Campfire and battlefield

The length of time that the war had continued, the drain upon the resources of both belligerents, and especially the rapidity and destructiveness of the battles in the summer of 1864, had naturally suggested the question whether there were not some possibility of a satisfactory peace without further fighting. In each section there was a party, or at least there were people, who believed that such a peace was possible; and the loud expression of this opinion led to several efforts at negotiation, as it also shaped the policy of a great political party. In July Col. James F. Jacques, of the Seventy-third Illinois Regiment, accompanied by James R. Gillmore (known in literature by his delineations of Southern life just before the war, under the pen-name of "Edmund Kirke"), went to Richmond under flag of truce, where they were admitted to a long interview with the chief officers of the Confederate Government. They had gone with Mr. Lincoln's informal sanction, but had no definite terms to offer; and if they had, Mr. Davis's remarks show that it would have been in vain. At the close he said: "Say to Mr. Lincoln, from me, that I shall at any time be pleased to receive proposals for peace on the basis of our independence. It will be useless to approach me with any other." In that same month of July, three Southerners of some note created a great sensation by a conference at Niagara Falls, with Horace Greeley, on the subject of peace; but the affair came to nothing.

The first Presidential convention of the year met at Cleveland, O., on the last day of May, in response to a call addressed "to the radical men of the nation." The platform declared, among other things, "that the rebellion must be suppressed by force of arms, and without compromise; that the rebellion has destroyed slavery, and the Federal Constitution should be amended to prohibit its reëstablishment; that the question of the reconstruction of the rebellious States belongs to the people, through their representatives in Congress, and not to the Executive; and that confiscation of the lands of the rebels, and their distribution among the soldiers and actual settlers, is a measure of justice." Gen. John C. Frémont was nominated for the Presidency, and Gen. John Cochrane for the Vice-Presidency. Though this was the least of the conventions, yet in all the points here quoted from its platform, with the exception of the last, it indicated the policy that was ultimately pursued by the nation; and it is a singular fact that the exceptional plank (confiscation) was objected to by both candidates in their letters of acceptance.

The Republican National Convention met in Baltimore on the 7th of June. It dropped the word "Republican" for the time being, and simply called itself a Union Convention, to accommodate the war Democrats, who were now acting with the Republican party. Not only the free States were represented, but some that had been claimed by the Confederacy and had been partially or wholly recovered from it, including Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas. The platform, reported by Henry J. Raymond, one of the ablest of American journalists, was probably written largely, if not entirely, by him. Its most significant passages were these:

"That we approve the determination of the Government of the United States not to compromise with the rebels, nor to offer them any terms of peace except such as may be based upon an unconditional surrender of their hostility and a return to their full allegiance to the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

"That as slavery was the cause and now constitutes the strength of this rebellion, and as it must be always and everywhere hostile to the principles of republican government, justice and the national safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic.... We are in favor, furthermore, of such an amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the people in conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States.

"That we approve and applaud the practical wisdom, the unselfish patriotism, and unswerving fidelity to the Constitution and the principles of American liberty, with which Abraham Lincoln has discharged, under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty, the great duties and responsibilities of the presidential office; that we approve and indorse, as demanded by the emergency and essential to the preservation of the nation, and as within the Constitution, the measures and acts which he has adopted to defend the nation against its open and secret foes; that we approve especially the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the employment as Union soldiers of men heretofore held in slavery.

"That the National faith, pledged for the redemption of the public debt, must be kept inviolate; that it is the duty of every loyal State to sustain the credit and promote the use of the National currency."

On the first ballot, all the delegations voted for Mr. Lincoln, except that from Missouri, whose vote was given to General Grant. According to the official report of the proceedings, the first ballot for a candidate for Vice-President resulted in two hundred votes for Andrew Johnson, one hundred and eight for Daniel S. Dickinson (a war Democrat), one hundred and fifty for Hannibal Hamlin (who then held the office), and fifty-nine scattering; several delegations changed their votes to Johnson, and he was almost unanimously nominated. But according to the testimony of one who was on the floor as a delegate, the nomination of Mr. Lincoln was immediately followed by an outburst of cheering, yelling, and the wildest excitement, and in the confusion and uproar it was declared that Mr. Johnson had somehow been nominated. He had been a poor white in the South, and a life-long Democrat, but had done some brave things in withstanding secession, and some bitter things in thwarting the slave-holders. Mr. Lincoln had appointed him military governor of Tennessee in March, 1862, and he was still acting in that capacity. Whatever may have been the wisdom of nominating a war Democrat when the war was so near its close, the Republican party found reason in the next four years to repent its choice of Andrew Johnson as bitterly as its predecessor, the Whig party, had repented the choice of John Tyler, a life-long Democrat, in 1840. But the nominating conventions that have sufficiently considered the contingent importance of the Vice-Presidency have been exceedingly few.

