Part 50 (1/2)

421. Chattanooga, November, 1863.--The Union soldiers at Chattanooga were in great danger. For the Confederates were all about them and they could get no food. But help was at hand. Hooker, with fifteen thousand men from the Army of the Potomac, arrived and opened a road by which food could reach Chattanooga. Then Grant came with Sherman's corps from Vicksburg. He at once sent Sherman to a.s.sail Bragg's right flank and ordered Hooker to attack his left flank. Sherman and his men advanced until he was stopped by a deep ravine. At the other end of the line Hooker fought right up the side of Lookout Mountain, until the battle raged above the clouds. In the center were Thomas's men. Eager to avenge the slaughter of Chickamauga, they carried the first Confederate line of defenses. Then, without orders, they rushed up the hillside over the inner lines. They drove the Southerners from their guns and seized their works. Bragg retreated as well as he could. Longstreet was besieging Knoxville. He escaped through the mountains to Lee's army in Virginia.

CHAPTER 41

THE END OF THE WAR, 1864-1865

[Sidenote: Grant in chief command.]

[Sidenote: Sherman commands in the West.]

422. Grant in Command of all the Armies.--The Vicksburg and Chattanooga campaigns marked out Grant for the chief command. Hitherto the Union forces had acted on no well-thought-out plan. Now Grant was appointed Lieutenant General and placed in command of all the armies of the United States (March, 1864). He decided to carry on the war in Virginia in person. Western operations he intrusted to Sherman, with Thomas in command of the Army of the c.u.mberland. Sheridan came with Grant to Virginia and led the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac. We will first follow Sherman and Thomas and the Western armies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL SHERMAN.]

[Sidenote: Sherman's army.]

[Sidenote: The march to Atlanta.]

[Sidenote: Hood attacks Sherman.]

423. The Atlanta Campaign, 1864.--Sherman had one hundred thousand veterans, led by Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield. Joseph E. Johnston, who succeeded Bragg, had fewer men, but he occupied strongly fortified positions. Yet week by week Sherman forced him back till, after two months of steady fighting, Johnston found himself in the vicinity of Atlanta. This was the most important manufacturing center in the South.

The Confederates must keep Atlanta if they possibly could. Johnston plainly could not stop Sherman. So Hood was appointed in his place, in the expectation that he would fight. Hood fought his best. Again and again he attacked Sherman only to be beaten off with heavy loss. He then abandoned Atlanta to save his army. From May to September Sherman lost twenty-two thousand men, but the Confederates lost thirty-five thousand men and Atlanta too.

[Sidenote: Problems of war.]

[Sidenote: Plan of the March to the Sea.]

424. Plans of Campaign.--Hood now led his army northward to Tennessee. But Sherman, instead of following him, sent only Thomas and Schofield. Sherman knew that the Confederacy was a mere sh.e.l.l. Its heart had been destroyed. What would be the result of a grand march through Georgia to the seacoast, and then northward through the Carolinas to Virginia? Would not this unopposed march show the people of the North, of the South, and of Europe that further resistance was useless? Sherman thought that it would, and that once in Virginia he could help Grant crush Lee. Grant agreed with Sherman and told him to carry out his plans. But first we must see what happened to Thomas and Hood.

[Sidenote: Hood in Tennessee.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Franklin, November, 1864.]

[Sidenote: Thomas destroys Hood's army, December, 1864.]

425. Thomas and Hood, 1864.--Never dreaming that Sherman was not in pursuit, Hood marched rapidly northward until he had crossed the Tennessee. He then spent three weeks in resting his tired soldiers and in gathering supplies. This delay gave Thomas time to draw in recruits.

At last Hood attacked Schofield at Franklin on November 30, 1864.

Schofield retreated to Nashville, where Thomas was with the bulk of his army, and Hood followed. Thomas took all the time he needed to complete his preparations. Grant felt anxious at his delay and ordered him to fight. But Thomas would not fight until he was ready. At length, on December 15, he struck the blow, and in two days of fighting destroyed Hood's whole army. This was the last great battle in the West.

[Sidenote: The March to the Sea, 1864.]

[Sidenote: Fall of Savannah, December, 1864.]

426. Marching through Georgia.--Destroying the mills and factories of Atlanta, Sherman set out for the seash.o.r.e. He had sixty thousand men with him. They were all veterans and marched along as if on a holiday excursion. Spreading out over a line of sixty miles, they gathered everything eatable within reach. Every now and then they would stop and destroy a railroad. This they did by taking up the rails, heating them in the middle on fires of burning sleepers, and then twisting them around the nearest trees. In this way they cut a gap sixty miles long in the railroad communication between the half-starved army of northern Virginia and the storehouses of southern Georgia. On December 10, 1864, Sherman reached the sea. Ten days later he captured Savannah and presented it to the nation as a Christmas gift. Sherman and Thomas between them had struck a fearful blow at the Confederacy. How had it fared with Grant?

[Sidenote: Grant's plan of campaign, 1864.]

[Sidenote: Objections to it.]

427. Grant in Virginia, 1864.--Grant had with him in Virginia the Army of the Potomac under Meade, the Ninth Corps under Burnside, and a great cavalry force under Sheridan. In addition General Butler was on the James River with some thirty thousand men. Lee had under his orders about one-half as many soldiers as had Grant. In every other respect the advantage was on his side. Grant's plan of campaign was to move by his left from the Rappahannock southeastwardly. He expected to push Lee southward and hoped to destroy his army. Butler, on his part, was to move up the James. By this plan Grant could always be near navigable water and could in this way easily supply his army with food and military stores. The great objection to this scheme of invasion was that it gave Lee shorter lines of march to all important points. This fact and their superior knowledge of the country gave the Confederates an advantage which largely made up for their lack in numbers.