high explosives torched off to keep them from falling into Union hands. The jubilant Sherman wired Washington, “Atlanta is ours, and fairly won.”
Fairly won it might have been, but not without its price. In the hundred days since the campaign had begun, the butcher’s bill paid by Sherman was 31,687 men; by the Confederates 34,979—nearly 20,000 in the month and a half that Hood had held command.
As best he could, Hood began gathering his battered army near Jonesboro, either to make a last stand, or in the event of a miracle, to find some way to defeat Sherman if he attacked him. Sherman had no intention of attacking him, however. Instead, he ordered his three armies to march away from Hood’s front and go back to Atlanta for some well-deserved rest. In any other circumstances that would have infuriated Washington—since Sherman’s principal task had been to destroy the Army of Tennessee—except that the news of the capture of Atlanta was greeted with such a sigh of relief by Republicans that nobody was about to complain.
It has been written that Lincoln’s election in 1860 was “an appeal to arms,” and thus the presidential election of 1864 was “to determine whether the appeal should be sustained or denied.” Two days before Sherman captured Atlanta the Democrats nominated George McClellan on a peace platform, and practically nobody would have bet a plug nickel on Lincoln’s chances of being reelected. Now, in an ironic twist—ironic because Sherman loathed politics and disagreed with Lincoln’s abolishing slavery—the conqueror of Vicksburg and Atlanta had done more to change the face of American politics that year than any man alive.
It wasn’t long before Sherman began concentrating on his proposition to make Atlanta “a desolation.” Upon entering the city on September 7, he was greeted by a committee, including the mayor, who pleaded for protection of the citizens and their property, but Sherman had already decided otherwise. “I . . .at once set about a measure already ordered, of which I had thought much and long, viz., to remove the entire civil population.” And he didn’t care what anybody thought about it; as early as September 4, he had declared, “If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking. If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war.”
Sherman forthwith sent a letter to Hood, communicating his plan and suggesting that the two sides call a truce to facilitate the expulsion of the people of Atlanta. Frustrated and enraged, Hood replied, “I don’t consider that I have any alternative in this matter . . . the unprecedented measure you propose transcends, in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever before brought to my attention in the dark history of war. In the name of God and humanity, I protest, believing that you will find that you are expelling from their homes and firesides, the wives and children of a brave people.”
This respon
se seems to have touched off something in Sherman—apparently he had much to get off his chest—and thus commenced one of the most extraordinary correspondences of the war. Sherman fired off his reply to Hood next day. Blaming Hood for the destruction of Atlanta for making his lines too close to the city, Sherman told him it was “a kindness to these families of Atlanta to remove them now, at once, from scenes that woman and children should not be exposed to.” He went on to accuse General Johnston of expelling Southerners from their homes when his army approached, and justified his action on that ground. And then he let loose his spleen:
In the name of common sense, I ask you not to appeal to a just God in such a sacrilegious manner. You who, in the midst of peace and prosperity, have plunged a nation into war—dark and cruel war—who dared and badgered us to battle, insulted our flag, seized our arsenals and forts that were left in the honorable custody of peaceful ordnance-sergeants, seized and made “prisoners of war” the very garrisons sent to protect your people against negroes and Indians, long before any overt act was committed by the (to you) hated Lincoln Government; tried to force Kentucky and Missouri into rebellion, in spite of themselves; falsified the vote of Louisiana, turned loose your privateers to plunder unarmed ships, expelled Union families by the thousands, burned their houses, and declared, by an act of your Congress, the confiscation of all debts due Northern men for goods had and received. Talk thus to the Marines, but not to me, who have seen these things.
Having said all that, Sherman challenged, “If we must be enemies, let us be men, and fight it out as we propose to do, and not deal in such hypocritical appeals to God and humanity.”
For a moment, it might have seemed to Hood that Sherman was putting the blame on him personally for the entire war, as well as calling him a sacrilegious hypocrite. He never recorded his reaction to Sherman’s letter, but it must have been considerable because it took him two days to write back. His reply speaks for itself: “I see nothing in your communication which induces me to modify the language of condemnation with which I characterized your order. It but strengthens me in the opinion that it stands preeminent in the dark history of war for studied and ingenious cruelty.” Hood bitterly defended Johnston, saying that he “depopulated not villages, nor town, or cities, either friendly or hostile . . . [but] offered and extended friendly aid to his unfortunate fellow-citizens who desired to flee from your fraternal embrace.” He went on to say, “I made no complaint of your firing into Atlanta in any way you thought proper. I make none now, but there are a hundred-thousand witnesses that you fired into the habitations of women and children for weeks.” Then he undertook to rebut Sherman point for point:
You charge my country with “daring and badgering you to battle.” The truth is, we sent commissioners to you, respectfully offering a peaceful separation, before the first gun was fired on either side. You say we insulted your flag. The truth is, we fired upon it, and those who fought under it, when you came to our doors upon the mission of subjugation. You say we seized upon your forts and arsenals, and made prisoners of the garrisons sent to protect us against negroes and Indians. The truth is, we, by force of arms, drove out insolent intruders and took possession of our own forts and arsenals, to resist your claims of dominion over masters, slaves, and Indians, all of whom are to this day, with a unanimity unexampled in the history of the world, warring against your attempts to become their masters.