The Democratic National Convention, called to meet in Chicago, did not convene till nearly three months after the Republican, August 29. In the meantime, the hard fighting around Richmond, and on Sherman's road to Atlanta, the fruits of which were not yet evident, the appearance of Confederate forces at the gates of Washington, and the delay of Sheridan's movements in the Shenandoah Valley, had produced a more gloomy feeling than had been experienced before since the war began; and this feeling, as was to be expected, operated in favor of whatever opposed the National administration. The suffering and the discontented are always prone to cry out for a change, without defining what sort of change they want, or considering what any change is likely to bring. Seizing upon this advantage, the Democratic convention made a very clear and bold issue with the Republican. It was presided over by Horatio Seymour, then governor of New York, while Clement L. Vallandigham was a member of the committee on resolutions, and is supposed to have written the most significant of them. The platform presented these propositions:

"That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that, after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretence of military necessity of a war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired—justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of all the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the earliest practicable moment, peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States.

"That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired."

On the first ballot, Gen. George B. McClellan was nominated for President, receiving two hundred and two and a half votes, against twenty-three and a half for Thomas H. Seymour, of Connecticut. George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, an ultra-peace man, was nominated for Vice-President. General McClellan, in his letter of acceptance, virtually set aside a portion of the platform, and said: "The reëstablishment of the Union, in all its integrity, is and must continue to be the indispensable condition in any settlement.... No peace can be permanent without Union."

The declaration that the war had been a failure received a crushing comment the day after the convention adjourned; for on that day Sherman's army marched into Atlanta. And this success was followed by others—notably Sheridan's brilliant movements in the valley—all of which, when heralded in the Republican journals, were accompanied by the quotation from the Democratic platform declaring the war a failure. General Frémont withdrew from the contest in September, saying in his published letter:

"The policy of the Democratic party signifies either separation or reëstablishment with slavery. The Chicago platform is simply separation; General McClellan's letter of acceptance is reëstablishment with slavery. The Republican candidate is, on the contrary, pledged to the reëstablishment of the Union without slavery; and, however hesitating his policy may be, the pressure of his party will, we may hope, force him to it. Between these issues, I think no man of the Liberal party can remain in doubt; and I believe I am consistent with my antecedents and my principles in withdrawing—not to aid in the triumph of Mr. Lincoln, but to do my part toward preventing the election of the Democratic candidate."

The canvass was exceedingly bitter, especially in the abuse heaped upon Mr. Lincoln. The undignified and disgraceful epithets that were applied to him by journals of high standing were not such as would make any American proud of his country. This course had its culmination in the publication of certain ghastly pictures of returned prisoners, to show what Lincoln—the usurper, despot, and tyrant, as they freely called him—was doing by not disregarding "nigger soldiers" and continuing the exchange of whites. They constantly repeated the assertion with which they had greeted the Emancipation Proclamation, that the war had been wickedly changed from one for the preservation of the Union into one for the abolition of slavery. On the other hand, the Republican press freely accused the Democratic party of desiring the success of secession—which was not true. Aside from all patriotic considerations, that party had the strongest reasons for wishing to perpetuate the Union, because without the Southern vote it was in a minority. There were many members of that party, however, who, while they by no means desired the destruction of the Union, believed it was inevitable, and thought the sooner the necessity was acknowledged the better.

One of the most effective arguments of the canvass was furnished in a condensed form by one of Mr. Lincoln's famous little stories, and in that form was repeated thousands of times. Answering the address of a delegation of the Union League, a day or two after his nomination, he said: "I have not permitted myself to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded in this connection of the story of an old Dutch farmer, who once remarked to a companion that 'it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams.'" There was singing in the canvass, too, and some of the songs rendered by glee-clubs every evening before large political meetings were very effective. One of the most notable had been written in response to the President's call for three hundred thousand volunteers, and bore the refrain,

Much of the popular parlor music of the time consisted of songs relating to the great struggle, prominent among which were "Tenting on the Old Camp-Ground" and "When this Cruel War is over." At the South, as at the North, there had been an outburst of lyric enthusiasm at the beginning of the war, which found expression in "My Maryland," the "Bonnie Blue Flag," and "Dixie;" but the spirit that inspires such poems seems to have died out there after the war had been in progress two or three years, when its terrible privations were increasing every day.

