I am going into the very bowels of the Confederacy, and propose to leave a trail that will be recognized fifty years hence.
—WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN, October 19, 1864
THERE ARE MANY WHO BRAND the Civil War the first “modern” conflict. They are right in many respects, for it displays the hallmarks of that type of war: mass armies, partially created by conscription; the mobilization of industry, including its control, particularly in the South, by a central government; and the respective efforts to sway public opinion. The execution of the struggle also supports this argument: trench warfare, such as that around Richmond and Petersburg; turreted ironclad and steam-powered warships; rifles; early machine guns; mines, both on land and in coastal waters; the wire (telegraph) first strung around trenches at Port Hudson in 1863. All of this points to the kind of war that would be fought in the following century.
But there were also throwbacks to the past: the use of irregulars, particularly by the South, to wage petite guerre, or partisan war, against the Union’s rear areas and lines of communication; the Union’s medieval, even ancient practice of destroying the enemy’s resources—burning his crops and cities, driving his people from their lands, taking his slaves and peasants and making them their own. This strategy of exhaustion, as well as killing enemy armies, became a key component of Union victory.
Nonetheless, the “modern conflict” argument seems the most convincing when addressing that most modern of concerns among democratic nations, something upon which everything else depended: winning an election.
AS THE END OF AUGUST drew near, Grant’s army remained stalled outside Richmond and Petersburg; Sherman’s forces stood before Atlanta. The November elections loomed. Lincoln had again received the Republican nomination for president (though Republicans campaigned as the National Union Party). Their platform included a call for a constitutional amendment outlawing slavery. Lincoln deemed this “a lifting and necessary conclusion to the final success of the Union.” No longer was the policy objective merely maintaining the Union. With the inclusion of abolition in the party’s platform, emancipation, which had begun as a military measure, evolved into an additional political objective. The Republican Party’s platform also laid out terms for ending the war: “the determination of the government of the United States not to compromise with rebels, or 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 just allegiance to the Constitution and laws of the United States.”1
Lincoln considered the election critical, believing that it would decide the “weal or woe of this great nation.” Though McClellan, the Democratic Party candidate, officially favored continuing the war against the rebellion, Lincoln believed that McClellan’s election would result in a Union defeat. He argued that “the rebel armies cannot be destroyed with Democratic strategy” because the Democrats intended to prosecute the war by turning out of the army between 100,000 and 200,000 blacks bearing arms for the Union. “These men will be disbanded,” Lincoln insisted, “returned to slavery & we will have to fight two nations instead of one… . You cannot concilliate [sic] the South, when the mastery & control of millions of blacks makes them sure of ultimate success. You cannot concilliate the South, when you place yourself in such a position, that they see they can achieve their independence. The war democrat depends upon conciliation… . Abandon all the posts now possessed by black men surrender all these advantages to the enemy, & we would be compelled to abandon the war in 3 weeks… . But no human power can subdue this rebellion without using the Emancipation lever as I have done,” continued Lincoln. “Freedom has given us the control of 200,000 able bodied men, born & raised on southern soil. It will give us more yet.”2
This clearly shows that Lincoln’s primary war aim was preserving the Union. Moreover, we see his determination to do whatever is necessary to achieve this goal and to take responsibility for it—an example of moral courage. Lincoln’s remarks also demonstrated his awareness that the balance of strength between the two combatants necessitated the use of black troops to achieve victory. Certainly the Union had many advantages, but these did not guarantee success.
Though Lincoln had his party’s support, he was not so sure about the voters. In late August 1864, he expressed deep doubts about his reelection, noting that if he lost, it would be his “duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.” Seward thought that McClellan, in the end, would have done nothing, an assessment with which Lincoln agreed. “At the least,” the president replied, “I should have done my duty and have stood clear before my own conscience.”3 Lincoln had no reason to worry. His reelection, and hence the Union, would be saved by a red-haired general from Ohio and the intervention of Jefferson Davis.
The South saw opportunities in the Union presidential contest. Previously, Davis had tried to take advantage of Northern dissent during the 1862 congressional elections. The proclamation he prepared for Bragg and Lee was part of this. Many Southerners believed a presidential victory by a “Peace Democrat” (or Copperhead) their best hope of gaining independence. Moreover, like many in the South, Davis was emboldened by the anti-Union, antiwar, and anti-Lincoln activities of the Copperheads of the Northwest, as well as by (exaggerated) reports of Northern membership in secret societies. In the spring and summer of 1864, Davis and his advisors hatched a plan to try to influence the election in the South’s favor.4
Davis sent agents to Canada and the North to negotiate with figures amenable to peace. Some had instructions to meddle in Union politics, others to attempt to free Confederate prisoners. Still others bribed newspapers to argue for peace and gave money to sympathetic political campaigns. Some even plotted to stage an uprising at the Democratic convention in Chicago, and a few figured in negotiations that caused Lincoln political injury, though not enough to cost him the election.5
These efforts were worthy elements of grand strategy, if misguided ones, and cost the Confederacy little. There were also problems. Historian Larry Nelson argues persuasively that Davis mismanaged the endeavor, partly because he did not really think much would come of it and partly because he feared the election of a peace candidate would discourage the South from continuing the war instead of encourage it. Seceded states might see in McClellan’s election and subsequent policy of conciliation (or perhaps appeasement) a chance to return to the Union with slavery intact. This would kill the Confederacy.6
There were larger issues here as well, those of linkage between military and political strategies and between the various strategies and the political objective. The South’s best hope of winning the war had now become its protraction. The optimal way to do this was to sit on the strategic defensive. In his assessment of Johnston’s defense of Georgia, Grant wrote: “I think his policy [strategy] was the best one that could have been pursued by the whole South—protract the war, which was all that was necessary to enable them to gain recognition in the end.” He also pointed out, correctly, that “the North was already growing weary.”7
Grant, however, was misinformed about what was really going on in the Confederate high command and with Johnston in particular. His attributing to Johnston a conscious decision to pursue a strategy of protraction was too generous; there was no such determination. Johnston had adopted his approach out of weakness and inclination, nothing else. Plus, foreign recognition was all but impossible. Nonetheless, Grant did hit on something: a strategy of protracting the war was what the South should have tried. Again, though, there was the issue of linkage. Davis did not coordinate the political and military efforts of the South in order to deny sufficient Union military success before the presidential election. Davis’s action in Georgia clearly shows this.
