Chapter 11:
Did General Sherman originate the idea of the March to the Sea? This is a question which he makes very prominent in his Memoirs, and answers at length and most decidedly in the affirmative. But here, as in other instances which have been brought to the attention of the public, the distinguished author and historian ignores some important portions of the official records which others may find interesting.
The following is the version of the origin of this movement given in Volume II of the Memoirs:
‘I have often been asked by well-meaning friends, when the thought of that march first entered my mind. I knew that an army which had penetrated Georgia as far as Atlanta could not turn back. It must go ahead; but when, how, and where, depended on many considerations. As soon as Hood had shifted across from Lovejoy's to Palmetto I saw the move in my ‘mind's eye;’ and, after Jeff. Davis' speech at Palmetto, of September 26, I was more positive in my conviction, but was in doubt as to the time and manner. When General Hood first struck our railroad above Marietta we were not ready, and I was forced to watch his movements further till he had ‘caromed off’ to the west of Decatur. Then I was perfectly convinced, and had no longer a shadow of doubt. The only possible question was as to Thomas' strength and ability to meet Hood in the open field.’—Page 166.
Hood shifted to Palmetto September 21st; Davis' speech was on the 26th of September, and Hood moved to the west of Decatur October 26th; so that Sherman's account fixes the following points for himself:
The move was in his ‘mind's eye,’ September 21, 1864.
He was in doubt as to time and manner after September 26. [129]
He had no doubt about the move October 26.
The points of the narrative, in the chapter devoted to the question of planning the March to the Sea, are these:
Hood having moved upon Sherman's railroad communications, General Thomas returned to Chattanooga with a considerable force, and on the 29th of September Sherman telegraphed the condition of affairs to Halleck, saying, among other things, ‘I prefer for the future to make the movement on Milledgeville, Millen, and Savannah.’
On that day (October 1) he telegraphed Grant:.
* * * * ‘Why will it not do to leave Tennessee to the forces which Thomas has, and the reserves soon to come to Nashville, and for me to destroy Atlanta and march across Georgia to Savannah or Charleston, breaking railroads and doing irreparable damage? We can not remain on the defensive.’
On the 9th (October) he telegraphed General Thomas at Nashville:
‘I want to destroy all the road below Chattanooga, including Atlanta, and to make for the sea-coast. We can not defend this long line of road.’
On that same day he telegraphed to General Grant at City Point:
‘It will be a physical impossibility to protect the roads, now that Hood, Forrest, Wheeler, and the whole batch of devils are turned loose without home or habitation. * * * * I propose that we break up the rail-road from Chattanooga forward, and that we strike out with our wagons for Milledgeville, Millen, and Savannah. * * * * I can make this march, and make Georgia howl!’
October 10th he telegraphed Thomas as follows:
‘He (Hood) is now crossing the Coosa River below Rome, looking west. Let me know if you can hold him with your forces now in Tennessee and the expected reenforcements, as, in that event, you know what I propose to do.’
And on the same day to General Grant:
Hood is now crossing the Coosa twelve miles below Rome, bound west. [130] If he passes over to the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, had I better not execute the plan of my letter sent you by Colonel Porter, and leave General Thomas with the troops now in Tennessee to defend the State? He will have an ample force when the reenforcements ordered reach Nashville. * * * *From General Corse, at Rome, I learned that Hood's army had disappeared, but in what direction he was still in doubt; and I was so strongly convinced of the wisdom of my proposition to change the whole tactics of the campaign, to leave Hood to General Thomas, and to march across Georgia to Savannah or Charleston, that I again telegraphed to General Grant:
I received no answer to this at the time. * * * *
It was at Ship's Gap that a courier brought me the cipher message from General Halleck which intimated that the authorities in Washington were willing I should undertake the march across Georgia to the sea. The translated dispatch named “Horse-i-bar sound” as the point where the fleet would await my arrival. After much time I construed it to mean “Ossabaw sound,” below Savannah, which was correct. [General Sherman gives none of the dispatches which passed in regard to the matter.]
On the 16th I telegraphed General Thomas at Nashville:
Send me Morgan's and Newton's old divisions. Reestablish the road, and I will follow Hood wherever he may go. * * * *
General Thomas' reply was (October 17):
* * * * Mower and Wilson have arrived and are on their way to join you. I hope you will adopt Grant's idea of turning Wilson loose, rather than undertake the plan of a march with the whole force through Georgia to the sea, inasmuch as General Grant can not cooperate with you as at first arranged.