The Confederates were now looking eagerly for the result of the Presidential election as a possible solution of the great question in their favor. John B. Jones, who was a clerk in the Confederate War Department, recorded in his published diary that Mr. Vallandigham, when banished to the South, had assured the officers of the Government at Richmond that "if we [the Confederates] can only hold out this year, the peace party of the North would sweep the Lincoln dynasty out of political existence." This was now their strongest hope; and it was common talk across the lines, between the pickets, that in the event of McClellan's election the Confederates expected a speedy cessation of hostilities and ultimately their independence. And such is the unaccountable elasticity of the human mind, in dealing with facts and principles, that a large number of the bravest and most devoted soldiers in the National service, knowing this, were preparing to cast their ballots in a way to give the utmost assistance and encouragement to the very enemy into the muzzles of whose guns they were looking.

Whether General Frémont's arraignment of the Administration as "politically, militarily, and financially a failure" was just or unjust, whether it was true or not that the triumph of General McClellan and his party would result in a final disruption of the country, before the canvass was over the land had settled down to the belief that the only way to secure the continuance of the war to a successful termination was to reëlect Mr. Lincoln, while a vote for General McClellan meant something else—nobody knew exactly what. The solemnity of the occasion appeared to be universally appreciated, and though a heavy vote was polled the election was the quietest that had ever been held. The citizens were dealing with a question that, in most of its aspects at least, they by this time thoroughly understood. When they sprang to arms in 1861, they did not know what war was; but now they had had three years of constant schooling to its burdens and its horrors. They had seen regiment after regiment march away to the music of drum and fife, with a thousand men in the ranks, and come back at the end of two years' service with perhaps two hundred bronzed veterans to be mustered out. They had read in their newspapers, after every great battle, the long lists of killed and wounded, which the telegraph was quick to report. Every city had its fair for the relief of the widows and orphans, every hamlet its two or three crippled soldiers hobbling about in their faded blue overcoats, almost every house its incurable sorrow. They had seen the wheel turning in the provost-marshal's office, in places where volunteering was not sufficiently rapid, and knew that their own names might be the next to be drawn for service at the front. They knew how many graves there were at Gettysburg, how many at Shiloh, how many at Stone River; they knew what was to be seen in the hospitals of every Northern city, and something of the unspeakable horrors of captivity. They saw the price of gold go beyond two hundred, while the Government was spending between two and three millions of dollars a day, piling up a national debt in undreamed-of proportions, for which they were already heavily taxed, and which must some day be paid in solid coin.

Seeing and understanding all this, and having the privilege of a secret and unquestioned ballot, they quietly walked up to the polls and voted for a vigorous prosecution of the war, reëlecting Mr. Lincoln by a popular majority of more than four hundred thousand, and giving him the votes of all the States excepting Delaware, New Jersey, and Kentucky—two hundred and twelve against twenty-one. The vote of the soldiers in the field, so far as it could be counted separately (for in some States it was sent home sealed, and mingled with the other ballots in the boxes), showed about one hundred and nineteen thousand for Lincoln, and about thirty-four thousand for McClellan. The soldiers confined in some of the Confederate prisons held an election at the suggestion of their keepers, who were exceedingly curious to see how the prisoners would vote. Sergeant Robert H. Kellogg tells us that in the stockade at Florence, S. C., where he was confined, two empty bags were hung up, and the prisoners were furnished with black and white beans and marched past in single file, each depositing a black bean for Lincoln, or a white one for McClellan. The result was in the proportion of two and a half for Lincoln to one for McClellan. In the prison at Millen, Ga., Sergeant W. Goodyear tells us, the vote was three thousand and fourteen for Lincoln, and one thousand and fifty for McClellan. In Congress, the number of Republican members was increased from one hundred and six to one hundred and forty-three, and the number of Democratic members reduced from seventy-seven to forty-one.

