On March 18, 1864, at Nashville, Tennessee, William T. Sherman assumed command of the Military Division of the Mississippi.¹ He was replacing Ulysses S. Grant, who had been promoted to the new rank of lieutenant general and called to Washington to command all the armies of the United States. It was a signal honor for both.

Considering the stellar performance of both men in the western campaigns, and the disappointing performance of Henry W. Halleck as the titular head of all the armies, the move appears logical. However, there had been many pitfalls in its coming about.

Such a move had long been in the mill. Shortly after the fall of Vicksburg in July of 1863, a bill had been introduced by Representative Elihu B. Washburne calling for the change. The bill had moved slowly in Congress, and even Lincoln himself had been cautious. Always a supporter of Grant’s—a Grant man, the president called himself—he still had to ensure that Grant would not parlay future glories to political advantage. John C. Frémont had tried to do so, and George B. McClellan, whom Lincoln had relieved of command of the army for lack of aggressiveness, was now courting the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. Lincoln had had enough political generals, and he had to make sure that Grant was not one of them.

Finally, in the light of Grant’s statements denying political ambitions, and Washburne’s persuasion, Lincoln had relented. In late February, Congress had reinstated the grade of lieutenant general, a title held by only two Americans: George Washington and Winfield Scott. Lincoln submitted Grant’s name on March 1, 1864, and the next day he had been confirmed.

Sherman’s appointment was less apparent than that of Grant. In previous moves up the chain of command, from the beginning of Vicksburg on, Sherman had always replaced Grant when the latter had stepped up, but in this case the succession was not so obvious. He could be appointed as commander of the Department of the Mississippi, of course, but he could also have gone east with Grant and assumed command of the Army of the Potomac, replacing General George G. Meade, whose victory at Gettysburg had been badly tarnished by his failure to pursue the Confederates when Lee was in a near-helpless state.

Lincoln left the decision up to Grant, and Meade, to his credit, did what he could to make the verdict easy. When Grant visited the Army of the Potomac at Brandy Station shortly after his own appointment, Meade made his case that the cause was too great for Grant to take Meade’s feelings into consideration; Grant, he suggested, might desire to bring in someone from the West, meaning Sherman. But Grant had already decided to leave Meade where he was and to place Sherman in the spot Grant was leaving, the procedure that had become customary.

It was a wise decision. Grant and Sherman had never worked together directly; instead, Grant had always used Sherman to command a portion of his army while he remained with the main body. They had never occupied the same or proximate headquarters.* Sherman always considered himself Grant’s subordinate—which he would still be in the West—but on a very loose leash. Serving as commander of the Army of the Potomac with Grant present, looking over his shoulder and making all the real decisions, would have been stifling, even for such a devoted man as Sherman.

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During the months of January and February 1864, while the command changes were brewing in Washington, Sherman and his XV Corps had been making raids against Confederate bases, principally in Mississippi. The most ambitious of these raids was conducted against a town named Meridian, near the Mississippi coastline on the Gulf of Mexico. A division under Brigadier General William Sooy Smith was attached. The raid itself was successful; the Confederate garrison was routed and the supplies destroyed or confiscated. But by some mix-up, Sherman lost contact with Smith and felt forced to abandon any plans he had to invade Alabama. He did not know for some time that Smith’s force had been practically wiped out.

On the road back to his headquarters from this action, Sherman received the first word of Grant’s promotion. At Memphis a message directly from Grant at Nashville was waiting for him. In his typically modest way, Grant barely mentioned his own promotion, but his tone probably accounted for his unusual warmth and informality. Instead of the usual “Major-General Sherman,” he began merely with “Dear Sherman.” After the briefest accounts, in which the only notable matter was a determination to keep his headquarters out of Washington, he then turned to his real purpose:

While I have been eminently successful in this war, in at least gaining the confidence of the public, no one feels more than I how much of this success is due to the energy, skill, and the harmonious putting forth of that energy and skill, of those whom it has been my good fortune to have occupying subordinate positions under me.

There are many officers to whom these remarks are applicable to a greater or less degree, proportionate to their ability as soldiers; but what I want is to express my thanks to you and McPherson, as the men to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. How far your advice and suggestions have been of assistance, you know. How far your execution of whatever has been given you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving, you cannot know as well as I do. I feel all the gratitude this letter would express, giving it the most flattering construction.