On July 17, 1864, Jefferson Davis replaced Johnston with John Bell Hood. After Hood’s first attack, Sherman met with Hood’s West Point classmate, Union major general John Schofield. From Schofield he learned of Hood’s reckless courage; Sherman warned his army to expect action. “This was just what we wanted,” he insisted later, “to fight in open ground on any thing like equal terms, instead of being forced to run up against prepared intrenchments.” Sherman judged Johnston’s management of his defensive campaign “cautious but prudent.”8
Despite this, on July 19 the Union forces were advancing against such light opposition that Sherman believed the South intended to evacuate Atlanta. Then Hood struck. Over an eight-day period beginning on July 20, Hood launched three furious assaults. The Confederates succeeded in preventing a move by one of Sherman’s units to cut the remaining railroad south of Atlanta. However, Hood, or rather his army, paid the price, suffering 15,000 casualties to Sherman’s 6,000, losses the South could not make good. Moreover, the bloodbath meant that Sherman’s now vastly superior force could stretch around Hood’s Atlanta positions, trapping him the way Pemberton had been ensnared by Grant in Vicksburg.9
When Hood’s men took to their parapets once again, Sherman turned his attention to what proved to be the difficult task of cutting the last of Atlanta’s rail links, especially the one south of Atlanta with Macon. He wrote that gaining the Macon Railroad “would, in my judgment, result in the capture of Atlanta.” Though he preferred to destroy Hood’s army, given that this “Gate-City of the South” was “full of foundries, arsenals, and machine-shops,” he believed its fall would be the “death-knell of the Southern Confederacy.”10
Sherman was wrong about Atlanta but right about what was truly important: Hood’s army. And indeed, Sherman did keep this in mind, even as he contemplated ways to take Atlanta. He sent cavalry to try to cut the Macon-Atlanta rail line in the hopes that it would force Hood to evacuate Atlanta, which would not only deliver the city but also give Sherman the chance to “catch Hood in the confusion of retreat.” The raiders, though successful in making a small breach in the rails, did no lasting damage. Sherman then made the bold decision to march his army south of Atlanta. At first the Confederates thought the Yankees had withdrawn. They soon discovered otherwise. Hood responded by attacking Sherman at Jonesborough, south of Atlanta, on August 30. The Union repulsed the assault, inflicting heavy casualties, then launched an attack of their own the following day. Hood, realizing that he faced being cornered and destroyed, abandoned Atlanta on September 1, 1864.11
Hood’s offensive proved a great mistake. Grant later wrote that he thought Johnston had acted “very wisely” by preserving his men and saving as much territory as he could without engaging in a decisive battle “in which all might be lost.” As Sherman advanced, his army became spread out until, “if this had been continued, it would have been easy to destroy it in detail.”12 Had Hood preserved his strength, he could have continued to stretch his lines, as Lee was then doing around Richmond, perhaps stifling Sherman, as Lee had Grant. This might have kept Atlanta in the South’s hands until the election. But Davis had dictated otherwise. He had placed Hood in command and insisted upon the offensive. It was a critical and perhaps even fatal miscalculation.
The fall of Atlanta damaged Confederate rail communications and logistics, though not mortally. The strategic implications were what mattered most. Sherman delivered to the Union cause a triumph it desperately needed, one that heartened the Union and ensured Lincoln’s reelection.13 But Sherman had not yet achieved the strategic objectives of his campaign: he had not destroyed Johnston’s (now Hood’s) army. He had penetrated into the enemy’s country and by taking Atlanta had destroyed a chunk of the South’s war-making ability, but many Confederate resources remained untouched. Sherman would soon do better on both his charges.