Meanwhile, in October, Maryland had adopted a new constitution, in which slavery was prohibited. In answer to serenades after the election, Mr. Lincoln made some of his best impromptu speeches, saying in one: "While I am duly sensible to the high compliment of a reëlection, and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed by the result. May I ask those who have not differed with me to join with me in this same spirit toward those who have?"

If there is any one act of the American people that above all others, in the sober pages of history, reflects credit upon them for correct judgment, determined purpose, courage in present difficulties, and care for future interests, that act, it seems to me, was the reëlection of President Lincoln.

In Mr. Lincoln's cabinet, Salmon P. Chase (formerly governor of Ohio, and then United States senator) was made Secretary of the Treasury. Under the existing acts he borrowed eight millions in March at ninety-four and upward—rejecting all offers under ninety-four—and early in April issued at par nearly five millions in two-year treasury notes, receivable for public dues and also convertible into six-per-cent. stocks. On the 12th of that month the war was begun by the firing on Fort Sumter. In May seven millions more of the six-per-cent. loan were issued at rates from eighty-five to ninety-three, and two and a half millions in treasury notes at par. These transactions were looked upon as remarkably successful, for many considered it questionable whether the Government would survive the blow that was aimed at its life, and be able to redeem any of its securities. The existing tariff, which was low, produced an annual income of not more than thirty millions.

Congress met, at the call of the President, on the 4th of July, 1861, and on the 17th passed a bill (with but five dissenting votes in the House of Representatives) for the issue of bonds and treasury notes to the amount of two hundred and fifty millions. It also increased the duties on many articles, passed an act for the confiscation of the property of rebels, and levied a direct tax of twenty millions, apportioned among the States and Territories. The States that were in rebellion of course did not pay. All the others paid except Delaware, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, and the District of Columbia. The law provided for collection by United States officers in such States as should not formally assume and pay the tax themselves. In some of the seceding States, lands worth about seven hundred thousand dollars were seized and sold for non-payment.

In August the first demand notes were issued as currency, being paid to clerks in the departments for their salaries. Though these were convertible into gold, there was at first great reluctance to receive them, but after a little time they became popular, and in five months about thirty-three millions were issued.

In August also Mr. Chase held a conference with the principal bankers of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, to negotiate a national loan on the basis of the recent acts of Congress. Most of them expressed their desire to sustain the Government, but they made some objections to the terms and rates of interest. When it looked as if the negotiation might fail, the Secretary assured the bankers that if they were not able to take the loan on his terms, he would return to Washington and issue notes for circulation, "for it is certain that the war must go on until the rebellion is put down, if we have to put out paper until it takes a thousand dollars to buy a breakfast." The banks agreed to form a syndicate to lend the Government fifty million dollars in coin, to pay which the Secretary was to issue three-year notes bearing seven and three-tenths per cent. interest, convertible into six-per-cent. twenty-year bonds. These were popularly known as "seven-thirties." The peculiar rate of interest was made both as a special inducement and for ease of calculation, the interest being two cents a day on each hundred dollars. They were issued in denominations as low as fifty dollars, so that people of limited means could take them, and were very popular. The coupon and registered bonds that were to run not less than five years nor more than twenty were popularly known as "five-twenties." Subscription-books were opened in every city, and the people responded so promptly that the Government was soon enabled to repay the banks and make another loan on similar terms. But a third loan was refused, and Secretary Chase then issued fifty millions in "five-twenties," bearing interest at six per cent., but sold at such a discount as to make a seven-per-cent. investment. Of all the agents employed to dispose of these bonds, Jay Cooke, of Philadelphia, was the most successful. They were paid one-fifth of one per cent. for the first hundred thousand dollars, and one-eighth of one per cent. for all in excess of that sum.

The amount of coin in circulation in the United States at this time was estimated at about two hundred and ten million dollars. Before the war had been in progress one year, the operations of the Government had become so vast that this did not furnish a sufficient volume of currency for the transactions. On December 30, 1861, the banks suspended specie payments, and the Government was then obliged to do likewise. There were now over half a million men in the field, and the navy had been increased from forty-two vessels to two hundred and sixty-four. The pay of a private soldier was thirteen dollars a month, with food and clothing. The total cost to the Government for each soldier maintained in the field was about a thousand dollars a year—two and a half times the cost of a British soldier, and twelve times the cost of a French soldier.