The word you I use in the plural, intending it for McPherson also. I should write to him, and will someday, but, starting in the morning, I do not know that I will find time just now.

Your friend,

U. S. GRANT, Major-General.

Sherman’s answer to Grant’s letter, while just as complimentary, was far different. Though officially a subordinate, he was not above giving Grant the benefit of his assessment of his superior’s characteristics. But then, showing a sentiment that Grant tended to avoid, Sherman included a sentence that has come to be regarded as an encapsulation of their relationship:

If I got in a tight place, I know you would come—if alive.²

Each in his own way, both men were pledging their partnership.

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Immediately after the change-of-command ceremony at Nashville, Grant departed for Washington on the way to the headquarters from which he would command the armies, with the Army of the Potomac on the Rappahannock. He asked Sherman to accompany him as far as Cincinnati, after which Sherman returned to Nashville to begin planning the spring campaign.

By now, Grant had decided, with Sherman’s concurrence, that the time had come to start planning a major drive southward from Chattanooga into Georgia. Thus Grant and Sherman, each commanding a major army, would push south to destroy the Confederate armies—Robert E. Lee in Grant’s case and Joseph E. Johnston in Sherman’s. The distance between Grant’s and Sherman’s forces was only 550 miles, close enough that one could reinforce the other if necessary. Therefore, while the two held definitely separate commands, they were still working together.

On arrival back at Nashville on March 25, Sherman began to assess his situation. His objective in the upcoming campaign would not be a terrain feature, but rather the army of General Joseph E. Johnston. Intelligence indicated that Johnston’s army consisted of only about forty thousand men, yet it was capable of rapid reinforcement. On paper Sherman’s troops would be of overwhelming strength, 171,000 men, but he calculated that only about a hundred thousand were present for duty. He was, however, satisfied. One hundred thousand men, he figured, were all that he could supply. He went to work on that basis.³

Sherman was happy with the commanders of his subordinate armies. By all odds the largest and best supported was George Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland, located at Chattanooga, with approximately ninety thousand men present for duty. James McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee was back at Vicksburg with about sixty-four thousand; and John M. Schofield’s Army of the Ohio, which he had taken over from Burnside, was at Knoxville with twenty-six thousand. This discrepancy in force size among the armies was not premeditated; it had come about by circumstances. Thomas was on hand where he had fought the Battle of Chattanooga, and his men had simply remained in place. Schofield’s Army of the Ohio had not been at Chattanooga but maintained solid strength.⁴ McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee was inferior in strength to Thomas’s, partly because Sherman had “loaned” two of McPherson’s divisions to Nathaniel Banks, at the Red River. Sherman now sent a message to Banks requesting their return—the loan had been agreed as thirty days—but Banks and even Porter demurred, and they were never returned.

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Sherman hoped to move south from Chattanooga around May 1. To support his hundred thousand men he would have to deliver about thirteen hundred tons of food and ammunition a day, considerably more than the capacity of the single-track railroad that ran from his base at Nashville and his jump-off point at Chattanooga. He therefore made use of roads and waterways as much as he could. He also specified that the men would travel on foot; roads, railroads, and waterways were reserved for supply. Based partly on his experience in living off the land in his recent Meridian campaign, he had concluded that only beef and salt needed to be supplied for sustenance of the troops. For all else, the men could live off the land, consistent with Grant’s orders to destroy anything along the way that could be of use to the enemy—including food.

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On arrival at their respective headquarters, Grant and Sherman began an exchange of messages that together established the details of the course they intended to follow to bring the war to an end. On April 4 Grant wrote his fundamental plan:

It is my design, if the enemy keep quiet and allow me to take the initiative in the spring campaign, to work all parts of the army together, and somewhat toward a common centre. For your information I now write you my programme, as at present determined upon. . . .

Summarizing the orders he had issued to other commands, he then turned to Sherman’s mission:

You I propose to move against Johnston’s army, to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.

I do not propose to lay down for you a plan of campaign, but simply to lay down the work it is desirable to have done, and leave you free to execute it in your own way. Submit to me, however, as early as you can, your plan of operations. . . .⁵

On April 10 Sherman answered in kind. He expressed “infinite satisfaction” with Grant’s letter, and the fact that they were acting on a common plan, converging on a common center, which he described as “enlightened war.” He pledged his cooperation and assured Grant that he would not allow side issues to divert him from his main mission.