WHILE ON A SPEAKING TOUR of the Deep South in the fall of 1864, Davis took for his chief topics Sherman and his army, and what the South intended to do about them. Despite the fall of Atlanta, Davis spread an optimistic message to the crowds gathering to hear his words. He told the people of Macon on September 23, 1864, that “Sherman cannot keep up his long line of communication, and retreat sooner or later, he must.” He elaborated on his claim with an allusion to the past, insisting that Sherman’s army would share the same fate as Napoleon’s during its retreat from Moscow. In a speech in Montgomery, Davis told the audience to expect no help from abroad and that military victory was the best way to encourage the peace party in the North.14
Davis also began to talk publicly about the Confederacy’s future military response to Sherman. He revealed Hood’s intention to take the offensive within thirty days (though Davis sometimes varied the details). He propagandized that Atlanta would become “a perfect Moscow of defeat” and that Sherman would be driven out of Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and even back across the Ohio River. “Then we shall have thousands of recruits … that will so augment our armies that our foes will sue for peace.” The next month was crucial to ultimate Confederate success, Davis insisted, and pointed to the coming Union presidential election and the hope that Southern victories would contribute to the triumph of a northern peace candidate. Not to be outdone, Beauregard and Hood also gave speeches announcing that Hood’s army was heading toward Tennessee.15
Both Grant and Sherman appreciated the forewarning. It certainly eased their planning. Before Sherman marched on Atlanta, the only subsequent operation that he and Grant had discussed was a drive on Mobile. Grant, though, did not intend to see Sherman idle. “We want to keep the enemy constantly pressed to the end of the war,” he wrote on September 10. “If we give him no peace whilst the war lasts, the end cannot be distant.” The Union had just taken “all of Mobile Bay that is valuable” (Grant referred to Farragut’s famous dash into the harbor and the Union’s seizure of the city’s key forts, all of which occurred during the first week in August), and Grant proposed that Sherman move against Augusta, Georgia. He also asked for Sherman’s ideas. “Cump” suggested a deeper march into Georgia. Simultaneously, Grant would keep extending his line around Lee’s positions in Petersburg to cut the railroads while he sent a force of infantry and ironclads against Wilmington, North Carolina, winning control of this port. But he didn’t think he could begin these operations until October 5 and wanted to know what Sherman would do.16
Sherman was not sure. He wrote Grant on September 20 that he “would not hesitate to cross the State of Georgia with 60,000 men, hauling some stores and depending on the country for the balance.” But he believed the better move would be for Union forces to take Wilmington, then Savannah, while others struck inland to attack Columbus, Georgia. Meanwhile, Sherman would “keep Hood employed” and prepare “for a march on Augusta, Columbia, and Charleston,” as soon as Wilmington and Savannah fell.17
Already the germ of an idea was growing. It grew enough so that on October 1 Sherman could ask Grant, “Why would it not do for me to leave Tennessee to the force which Thomas has, and the reserves soon to come to Nashville, and for me to destroy Atlanta, and then march across Georgia to Savannah or Charleston, breaking roads and doing irreparable damage?” Upon hearing of this, Halleck broke character by promptly sending Grant a note listing eight reasons why this was a bad idea.18 Grant ignored him. What worried Grant about Sherman implementing such a plan was Hood’s army. This, however, soon took care of itself.
In an 1879 letter, Davis recalled that in September 1864 he had advised Hood to move his army to some point along the railroad between Chattanooga and Atlanta and dig in. “This it was supposed would compel Sherman to move to attack him, and if he insisted upon retaining possession of Atlanta would necessitate the division of his forces.”19
Hood refused Davis’s counsel (some consider disobeyed a better descriptor) and decided that he would draw Sherman as near as possible to Tennessee’s border, convincing the Union general to divide his forces even further. Hood withdrew to northern Alabama, establishing his base at Gadsden. On October 22 he struck out for Tennessee, crossing the Tennessee River on November 13 and camping at Florence, Alabama, before moving into the Volunteer State. Among Hood’s explanations for his action was that he did not receive until the twelfth Davis’s November 7 command to attack Sherman, but his president’s order was in many ways a reiteration of the instructions Hood had received in person in September. Moreover, Hood believed that pursuing Sherman would be seen by his troops as a retreat, with subsequently poor effects upon morale. Davis’s orders also contained at least one deviation from reality: he expected that after Hood defeated Sherman’s forces in detail, Hood could advance to the Ohio River.20
Meanwhile, Beauregard, whose command had been absorbed by Lee, took command of the Military Division of the West on October 17. This was basically Johnston’s old department. His job was to organize the efforts of Confederate forces in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and eastern Louisiana. This included Hood’s army.21
By October 10, Sherman knew Hood was withdrawing west and asked Grant if the time had come to unfold their plan. Grant thought that if Sherman “cut loose,” Hood’s army would not threaten him but instead strike for Nashville. His preference was for destroying Hood’s army, “but I must trust to your own judgment.” He warned Sherman that the move would be unsupported because Grant could not spare the men from his army to take Savannah.22
None of this discouraged Sherman. He resolved to move south, believing that Hood’s army would then be forced to follow him. “Instead of being on the defensive,” Sherman insisted, “I would be on the offensive; instead of guessing at what he means to do, he would have to guess at my plans. The difference in war is full 25 per cent [meaning that being on the offensive increased his strength]. I can make Savannah, Charleston, or the mouth of the Chattahoochee.”23
“Your dispatch of to-day received,” Grant replied. “If you are satisfied the trip to the sea-coast can be made, holding the line of the Tennessee firmly, you may make it, destroying all the railroad south of Dalton or Chattanooga, as you think best.” Lincoln, though, was not so enthused and worried that this risked Sherman’s army. But he let Grant decide.24