Early in 1862 even the smallest coins disappeared from circulation, and some kinds of business were almost paralyzed for want of change. Tokens and fractional notes were issued by private firms, and various expedients were resorted to, a favorite one being the enclosure of specified amounts of postage-stamps in small envelopes properly labelled. Thaddeus Stevens, member of Congress from Pennsylvania, proposed that the Government should issue notes for circulation, to any amount that might be required, and make them legal tender for all debts, public and private. Secretary Chase opposed this, and proposed instead a national banking system, which should embrace an issue of notes bearing a common impression and a common authority, the redemption of these notes by the institutions to which the Government should deliver them for issue, and a pledge of United States stocks as security for such redemption. This scheme was opposed by the State banks, and Mr. Chase gave a reluctant consent to the legal-tender measure, which was then carried through Congress, and the "greenbacks" became payable for everything except duties on imports. Subsequently Mr. Chase's plan for a national banking system was also adopted, substantially as we have it now. In the loyal States the greenbacks were popular from the first, and the large amount in circulation led to general extravagance in expenditures. In the insurrectionary States they were at first refused with scorn. But when the secessionists found that these notes had a purchasing power vastly superior to those of their own Government, they soon became reconciled to them. When soldiers of the National army were made prisoners of war, they were almost immediately requested by their captors to exchange any greenbacks they might have for Confederate money, and some show of fairness was made by the allowance of a heavy discount, seldom less than seven for one. The Confederate currency was redeemable "six months after the ratification of a treaty of peace with the United States." The Government supplemented the greenbacks with fractional paper currency in denominations of fifty, twenty-five, ten, and five cents; and in this money the war bills were paid and all business transacted, except at the custom-houses.

The daily quotations of gold were looked to as an indication of the prospects of the war. Gold itself did not materially change in value, but the premium on it represented the depreciation of the greenbacks with which it was purchased. At the beginning of 1862 there was a premium of about two per cent. on gold. This fluctuated from day to day, but the general tendency was upward, till at the end of that year the premium was thirty-three. By the end of 1863 gold had risen to one hundred and fifty-one; and on June 21, 1864, just after the Army of the Potomac crossed the James, it touched two hundred. In other words, the United States paper dollar was then worth half a dollar. On the 11th of July, 1864, gold reached its highest point, two hundred and eighty-five. Confederate paper money had been at par until November, 1861; but from that time its value diminished steadily and rapidly, until, at the close of 1864, five hundred paper dollars were worth but one dollar in gold, and three months later six hundred.

Most of the funded debt of the United States was represented by five-twenty bonds. An act was passed authorizing the issue of ten-forties, but they were not popular, and comparatively few were taken. The total assessed value of all the property in the United States, real and personal, by the census of 1860, was somewhat over sixteen thousand million dollars. The cost of the war to the Government has been nearly, if not quite, half that amount—or about equal to the value in 1860 of all the real estate in the loyal States. The amount of the Confederate debt is unknown. If that and the incidental losses could be ascertained, the cost of the war would probably make a grand total almost equivalent to a wiping out of all values in the country as they were estimated in the year of its beginning. The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution—proposed in 1866, and declared in force in 1868—provides, on the one hand, that the validity of the public debt shall not be questioned, and, on the other, that neither the United States nor any State shall ever pay any debt or obligation that has been incurred in aid of insurrection against the United States.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE MARCH TO THE SEA.

SHERMAN MAKES ATLANTA A MILITARY DEPOT—HIS PECULIAR POSITION—DISAFFECTION IN THE CONFEDERACY—HOOD ATTACKS THE COMMUNICATIONS—DEFENCE OF ALLATOONA—THOMAS ORGANIZES AN ARMY—SHERMAN DETERMINES TO GO DOWN TO THE SEA—DESTRUCTION IN ATLANTA—THE ORDER OF MARCH—SHERMAN'S INSTRUCTIONS—THE ROUTE—INCIDENTS—DESTRUCTION OF THE RAILROAD—KILLING THE BLOODHOUNDS—THE BUMMERS—CAPTURE OF FORT McALLISTER—HARDEE EVACUATES SAVANNAH, AND SHERMAN OFFERS IT AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO THE PRESIDENT—BATTLE OF FRANKLIN—BATTLE OF NASHVILLE—HOOD'S ARMY DESTROYED.