As to his own operation, Sherman estimated that it would take him all of April to assemble his furloughed veterans and other groups of absentees,^* and to collect provisions and cattle on the line of the Tennessee River. Each of the armies would guard, by detachments of its own, its rear communications.

He then explained his proposed employment of his troops. Schofield, with twelve thousand men, was to drop down to the Hiawassee and march against Johnston’s right. George Stoneman, presently in Kentucky organizing Schofield’s cavalry force, would have about two thousand cavalry with which to protect Schofield’s left flank. Thomas, with forty-five thousand men in the center, was to move straight against Johnston, wherever the Confederate might be. McPherson, with nine divisions of the Army of the Tennessee, would have a full thirty thousand of “the best men in America.”^* He would cross the Tennessee River at Decatur and Whitesburg, march toward Rome, and scout around for Thomas. If Johnston fell behind the Coosa River, then McPherson would push for Rome; but if Johnston fell behind the Chattahoochee River, as Sherman believed he would, then McPherson would follow him across and join Thomas.

Much of the message was for Grant’s information only, but Sherman finished up with three important paragraphs that predicted the actions he would take throughout the Georgia campaign:

Should Johnston fall behind the Chattahoochee, I will feign [sic] to the right, but pass to the left and act against Atlanta or its eastern communications, according to developed facts.

This is about as far ahead as I feel disposed to look, but I will ever bear in mind that Johnston is at all times to be kept so busy that he cannot in any event send any part of his command against you or Banks. . . .

If the enemy interrupt our communications, I will be absolved from all obligations to subsist on our own resources, and will feel perfectly justified in taking whatever and wherever we can find. I will inspire my command, if successful, with the feeling that beef and salt are all that is absolutely necessary to life, and that parched corn once fed General Jackson’s army on that very ground.⁶

On April 19, Grant wrote Sherman again, offering little news but reassurance. He did, however, include one important paragraph:

What I now want more particularly to say is, that if the two main attacks, yours and the one from here, should promise great success, the enemy may, in a fit of desperation, abandon one part of their line of defense, and throw their whole strength upon the other, believing a single defeat without any victory to sustain them better than a defeat all along their line, and hoping too, at the same time, that the army, meeting with no resistance, will rest perfectly satisfied with their laurels, having penetrated to a given point south, thereby enabling them to throw their force first upon one and then on the other.

With the majority of military commanders they might do this.⁷

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On April 24, Sherman wrote his last letter to Grant before the beginning of the campaign, essentially asking for as much time as possible for preparations. Acknowledging that his three armies would be separated for a while, he planned to set a point of concentration at Lafayette. He then gave a description of his supply plans that only the brain of William T. Sherman could retain in full.

This exchange of messages, sent between two men who were intimately familiar with the details, needs summation. In short their understandings were as follows:

a. The two main Confederate armies, the defeat of which would end the war, were those of Robert E. Lee, in northern Virginia and Joseph E. Johnston, in northwest Georgia.

b. Grant was to attack Lee and Sherman was to attack Johnston. The objectives of both were Lee’s army and Johnston’s. Terrain features such as Richmond and Atlanta, no matter how important, were secondary to the destruction of those armies.

c. Grant and Sherman were to remain in close contact. Should either Lee or Johnston send part of their forces to reinforce the other, thus attempting to defeat Grant or Lee in detail, those officers could come to the aid of each other.

d. Supply was expected to be the largest problem that Sherman, at least, would face. Normal supply means—railroads, roads and waterways—were to carry only ammunition and food. All troops were to go by foot. And if food supply went low, especially through Confederate cavalry action, Sherman was perfectly free to feed his men by forage off the countryside. The implication was that living off the land was encouraged.

e. Sherman’s three armies were to be McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee, at Vicksburg; Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland, at Chattanooga; and Schofield’s Army of the Ohio, at Knoxville. These armies were to follow routes that would converge on Dalton, Georgia, not for its invaluable communications facilities, including the Western & Atlantic Railroad, but because Confederate general Johnston had concentrated his Army of the Tennessee at that place. Johnston’s army was to be destroyed.

f. The jump-off date for Sherman at Chattanooga and Grant at the wilderness along the Rapidan/Rappahannock would be as soon as possible after May 1, 1864.

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On May 4, Sherman moved his small headquarters from Nashville to Chattanooga, and was on the front two days later. On May 7 all three of his armies attacked.