Over the next month they prepared and hashed out the details. Sherman laid out the strategic and operational context as well as the strategic objectives. His plan was strategy at its grandest. He was striking directly at the Confederacy’s will, its leadership, its ability to wage war, and any slim chance it possessed of acquiring allies. “I propose to act in such a manner against the material resources of the South as utterly to negative Davis boasted threat and promises of protection,” he wrote Grant. “If we can march a well-appointed army right through his territory, it is a demonstration to the world, foreign and domestic, that we have a power which Davis cannot resist. This may not be war, but rather statesmanship.”25
Sherman saw three possible objective points for his march: Mobile, Apalachicola, and the coast of Charleston or Savannah. Important in his choice was his insistence that the army be capable of acting against the enemy afterward. Going to Apalachicola “would leave the army in a bad position for future movements.” Striking for the coast, he told Grant, “would have a material effect upon your campaign in Virginia,” which demonstrated his consideration of supporting Grant’s efforts. Before he embarked, he would destroy Atlanta, as well as the railroad between there and Dalton.26
Sherman’s 60,000 men lit their torches and marched out of Atlanta on November 14. Sherman wrote a brother general: “I will be off in a few days on a worse raid than our Meridian raid was, and you may look for a great howl against the brute Sherman.” Grant provided support for this move by ordering a series of raids. Major General Edward Canby launched troops from Vicksburg and Baton Rouge to cut railroads and pin Confederate troops. Another force went inland from the Union Department of the South to tear up the railroads between Savannah and Charleston.27
The Confederacy searched for ways to counter Sherman’s March. Governor Brown of Georgia ordered a “levy en masse” of every male between sixteen and fifty-five in the state able to bear arms (railroad workers, telegraphers, and office-holding clergy being exempt). Davis asked Lee for advice in dealing with Sherman, who he thought aimed at Macon. Lee speculated that Sherman’s objective was Savannah, and believed the population had to turn out to stop him. He recommended the burning of all bridges and destruction of all roads and supplies within Sherman’s reach, and putting in the field under Hardee an army gathered from Charleston, Savannah, and other areas. Davis agreed, and told Brigadier General William M. Browne “that every effort will be made, by destroying bridges, felling trees, planting subterra shells [land mines], and otherwise, to obstruct the advance of the enemy. All supplies which are likely to fall into the enemy’s hands will be destroyed.” He also wanted Forrest’s cavalry sent to impede Sherman’s foraging, if it wasn’t too late.28
By November 19, Hardee had reports from prisoners that Sherman was indeed heading for Savannah, but via Augusta, where Hardee began gathering what forces he could. Davis ordered all industrial machinery removed from the city, though he preferred the “repulse of the enemy” to evacuation. Beauregard, writing from West Point, Mississippi, believed that “positions should be defended only so long as not to risk safety of troops and materials required for active operations in the field. Meanwhile remove to safe locality all Government property on line of enemy’s march, and consume or destroy all supplies within his reach.” Davis dispatched Bragg to Augusta and ordered him to coordinate with Hardee in Savannah.29
By the twenty-fourth, Beauregard concluded that Sherman was moving to the Atlantic coast to reinforce Grant, and he pushed Hood to “take offensive and crush enemy’s force in Middle Tennessee soon as practicable, to relieve Lee.” Beauregard insisted that enough troops could be gathered in Georgia to destroy Sherman’s army, which he estimated at about 40,000. Beauregard said Hood’s offensive was the best use of that general’s troops under the circumstances and that the defeat of Thomas’s army in Tennessee by Hood “would compel Sherman, should he reach the coast of Georgia or South Carolina, to repair at once to the defence of Kentucky and perhaps Ohio, and thus prevent him from reinforcing Grant.”30
Grant thought otherwise. “The blindness of the enemy, however, in ignoring his [Sherman’s] movement, and sending Hood’s army, the only considerable force he had west of Richmond and east of the Mississippi River, northward on an offensive campaign, left the whole country open and Sherman’s route to his own choice.”31 In other words, the Confederates had completely surrendered the initiative to the Union.
On December 2, Beauregard wrote to Kirby Smith, the commander of the Trans-Mississippi, asking him to move in order to provide support for Hood’s Tennessee offensive. He requested that Smith either send Hood two divisions or “threaten” Missouri in order to prevent Union troops that were reported going from there to Thomas from leaving. “I beg to urge upon you prompt and decisive action,” Beauregard wrote. “The fate of the country may depend upon the result of Hood’s campaign in Tennessee.” Beauregard feared that success on Sherman’s part might force Lee to abandon Richmond, and he thought that triumph by Hood in Tennessee or Kentucky would offset the loss of the Confederate capital. To help Hood’s chances Beauregard wanted Smith to mount a diversion or reinforce Hood. A few days later, Seddon sent Smith similar instructions.32
This was desperation. The Confederate high command had a terrible time communicating with the Trans-Mississippi. In late December 1864, Davis was responding to letters Kirby Smith had sent in August.33 Expecting any prompt, coordinated action from here was ludicrous.
Even worse for the Confederate cause were the results of Hood’s misadventure. He had only half destroyed the Army of Tennessee around Atlanta. He impaled its weakened remains on the Union forces at Franklin, Tennessee, then advanced to Nashville, only to be overwhelmed by a Union counterattack on December 15. The 18,000 weary survivors of a once-mighty Confederate force withdrew into Mississippi. Lincoln, his ever watchful eye on military events, wired Major General George Thomas, of Chickamauga fame: “You made a magnificent beginning. A grand consummation is within your easy reach. Do not let it slip.” Grant agreed. “Push the enemy now,” he told Thomas, “and give him no rest until he is entirely destroyed.”34
By December 9, Beauregard had begun losing hope that the South could keep Savannah. He determined that preserving Confederate forces was more important than holding cities and told Hardee to abandon Savannah if keeping it meant the destruction of his troops, a move Richmond backed. Beauregard simply lacked the men to stop Sherman.35 Preserving the army was the best response available to the Confederates. Without it, they had no options at all. Even with it, they still had very few.