Before Sherman's army had been a week in Atlanta he determined to send away all the inhabitants of the city, giving each the choice whether to go South or North, and furnishing transportation for a certain distance. His reason for this measure is given briefly in his own words: "I was resolved to make Atlanta a pure military garrison or dépôt, with no civil population to influence military measures. I had seen Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, and New Orleans, all captured from the enemy, and each at once was garrisoned by a full division of troops, if not more, so that success was actually crippling our armies in the field by detachments to guard and protect the interests of a hostile population." Of course this action met with a vigorous protest from the people themselves, from the city authorities, and from General Hood, between whom and General Sherman there was a sharp correspondence discussing the humanity of the measure and to some extent the issues of the war.

General Sherman also received a letter signed by the mayor and two of the councilmen, in which they set forth the difficulties and sufferings that the people would encounter, and asked him to reconsider his order for their removal. This he answered at length, presenting a broad view, not of Atlanta only, but of the entire country, and the state of the war, and the effect that this would have upon it. There were few generals on either side who understood the entire aspect, military, political, moral, and economical, as thoroughly, or describe it as clearly, as Sherman. He said:

"I give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey. To defeat those armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose. Now, I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, that we may have many years of military operations from this quarter, and therefore deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufactures, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course I do not apprehend any such thing at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do; but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the National Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion; but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.

"You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable; and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride. We don't want your negroes, or your horses, or your houses, or your lands, or anything that you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and, if it involves the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it. You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat, then, that, by the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or tittle of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent carloads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes and under the government of their inheritance. But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for anything. Then I will share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter."

Among the considerations that influenced General Sherman's action at that time, two appear to have been paramount—one a hope, the other a fear. The fear was, that some portion of Hood's army would make a serious break in his communications by destroying portions of the long, single-track railroad over which he drew all his supplies from Chattanooga. The hope was, that Georgia, seeing any further prosecution of the war to be useless, would withdraw her troops from the Confederate armies and practically secede from the Confederacy. Some color was given to this from the fact that Gov. Joseph E. Brown had recalled the Georgia militia from Hood's army, while Mr. Davis, on a flying visit to that army, had made a speech in which he threw the blame for the recent disasters upon General Johnston and Governor Brown, and told the soldiers they were about to set out on a campaign that would carry them to Tennessee and Kentucky. Sherman sent word to Governor Brown that if Georgia's troops were withdrawn from the Confederate service, he would pass across the State as harmlessly as possible, and pay for all the corn and fodder that he took; but if not, he would devastate the State through its whole length and breadth.

In North Carolina there had been a strong movement for peace this year, the only difference of opinion being as to the method in which peace should be sought. The governor, Zebulon B. Vance, as a candidate for reëlection, represented those who held that the State should only act in coöperation with the other States that were engaged with her in the war. The other party, whose candidate was William W. Holden, held that North Carolina should assert her sovereignty and negotiate peace directly and alone with the United States. Governor Vance probably presented the decisive argument when he said: "Secession from the Confederacy will involve us in a new war, a bloodier conflict than that which we now deplore. So soon as you announce to the world that you are a sovereign and independent nation, as a matter of course the Confederate Government has a right to declare war against you, and President Davis will make the whole State a field of battle and blood. Old Abe would send his troops here also, because we would no longer be neutral; and so, if you will pardon the expression, we would catch the devil on all sides." At the election in August, Governor Vance received fifty-four thousand votes, against twenty thousand for Mr. Holden.

Georgia did not secede from the Confederacy, but Hood did attack the communications. At every important point on the railroad there was a strong guard, and at the bridges there were block-houses with small but well-appointed garrisons. About the 1st of October Hood crossed the Chattahoochee, going northward to strike the railroad. Sherman hurried after him, and on the 5th looked down from Kenesaw Mountain upon the fires that were burning the ties and heating the rails of a dozen miles of his road. Anticipating an attack on Allatoona, which was held by a small brigade under command of Lieut.-Col. John E. Tourtellotte, he signalled over the heads of the enemy a message to Allatoona conveying an order for Gen. John M. Corse, then at Rome, to go to the relief of Tourtellotte with a strong force. Corse obeyed promptly, going down with all the men he could obtain transportation for, and arriving at midnight. In the morning the garrison, now nearly two thousand strong, were summoned to surrender immediately, to avoid a needless effusion of blood. General Corse answered, "We are prepared for the needless effusion of blood whenever it is agreeable to you," and at once his men were attacked from all sides. They were driven into their redoubts, and there made so determined a resistance that after five hours of desperate fighting the Confederates withdrew, leaving their dead and wounded on the field. Corse had lost seven hundred and seven men out of his nineteen hundred and forty-four, including Colonel Redfield, of the Thirty-ninth Iowa, killed, and had himself suffered the loss of an ear and a cheek-bone. The total Confederate loss is unknown; but Corse reported burying two hundred and thirty-one of their dead, and taking four hundred and eleven prisoners, which would indicate a total loss of sixteen hundred. This successful defence of Allatoona was one of the most gallant affairs of the kind in history.