And he continued, like a lawyer making the summation of his career:
You say we falsified the vote of Louisiana. The truth is, Louisiana not only separated herself from your government by a unanimous vote of her people, but has vindicated the act upon every battle-field from Gettysburg to the Sabine. . . . You say that we turned loose pirates to plunder your unarmed ships. The truth is, when you robbed us of our part of the navy, we built and bought a few vessels, hoisted the flag of our country, and swept the seas, in defiance of your navy. . . . You say we have expelled Union families by the thousands. The truth is, not a single family has been expelled from the Confederate States that I am aware of. . . .
And so on and so on. Hood was really on his soapbox; it was almost as if, in his frustration at losing the battle to Sherman, Hood felt compelled to whip him on paper—the pen over the sword:
You order into exile the whole population of a city, drive men, women, and children from their homes at the point of a bayonet. . . and add insult to the injury heaped upon the defenseless by assuming that you have done them a kindness . . . and, because I characterize what you call a kindness as being real cruelty, you presume to sit in judgement between me and my God. . . . You came into our country with your army, avowedly for the purpose of subjugating free white men, women and children, and not only intend to rule over them, but you make negroes your allies, and desire to place over us an inferior race, which we have raised from barbarism to its present position, which is the highest ever attained by that race, in any country, in all time.
Hood closed with a flourish: “You say, let us fight it out like men. To this I reply—for myself, and I believe for all the true men, ay, and women and children in my country—we will fight you to the death! Better die a thousand deaths than to submit to live under you and your negro allies!”
Sherman digested all this and penned a curt reply: “We have no ‘negro allies’ in this army; not a single negro soldier left Chattanooga with this army, or is with it now. There are a few guarding Chattanooga, which General Steedman sent at one time to drive Wheeler out of Dalton.” Calling further correspondence “profitless and out of place,” Sherman couldn’t resist accusing Hood of starting the whole controversy in the first place “by characterizing an official order of mine in unfair and improper terms.”
What this remarkable exchange between two army commanders had to say about the war at this point—four long “dark and cruel” years into it—would prove extremely telling in the months to come. Hood was whipped, his army was whipped, and Atlanta was lost, or “fairly won,” according to Sherman; yet there was no hint of any middle ground. All between them was defiance and finger pointing over who had started the war and why—the old arguments and recriminations. In any case, whipped or not, Hood still had enough fight left in him to tell off his conqueror, and—as time would tell—he wasn’t kidding about the pledge he laid down to “fight you to the death.”
4
This Army Is Going to Do Something Wrong
“On that day, peace waved those little white wings and fled to the ends of the morning.”
So wailed the Richmond Examiner about the fall of Atlanta. For all the rejoicing up North, the Confederacy spent its energy in despair; prices had soared—butter was $2 and $3 a pound, pantaloons were selling for $40, flour was $50 a barrel. Lee, like Hood, was besieged before one of the last crucial cities of the South. There were unsettling rumors in Richmond that Governor Brown of Georgia was about to make a separate peace with Sherman to save his state. The Confederacy was on the verge of unraveling, but Jefferson Davis did not see it that way. On September 21, three weeks after Atlanta was lost, he boarded a train bound for the new end-of-the-line at Jonesboro to see personally about Hood and his Army of Tennessee.
Meantime, Hood was not exactly inert. Immediately after the expiration of the truce with Sherman to secure the ejection of Atlanta’s civilians, he began to move his army westward. By September 21 he had established a new base at Palmetto, Georgia, about twenty miles due west from Jonesboro. From there his plan was to move north with the whole army, instead of trusting the job to cavalry alone, and cut off Sherman’s supply lines to Chattanooga and Nashville. There was good logic to this. First, he realized that it would be futile to again attack the army that had just beaten him. That issue had been settled. Second, if he could wreck Sherman’s supply lines, in a matter of days the Union army would be starving in Atlanta, and the federal commander would have no choice but to either go after Hood or march off someplace else, probably to the south, to find food and supplies—in which
case Hood planned to fall upon his exposed rear and grind him up. At least that was the plan when Jefferson Davis arrived at Palmetto at 3:30 on a wet and stormy Sunday afternoon, September 25, 1864.
According to Sherman’s intelligence reports—for he had got hold of newspaper accounts of Davis’s stopover appearance at Macon—the Confederate president was “perfectly upset” by the fall of Atlanta.
Sherman crowed that Davis had told the crowds “that now the tables would be turned; that General Forrest was already on our roads in Middle Tennessee; that Hood’s army would soon be there. He asserted that the Yankee army would have to retreat or starve, and that the retreat would prove more disastrous than was that of Napoleon from Moscow. . . . He made no concealment of these vainglorious boasts, and thus gave us the key to his future designs. To be forewarned was to be forearmed, and I think we took full advantage of the occasion.” When Sherman reported all this to Grant, the taciturn commander in chief at first didn’t believe that Jefferson Davis was that far down south, but after Sherman wired him a printed copy of Davis’s Macon speech, Grant mused over “who would furnish the snow for this Moscow retreat?”
In any case, Sherman already knew from his own army’s solemn telegraphic reports from up north that Forrest was “on our roads in Middle Tennessee,” and he soon dispatched General Thomas to Nashville, along with two divisions, to “meet the danger.” Also, he requested that Washington send to Nashville all available troops in the western theater, which Grant agreed to in a wire on September 27.
What Hood was up to was another matter. “I could not get spies to penetrate his camps,” Sherman complained. (In the mountain regions of Tennessee and north Georgia there were usually a few Union sympathizers whom federal commanders could employ as spies, but on the flat plains around Atlanta, a hotbed of the Confederacy, Union sympathizers were fewer and farther between.) It wasn’t long, however, before Sherman found out anyway.