To help prevent the fall of Savannah, Davis asked Lee to detach men from his army. Lee balked, but agreed to send them if the government ordered it. Lee’s insistence that he could not spare any men proved that Grant’s strategy was working: Lee’s forces were pinned by Grant, allowing Sherman freedom of movement. The Confederates’ order to evacuate Savannah went out on December 19; the withdrawal began the next day.36
The truth was that the war was ending for the South, and its leadership had been reduced to grasping for straws. Hood had finished destroying most of his army at Nashville a few days before. Sherman could not be stopped from tearing the guts out of South Carolina. Moreover, Sherman’s success devastated public support for the war in Georgia. One observer speculated in January 1865 that “if the railroad communication with Richmond is once effectually broken it will be difficult to rally this state.”37
LEE’S FORCES FARED BETTER than Georgia, but not much. On August 19, Union troops permanently destroyed a section of the Weldon Railroad at Globe Tavern. Confederate attacks proved unable to retrieve the position. The South now controlled only one railroad into Richmond, the Danville line. Lee concluded that Grant intended to drive the Confederates from their positions by cutting their supplies, and he pressed for the stockpiling of corn and the utmost effort in protecting this route.38
Secretary of War Seddon promised that all would be done to protect the railroad, but warned Lee that the Confederates faced a dire logistical situation. There were sufficient supplies in the South of oats and wheat, but deliveries were being delayed by raids. Moreover, supplies were strained by the fact that the South had to feed both Lee’s and Hood’s army from sources in the same region. Seddon warned him to not expect corn before the next crop came in, and that this crop was expected to be bad.39 The Union strategy of exhaustion was taking its toll.
Lee’s manpower situation was even worse. “Unless some measures can be devised to replace our losses,” he told Seddon, “the consequences may be disastrous.” He tried to make it clear that if the government could not fill his rapidly thinning ranks, the war was lost. Lee could do little more than rush men from spot to spot to plug holes, which was wearing them down. Lee wanted every man possible brought into the ranks and told Davis it was time to replace white military noncombatants with slaves.40
In October, Grant began pushing his units westward, south of Petersburg, forcing Lee to further thin his lines to meet the Union move. As winter descended, the armies dug in. They skirmished some, but mostly fought the weather. The Confederates also battled hunger. Grant waited for spring.41
Meanwhile, the Shenandoah Valley—so often the scene of stunning Confederate success—became a place of Confederate disaster. In early August, after returning from his Richmond raid and in the wake of the Hunter debacle, Grant named Phil Sheridan commander of the Middle Military Division, which encompassed the Shenandoah. Grant wanted continuous pressure on the Rebels and the destruction of their supplies. “Give the enemy no rest,” he ordered Sheridan on August 26. “Do all the damage to railroads and crops you can. Carry off stock of all descriptions, and negroes, so as to prevent further planting. If the war is to last another year, we want the Shenandoah Valley to remain a barren waste.” Sheridan went to work. Moreover, with Grant’s approval, he attacked and defeated Early’s forces at Winchester on September 19. He defeated Early again at Fisher’s Hill three days later, breaking the Confederate forces in the area. Sheridan suggested he withdraw back to Winchester, tearing up everything as he went, and send reinforcements to Grant, who promptly agreed.42
Famously, Sheridan wrote of his exploits that “the whole country from the Blue Ridge to the North Mountains has been made untenable for a rebel army.” He cataloged the devastation: “I have destroyed over 2,000 barns, filled with wheat, hay, and farming implements; over 70 mills, filled with flour and wheat; have driven in front of the army over 4[,000] head of stock, and have killed and issued to the troops not less than 3,000 sheep… . The people here are getting sick of the war.”43
On October 19, reinforced by Lee, Early launched a surprise attack on Sheridan’s forces at Cedar Creek, about 150 miles to the west of Richmond. Early planned his attack well, and by skillfully deploying his men he was able to bring the bulk of his force against one of Sheridan’s flanks. The Confederates initially scored a stunning success, sending the Federals reeling, but Early thought the Union would abandon the field, and so he failed to press his advantage. Sheridan, who had not been present when the fight began, returned at around ten-thirty. He counterattacked late in the afternoon, driving away Early’s army.44
Early’s 18,000 Confederates had come within a hairsbreadth of defeating 30,000 Federals, but the tactical and operational defensive would have been a better choice for the Confederates in the Valley. After this the military forces of both sides began leaving the desolated Shenandoah.45
Sheridan’s valley operation presents in microcosm the application of the Union’s strategy of exhaustion. Sheridan not only attacked Confederate armies but damaged their logistical base, destroyed their communications lines, and hammered civilian morale. Sheridan’s campaign, like Sherman’s, damaged the Confederacy’s will and resources.46
HEN SHERMAN’S “BUMMERS” (as his men came to be called during their march to the sea) fetched up on the Georgia coast, they found Union ships waiting.47 One had a note from Grant telling Sherman to bring his army north by ship and help finish Lee. Sherman had a few minor details to tie up first, such as taking Savannah. But this went quickly enough. He made the city a Christmas present to Lincoln. The president thanked and congratulated him, then added: “But what next? I suppose it will be safer if I leave Gen. Grant and yourself to decide.”48
Even before Savannah fell, Grant had changed his mind about shipping Sherman’s army north. The fact that all the demands upon sea transport would have meant a two-month delay played a large part in this. He told Sherman to suggest another course. “I do sincerely believe that the whole United States, North and South,” Sherman replied, “would rejoice to have this army turned loose on South Carolina to devastate that State, in the manner we have done in Georgia, and it would have a direct and immediate bearing on your campaign in Virginia.” Grant told him to go. “Break up the railroads in South and North Carolina,” he added, “and join the armies operating against Richmond as soon as you can.”49
Sherman made his preparation to begin the second stage of his grand march. His men looked forward to it. He told Halleck, “The whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate, but feel that she deserves all that seems in store for her.” He also revealed the effect he believed such a move would have. “I attach more importance to these deep incisions into the enemy’s country, because this war differs from European wars in this particular. We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies.” Sherman understood the nature of the war and of the enemy the Union faced. He had reached this conclusion early in the struggle and wrote as early as August 1861 that he thought the Union would have to kill most of the Southern men capable of bearing arms.50
Union Moves—Spring 1865. Adapted from Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, vol. 3 (New York: Random House, 1974), 734.