General Thomas had previously been sent to Nashville with two divisions, General Slocum was left in Atlanta with the Twentieth Corps, and with the remainder of his forces Sherman pursued Hood through the country between Rome and Chattanooga and westward of that region. But he could not bring the Confederates to battle, and had little expectation of overtaking them. He thinks he conceived of the march to the sea some time in September; the first definite proposal of it was in a telegram to General Thomas, on the 9th of October, in which he said: "I want to destroy all the road below Chattanooga, including Atlanta, and to make for the sea-coast. We cannot defend this long line of road." In various despatches between that date and the 2d of November, Sherman proposed the great march to Grant and to the President. Grant thought Hood's army should be destroyed first, but finally said: "I do not see that you can withdraw from where you are, to follow Hood, without giving up all we have gained in territory. I say, then, go on as you propose." This was on the understanding, suggested by Sherman, that Thomas would be left with force enough to take care of Hood. Sherman sent him the Fourth and Twenty-third Corps, commanded by Generals Stanley and Schofield, and further reinforced him with troops that had been garrisoning various places on the railroad, while he also received two divisions from Missouri and some recruits from the North. These, when properly organized, made up a very strong force; and, with Thomas at its head, neither Sherman nor Grant felt any hesitation about leaving it to take care of Tennessee.

Sherman rapidly sent North all his sick and disabled men, and all baggage that could be spared. Commissioners came and took the votes of the soldiers for the Presidential election, and departed. Paymasters came and paid off the troops, and went back again. Wagon trains were put in trim and loaded for a march. Every detachment of the army had its exact orders what to do; and as the last trains whirled over the road to Chattanooga, the track was taken up and destroyed, the bridges burned, the wires torn down, and all the troops that had not been ordered to join Thomas concentrated in Atlanta. From the 12th of November nothing more was heard from Sherman till Christmas.

The depot, machine-shops, and locomotive-house in Atlanta were all torn down, and fire was set to the ruins. The shops had been used for the manufacture of Confederate ammunition, and all night the shells were exploding in the midst of the ruin, while the fire spread to a block of stores, and finally burned out the heart of the city. With every unsound man and every useless article sent to the rear, General Sherman now had fifty-five thousand three hundred and twenty-nine infantrymen, five thousand and sixty-three cavalrymen, and eighteen hundred and twelve artillerymen, with sixty-five guns. There were four teams of horses to each gun, with its caisson and forge; six hundred ambulances, each drawn by two horses; and twenty-five hundred wagons, with six mules to each. Every soldier carried forty rounds of ammunition, while the wagons contained an abundant additional supply and twelve hundred thousand rations, with oats and corn enough to last five days. Probably a more thoroughly appointed army was never seen, and it is difficult to imagine one of equal numbers more effective. Every man in it was a veteran, was proud to be there, and felt the most perfect confidence that under the leadership of "Uncle Billy" it would be impossible to go wrong.

On the 15th of November they set out on the march to the sea, nearly three hundred miles distant. The infantry consisted of four corps. The Fifteenth and Seventeenth formed the right wing, commanded by Gen. Oliver O. Howard; the Fourteenth and Twentieth the left, commanded by Gen. Henry W. Slocum. The cavalry was under the command of Gen. Judson Kilpatrick. The two wings marched by parallel routes, generally a few miles apart, each corps having its own proportion of the artillery and trains. General Sherman issued minute orders as to the conduct of the march, which were systematically carried out. Some of the instructions were these:

"The habitual order of march will be, wherever practicable, by four roads, as nearly parallel as possible. The separate columns will start habitually at seven A.M., and make about fifteen miles a day. Behind each regiment should follow one wagon and one ambulance. Army commanders should practise the habit of giving the artillery and wagons the road, marching the troops on one side. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, who will gather corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn meal, or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten days' provisions. Soldiers must not enter dwellings or commit any trespass; but, during a halt or camp, they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock in sight of their camp. To corps commanders alone is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, etc. Where the army is unmolested, no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless, according to the measure of such hostility. As for horses, mules, wagons, etc., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit; discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor and industrious, usually neutral or friendly. In all foraging, the parties engaged will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance."