So it is clear that at that date neither General Grant nor General Thomas heartily favored my proposed plan of campaign. * * * *
On the 26th of October I learned that Hood's whole army had made its appearance about Decatur, Alabama, and at once caused a strong reconnoissance to be made down the Coosa to near Gadsden, which revealed the truth that the enemy was gone, except a small force of cavalry, commanded by [131] General Wheeler, which had been left to watch us. I then finally resolved on my future course, which was to leave Hood to be encountered by General Thomas, while I should carry into full effect the long-contemplated project of marching for the sea-coast, and thence to operate toward Richmond. But it was all-important to me and to our cause that General Thomas should have an ample force, equal to any and every emergency.
He then had at Nashville about eight or ten thousand new troops, and as many more civil employes of the quartermaster's department, which were not suited for the field, but would be most useful in manning the excellent forts that already covered Nashville. At Chattanooga he had General Steedman's division, about five thousand men, besides garrisons for Chattanooga, Bridgeport, and Stevenson; at Murfreesboro he also had General Rousseau's division, which was full five thousand strong, independent of the necessary garrisons for the railroad. At Decatur and Huntsville, Alabama, was the infantry division of General R. S. Granger, estimated at four thousand, and near Florence, Alabama, watching the crossings of the Tennessee, were General Edward Hatch's division of cavalry, four thousand; General Croxton's brigade, twenty five hundred, and Colonel Capron's brigade, twelve hundred. Besides which General J. H. Wilson had collected in Nashville about ten thousand dismounted cavalry, for which he was rapidly collecting the necessary horses for a remount. All these aggregated about forty-five thousand men.
General A. J. Smith at that time was in Missouri with the two divisions of the Sixteenth Corps which had been diverted to that quarter to assist General Rosecrans in driving the rebel General Price out of Missouri. This object had been accomplished, and these troops, numbering from eight to ten thousand, had been ordered to Nashville. To these I proposed at first to add only the Fourth Corps (General Stanley), fifteen thousand, and that corps was ordered from Gaylesville to march to Chattanooga and thence to report for orders to General Thomas; but subsequently, on the 30th of October, at Rome, Georgia, learning from General Thomas that the new troops promised by General Grant were coming forward very slowly, I concluded to further reinforce him by General Schofield's corps (Twenty-third), twelve thousand, which corps accordingly marched for Resaca, and there took the cars for Chattanooga. I then knew that General Thomas would have an ample force with which to encounter General Hood any where in the open field, besides garrisons to secure the railroad to his rear, and as far forward as Chattanooga. * * * *
On the 1st of November I telegraphed very fully to General Grant [General Sherman does not give this dispatch], and on the 2d of November received (at Rome) this dispatch:
My answer is dated:
From that place, on the same day (November 2), [I] again telegraphed to General Grant:
If I turn back the whole effect of my campaign will be lost. By my movements I have thrown Beauregard (Hood) well to the west, and Thomas will have ample time and sufficient troops to hold him until the reenforcements from Missouri reach him. We have now ample supplies at Chattanooga and Atlanta, and can stand a month's interruption to our communications. I do not believe the Confederate army can reach our railroad lines, except by cavalry raids, and Wilson will have cavalry enough to checkmate them. I am clearly of opinion that the best results will follow my contemplated movement through Georgia.That same day I received, in answer to the Rome dispatch, the following:
This was the first time that General Grant assented to the March to the Sea, and, although many of his warm friends and admirers insist that he was the author and projector of that march, and that I simply executed his plans, General Grant has never, in my opinion, thought so or said so. The truth is fully given in an original letter of President Lincoln, which I received at Savannah, Georgia, and have at this instant before me, every word of which is in his own familiar handwriting. It is dated:
Following this, in General Sherman's narrative, is the extract from page 167, given in the opening of this letter. A few brief extracts will close the account:
On the 6th of November, at Kingston, I wrote and telegraphed to General Grant [General Sherman does not give these papers] reviewing the whole situation, gave him my full plan of action, stated that I was ready to march as soon as the election was over, and appointed November 10th as the day for starting. On the 8th I received this dispatch:
‘On the 10th of November the movement may be said to have fairly begun.’
The above is a full and fair summary of the account in the Memoirs of the discussion attending Sherman's starting for [134] Savannah. It is in brief an extended argument to show that General Sherman planned the March to the Sea, and that General Grant and the authorities at Washington opposed his plan for several weeks, but finally gave a reluctant consent to its execution. This view has been impressed upon the country ever since the close of the war.
It is doubtful whether a more skillful misuse of official records has ever before been made to uphold an erroneous history of a military movement, and this will now be made to appear.
The question under discussion between the parties named was not whether General Sherman should make a campaign to the sea, but whether he should begin it by abandoning Atlanta and the line of the railroad, and especially before he destroyed Hood's army. A campaign to the sea to cut the Confederacy in two, was decided upon by General Grant during the previous January, when he was in command at Nashville, and eight months before the time when General Sherman claims to have had such a move in his ‘mind's eye.’ General Thomas, General Halleck, and General Sherman were each notified at that time of this plan of General Grant.