On December 31, Sherman told Halleck that he intended to invade South Carolina, aiming at Port Royal or its vicinity. “I do not think I can employ better strategy than I have hitherto done,” he said, “namely, make a good ready and then move rapidly to my objective, avoiding a battle at points where I would be encumbered by wounded, but striking boldly and quickly when my objective is reached.” He would “conduct war as though it could only terminate with the destruction of the enemy and the occupation of all his strategic points.” Lincoln, ever vigilant, told Stanton, “It has occurred to me to say that while Gen. Sherman’s ‘get a good ready’ is appreciated, and is not to be overlooked, time, now that the enemy is wavering, is more important than ever before.”51
In January 1865, Grant cemented the plans for what would be the last multipronged offensive of the war. Sherman’s course, as we’ve seen, was laid out. Grant would remain locked with Lee’s army. On January 18 he ordered Major General Edward Canby, in New Orleans, to head into Alabama and attack Mobile, Selma, and Montgomery, destroying any Confederate industry in these cities and busting up the railroads. This would be supported by another cavalry force coming south from Tennessee. In the valley in February, Sheridan would be again set loose, his objective soon becoming Lynchburg and the destruction of its canal and the nearby railroads. Cavalry under George Stoneman would also mount a raid from eastern Tennessee into North Carolina and Virginia. Grant had 600,000 men to do this, and a reserve force of another 300,000. The Confederates had perhaps 160,000 men. Shelby Foote, appropriately, branded this “Grant’s Close-Out Plan.”52
Sherman set off on February 1, 1865. Grant had prepared a number of subsidiary operations. Having lost confidence in Thomas because of his lackluster pursuit of Hood, Grant shipped Schofield’s corps from Thomas’s army in Tennessee to North Carolina. There, supported by naval forces under Porter, Schofield pushed up the Cape Fear River. Grant ordered Thomas to launch a cavalry raid into South Carolina, which was later redirected toward Lynchburg, Virginia.53
To counter Sherman’s coming drive northward, Davis suggested that Beauregard concentrate his troops so as to menace the Union’s path to Charleston, as well as maintain communications with Augusta, which was basically what Lee had suggested. Beauregard considered this unfeasible, believing he lacked the forces. Moreover, this would uncover the seacoast and allow the Union to march on Charleston. He put his forces on three already partially completed lines of defense between the Savannah River and Charleston, hoping to retard or even stop Sherman.54
At the end of December, Beauregard was sent to the Army of Tennessee. The command devolved upon Hardee, who was instructed to hold Charleston if he could, but to save the army if it became a choice between its destruction and the city’s fall. Hardee planned to hold a line along the railroad running from Charleston to the Savannah River. “I am acting strictly on the defensive,” he wrote Davis, “and unless heavily re-enforced must continue to do so.”55
Hardee’s reply demonstrated the core problem the Confederates faced in countering Sherman: a lack of men. The Confederacy struggled to fill the gaps with militia, reserves, and reinforcements from other commands.56 The Confederate armies were simply breaking down, and some of this was due to the collapsing home front as families pled for their absent men to return and save them from chaos and starvation. Davis, in the wake of Atlanta’s fall, made a speaking tour of Georgia and the Carolinas. On September 23, 1864, he told a crowd in Macon that Georgia had few remaining men from eighteen to forty-five to put into the ranks. His audience also heard a stunning revelation: two-thirds of Confederate soldiers were absent, “some sick,” Davis said, “some wounded, but most of them absent without leave.” Davis didn’t exaggerate. Absenteeism, for all reasons, ran to 49 percent in the Army of Tennessee and 60 percent in the Army of Northern Virginia. In another speech Davis said there were a quarter of a million deserters “on the books of the war department.”57
In 1865 the situation was worse. The only significant source of men for the defense of South Carolina was Hood’s defeated army. Before his relief, Beauregard ordered Hood to begin sending elements east. Hood’s army was demoralized and disorganized. This and the dilapidated condition of the rails and roads between Alabama and Augusta led Beauregard to remark that “no re-enforcements can be sent in time to General Hardee from that army.”58
Despite Beauregard’s report, and a subsequent warning that weakening the Army of Tennessee would endanger Mobile, Montgomery, and many other areas of Alabama, Davis ordered the bulk of Hood’s old command east to join Hardee. “Sherman’s campaign has produced bad effect on our people,” Davis wrote. “Success against his future operations is needful to reanimate public confidence.” Beauregard headed to South Carolina. The remnants of the Army of Tennessee followed in dribs and drabs without any clear overall leader, since the command responsibilities had become mixed and confused.59
Confederate efforts at finding more men proved not enough. By January 20, Hardee was warning that he would have to evacuate Charleston unless he was reinforced with 10,000 men. Lee argued for the city’s abandonment if it could not be held. He also hoped that by gathering all of the men in Georgia and South Carolina, the Confederates could slow Sherman enough for Hood’s old command to reach South Carolina.60
On February 2, the major Confederate generals commanding opposite Sherman, Beauregard, Hardee, D. H. Hill, and G. W. Smith, met at Green’s Cut Station, Georgia. They thought that by the tenth or eleventh they could assemble 33,450 men to oppose what they believed was Sherman’s advance toward Branchville, South Carolina, which occupied a central position nearly equidistant from Augusta, Charleston, and Columbia. Moreover, “during the pending negotiations for peace,” meaning the talks then ongoing at Hampton Roads, “it was thought of the highest importance to hold Charleston and Augusta, as long as it was humanly possible.” The dominant elements of their plan were to hold the line of the Combahee River as long as they could. If the enemy penetrated this, Hardee’s forces would fall back on Charleston, fighting all the way, while Wheeler would split his cavalry and block movement to Columbia and Augusta. If the enemy pressed on to Charleston, Hardee would fall back to Columbia, combining his forces with those under Beauregard, who was to take up the Congaree River line southeast of Columbia.61