Thus equipped and thus instructed, the great army moved steadily, day after day, cutting a mighty swath, from forty to sixty miles wide, through the very heart of the Confederacy. The columns passed through Rough and Ready, Jonesboro', Covington, McDonough, Macon, Milledgeville, Gibson, Louisville, Millen, Springfield, and many smaller places. The wealthier inhabitants fled at the approach of the troops. The negroes in great numbers swarmed after the army, believing the long-promised day of jubilee had come. Some of them seemed to have an intelligent idea that the success of the National forces meant destruction of slavery, while most of them had but the vaguest notions as to the whole movement. One woman, with a child in her arms, walking along among the cattle and horses, was accosted by an officer, who asked her, "Where are you going, aunty?" "I'se gwine whar you's gwine, massa." One party of black men, who had fallen into line, called out to another who seemed to be asking too many questions, "Stick in dar! It's all right. We'se gwine along; we'se free." Major George Ward Nichols describes an aged couple whom he saw in a hut near Milledgeville. The old negress, pointing her long finger at the old man, who was in the corner of the fireplace, hissed out, "What fer you sit dar? You s'pose I wait sixty years for nutten? Don't yer see de door open? I'se follow my child; I not stay; I walks till I drop in my tracks."

The army destroyed nearly the whole of the Georgia Central Railroad, burning the ties, and heating and twisting the rails. As they had learned that a rail merely bent could be straightened and used again, a special tool was invented with which a red-hot rail could be quickly twisted like an auger, and rendered forever useless. They also had special appliances for tearing up the track methodically and rapidly. All the depot buildings were in flames as soon as the column reached them. As the bloodhounds had been used to track escaped prisoners, the men killed all that they could find.

The foraging parties—or "bummers," as they were popularly called—went out for miles on each side, starting in advance of the organizations to which they belonged, gathered immense quantities of provisions, and brought them to the line of march, where each stood guard over his pile till his own brigade came along. The progress of the column was not allowed to be interrupted for the reception of the forage, everything being loaded upon the wagons as they moved. The "flankers" were thrown out on either side, passing in thin lines through the woods to prevent any surprise by the enemy, while the mounted officers went through the fields to give the road to the troops and trains.

The only serious opposition came from Wheeler's Confederate cavalry, which hung on the flanks of the army and burned some bridges, but was well taken care of by Kilpatrick's, who generally defeated it when brought to an encounter. There was great hope that Kilpatrick would be able to release the prisoners of war confined in Millen, but when he arrived there he found that they had been removed to some other part of the Confederacy. When the advance guard was within a few miles of Savannah there was some fighting with infantry, and a pause before the defences of the city.

Fort McAllister, which stood in the way of communication with the blockading fleet, was elaborately protected with ditches, palisades, and chevaux-de-frise; but Gen. William B. Hazen's division made short work with it, going straight over everything and capturing the fort on the 13th of December, losing ninety-two men in the assault, and killing or wounding about fifty of the garrison. That night General Sherman, with a few officers, pulled down the river in a yawl and visited a gunboat of the fleet in Ossabaw Sound. Four days later, having established full communication, Sherman demanded the surrender of the city of Savannah, which Gen. William J. Hardee, who was in command there with a considerable force, refused. Sherman then took measures to make its investment complete; but on the morning of the 21st it was found to be evacuated by Hardee's forces, and Gen. John W. Geary's division of the Twentieth Corps marched in. The next day Sherman wrote to the President: "I beg to present 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." Sherman's entire loss in the march had been seven hundred and sixty-four men.

That phase of war which reaches behind the armies in the field and strikes directly at the sources of supply, bringing home its burdens and its hardships to men who are urging on the conflict without participating in it, was never exhibited on a grander scale or conducted with more complete success. This, in fact, is the most humane kind of war, since it accomplishes the purpose with the least destruction of life and limb. Sherman's movement across Georgia naturally brings to mind another famous march to the sea; but that was a retreat of ten thousand, while this was a victorious advance of sixty thousand; and it was only in their shout of welcome, Thalatta! thalatta! ("The sea! the sea!") that the weary and disheartened Greeks resembled Sherman's triumphant legions.