Beauregard explained everything to Davis. “The view presented is more discouraging than I had anticipated,” Davis replied. The number of troops was lower than the Confederate president had expected. He put Beauregard back in command and told him to ask Governors Brown of Georgia and McGrath of South Carolina for more men. “You will realize the necessity for the rapid concentration of your forces,” he told Beauregard, “and, if possible, the defeat of the enemy at some point south and east of Branchville and Augusta. To give time for such concentration and for the arrival of re-enforcements, every available means must be employed to delay the advance of the enemy, and, by operating on his lines of communication, to interfere with his supplies.”62
But Davis’s order to attack Sherman’s lines of supply and communication was moot when given, and Beauregard knew it. The generals’ conference of February 2 had clearly revealed this, as well as the advantages of what Sherman was doing: “The enemy moving with a certain number of days’ rations for all his troops, with the hope of establishing a new base at Charleston after its fall, has in reality no lines of communication which can be threatened or cut. His overpowering force enables him to move into the interior of the country like an ordinary movable column.” Beauregard made this clear to Davis.63
Upon taking up yet another new command, Beauregard outlined for Davis the problems he faced. “Our forces, about 20,000 effective infantry and artillery, more or less demoralized, occupy a circumference of about 240 miles from Charleston to Augusta. The enemy, well organized and disciplined, and flushed with success, numbering nearly double our force, is concentrated upon one point (Columbia) of that circumference. Unless I can concentrate rapidly here, or in my rear, all available troops, the result cannot be long doubtful.” On February 14, Beauregard ordered the evacuation of Charleston in an effort to concentrate troops in the field. The Confederates began leaving two days later.64
All of this was for nothing. By February 15, Sherman’s army was 20 miles from the South Carolina capital. Two days later, they began destroying manufacturing facilities, government buildings, and railroads in Columbia. Then they moved on, leaving the city in flames.65
In late February, insanity seemed to strike Beauregard. He proposed a plan that called for concentrating an army of “at least 35,000” against Sherman to defeat him and then Grant. Afterward, the army would “march on Washington to dictate a peace.” Meanwhile, fearing Beauregard might place his army in a position where it would be captured, Davis sent Chief of Engineers Jeremy F. Gilmer, a friend of Beauregard’s since their West Point days, to check on the general. Later Davis said he had given Gilmer oral instructions and a confidential note (now lost) to relieve Beauregard if the general did not withdraw toward Charlotte as told. Gilmer did not recall that Davis told him to take Beauregard’s command in the event of disobedience, but this didn’t matter; Beauregard did as ordered.66
Beauregard believed Sherman was advancing on Charlotte from Columbia and Alston and would reach Charlotte before Beauregard’s forces could concentrate there. Beauregard then projected that “General Sherman will thence move on Greensborough, Danville, and Petersburg; or, if short of supplies, on Raleigh and Weldon, to form a junction with General Schofield.” Lee did not think that Sherman could cover the route Beauregard projected if Confederate troops acted. “They can, at least, destroy or remove all provisions in his route, which I have again directed General Beauregard to do… . Everything on his route and Schofield’s should be removed.” Lee believed the Confederates wouldn’t be able to meet Sherman in battle before the enemy reached Roanoke, Virginia. And he worried about what was coming, telling Davis that Richmond could not be held unless the “enemy can be beaten.” “I think it prudent that preparations be made at all these points in anticipation of what may be necessary to be done.”67
By this point, Lee commanded the Confederacy’s armed forces. The Confederate Congress had made him commander in chief on February 6, a slap in Davis’s face, but one delivered nearly four years too late to benefit the Confederacy. February also saw a new secretary of war, John C. Breckinridge. When Lee took command of all the armies of the Confederacy, he wrote to Davis, insisting he must ask for the replacement of army commanders who failed or were neglectful. Since the army needed more men, he asked Davis to approve a general pardon for deserters returning within thirty days and that it be made public that this was the last such amnesty. Those who already had been pardoned for this crime, as well as those who had entered Union service, would not be eligible. Lee wanted it issued in his name instead of Davis’s because the last such pardon (these had been many and frequent) had been in Davis’s name, and Lee feared that repeating this would convince people that yet another one was in the wind.68
Lee’s army had survived a desperate winter, but the New Year found them in horrendous straits. By the end of January, desertion plagued his force. Lee judged poor rations and lack of pay the primary causes. His army’s suffering from insufficient food and forage became a constant refrain for Lee in early 1865. He warned his superiors: “Taking these facts in connection with the paucity of our numbers, you must not be surprised if calamity befalls us.” By early February, Lee had accepted the impossibility of holding his more than 30 miles of defensive works around Richmond and Petersburg and took to destroying his correspondence after acting upon it.69
Lee now directed the war against Sherman as well as Grant. To deal with Sherman he urged concentration of all the forces in the Southern Department and an attack on Sherman to at least “embarrass” him if they could not stop his march. The Rebel generals had been unsuccessfully trying to do this since Sherman left Savannah. Lee told Bragg: “If you cannot arrest progress of enemy, concentrate your troops, hang upon his flanks, cripple and retard him, leaving no supplies in his route. Be bold and judicious.”70
Lee also returned Joseph Johnston to command, placing Beauregard under him. Davis had not bowed to earlier pressure to once again appoint Johnston to an active post and agreed only because Lee wanted it. Johnston complained that Lee had done it too late and should have acted when he first became the commander in chief of the Confederate army, “if at all.” Johnston also apparently at first feared that he had been placed in the position by Davis to serve as a “scapegoat” for the looming Southern defeat. The truth was that Davis was angry about the appointment, which gave Johnston tremendous pleasure.71
Johnston was one of the keys in a desperate fallback plan Lee concocted to stop Sherman. “I know of no one who had so much the confidence of the troops and people as General Johnston,” he wrote Davis, “and believe he has capacity for the command.” He insisted he would do everything he could to strengthen Johnston and, “should he be forced to cross the Roanoke, unite with him in a blow against Sherman before the latter can join General Grant.” This would mean abandoning their position on the James River. Lee told Johnston, “I need not say that the first thing to be done is to concentrate all our forces and bring out every available man.” Lee also pointed out to Johnston the danger of not stopping Sherman. If they couldn’t halt him before he reached Greensboro or Danville, Lee’s army would have to move.72
When he put Johnston in command, Lee ordered the immediate concentration of Confederate forces to drive back Sherman. “It is too late to expect me to concentrate troops capable of driving back Sherman,” Johnston replied.73 This was his habitual response, but this time he was right. It was indeed too late.
Three days later, Johnston described the impossibility of carrying out Lee’s order to concentrate in the face of overwhelming Union superiority. He thought that if the approximately 25,000 forces he could gather united with Bragg around Fayetteville, North Carolina, they might stand a chance against Sherman. What followed was a convoluted and ultimately hopeless effort to combine the forces of Bragg, Hardee, Beauregard, and others under Johnston’s command. He also suggested to Lee to divide his army, with half protecting Richmond and the other half joining with him to “crush Sherman.” “We might then turn upon Grant.”74
After taking Columbia, Sherman set out for Goldsborough, North Carolina. His objective did not become clear to the Confederates until mid-March, but this did not prevent them from trying to stop him in, as James McPherson put it, “the forlorn-hope style that had become Southern strategy.” Johnston tried to pull together his scattered command in the hopes of checking Sherman; Lee believed “the effect would be of the greatest value.”75
As Sherman’s goal remained elusive, the mystery multiplied the effects of his move. Lee worried that Sherman aimed at Raleigh, which would cut the railroads and result in starvation for both Confederate armies. He urged Johnston to attack Sherman if he had a chance of success. But the Confederates also worried that Sherman was headed for Goldsborough, and sought to protect it. Johnston balked at facing Sherman’s entire force in battle, believing himself outnumbered and outclassed—unless Lee’s situation forced him. He was right on both points, far more than he realized. He believed Sherman had about 45,000 men, but the Union general had around 60,000 plus cavalry, as well as 30,000 more under Schofield marching from Wilmington.76
Johnston’s plan, Lee informed Davis, was “to avoid a general engagement and endeavor to strike the enemy in detail.” “The greatest calamity that could befall us,” he continued, “is the destruction of our armies. If they can be maintained, we may recover from our reverses; but if lost we have no resource.”77 Lee was trying to maintain the Confederacy’s center of gravity, its army; as long as he did so, the war would go on.
Hardee fought a part of Sherman’s force near Averasboro, north of Fayetteville, on March 15, and then withdrew. The Confederates learned from this that Sherman’s army was divided into two wings. Johnston concentrated his forces at Bentonville on March 19 and attacked the left. In the beginning, things went well for the Confederates. But the attack stalled. Sherman brought up more men and counterattacked on the twenty-first. The Confederates began to withdraw, and Sherman let them, seeing no need to waste the lives of his men fighting Johnston when he aimed at bigger things—helping Grant crush Lee’s army.78
In the wake of Bentonville, Johnston cabled Lee: “Evening and night of 21st enemy moved toward Goldsborough, where Schofield joined him, and yesterday we came here. Sherman’s course cannot be hindered by the small force I have. I can do no more than annoy him. I respectfully suggest that it is no longer a question whether you leave present position; you have only to decide where to meet Sherman. I will be near him.” Lee asked him for the location he thought best to fight Sherman. Johnston suggested “this side” of the Roanoke River.79
By March 1865, Union forces were moving against the remaining vital points of the South. Sheridan’s cavalry had advanced down the Shenandoah to White House; an army under Canby advanced on Mobile; and two raids dug into Alabama, while another struck via east Tennessee at Lynchburg. In the West, Grant had an army under Pope preparing to move against the Trans-Mississippi. Sherman’s army continued happily tearing the guts out of South Carolina, while Grant’s troops stared across the trench lines at Lee’s pinned forces. Grant wrote later that “at this time the greatest source of uneasiness for me was the fear that the enemy would leave his strong lines about Petersburg and Richmond for the purpose of uniting with Johnston, before he was driven from them by battle or I was prepared to make an effectual pursuit.”80 He resolved to keep this from happening.