The first idea of the latter, as expressed in January, 1864, was to march through to Mobile, holding Atlanta and Montgomery as intermediate points, but the Union forces having occupied Mobile Bay on the 23d of August, just before the capture of Atlanta, General Grant, immediately after the fall of the latter place, telegraphed General Sherman that, as our forces had now secured the control of Mobile, he thought Sherman had better move on Augusta as soon as his men were rested, while Canby acted on Savannah. The following letters and telegrams are sufficiently explicit upon these points:
Afterward, when General Grant was made Lieutenant-General and ordered East, turning over his command at Nashville to General Sherman, he sent the latter a copy of the above letter for his guidance.
Four days after thus unfolding his plan for the Atanta and Gulf campaign to General Halleck, and while General Sherman was on the Mississippi preparing his Meridian campaign, General Thomas, who was then in command at Chattanooga, was made acquainted with General Grant's design by the following letter:
By the last of February, General Sherman having been meantime in the depths of his raid to Meridian, the preparations for the campaign thus marked out by General Grant had progressed so far that General Thomas was sending in estimates of the number of troops needed to guard the roads and bridges from Nashville south, both by way of Decatur and of Stevenson, on to Chattanooga, and south to [137] Atlanta. This appears clearly enough from the following telegram:
General Grant having been made Lieutenant General, and ordered to Washington, summoned General Sherman, who had returned from Meridian, to Nashville, which latter point he reached on the 17th of March, 1864. On that day he was assigned to the command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, and immediately afterward left with General Grant, accompanying the latter, then on his way to Washington, as far as the Burnet House, in Cincinnati, where about the 20th of March, a further consultation was held in regard to the forthcoming campaign.
Immediately upon arriving at his headquarters in the East, General Grant notified Halleck of the orders he had given Banks for a move on Mobile, to cooperate with Sherman, as is indicated in the following extract:
The letter to General Banks thus referred to, coupled with further instructions to the same end, was published at length in General Grant's final report dated July 22, 1865:
In addition to sending General Sherman a copy of the letter to Halleck, dated Nashville, January 15th, General Grant, a few days after sending the above letter to General Banks, again wrote the outlines of his plans to General Sherman, as will be seen by the letters which follow:
General Grant had assumed command of all the armies on the 17th of March, and before the month closed matured his general plans for the Spring campaign and sent to all army commanders a map, which he thus describes in his final report of operations:
‘The accompanying map, a copy of which was sent to General Sherman and other comanders in March, 1864, shows by red lines the territory occupied by us at the beginning of the rebellion and at the opening of the [141] campaign of 1864, while those in blue are the lines which it was proposed to occupy.’
General Sherman thus acknowledges its receipt:
In reply to further letters from General Grant, setting forth his plans, Sherman wrote:
Under date of Nashville, April 16th, 1864, General Sherman wrote General McPherson as follows:
‘I take it for granted that, unless Banks gets out of Red River and attacks Mobile (which is a material part of General Grant's plan), we will have to fight Polk's army as well as Johnston's.’
Mobile Bay having been captured a few weeks before the fall of Atlanta, General Grant, a few days after General Sherman had occupied the latter place, suggested the following modification of his plan:
To the above suggestion Sherman replied that it would risk his whole army to move as suggested by Grant, unless the latter could capture the Savannah River up to Augusta, or the Chattahoochee up to Columbus. The following is this reply, dated September 10, 8 P. M.:
In reply to this telegram holding that there would be great risk in moving far beyond Atlanta, Grant wrote at length, under date of September 12th, stating his own plans for movements East, and telling Sherman that he plainly saw the difficulties in supplying his army, except when it should be constantly moving beyond. The following extract is sufficient to show its bearing upon the question now under discussion:
‘What you are to do with the forces at your command, I do not exactly see. The difficulties of supplying your army, except when they are constantly [144] moving beyond where you are, I plainly see. If it had not been for Price's movement, Canby could have sent twelve thousand more men to Mobile. From your command on the Mississippi an equal number could have been taken. With these forces, my idea would have been to divide them, sending one-half to Mobile and the other half to Savannah. You could then move as proposed in your telegram, so as to threaten Macon and Augusta equally, Whichever one should be abandoned by the enemy you could take and open up a new base of supplies.’ * * * *
General Sherman's letter, in reply to the above, was dated September 20th, and contains these extracts:
Now that Mobile is shut out to the commerce of our enemy, it calls for no further effort on our part, unless the capture of the city can be followed by the occupation of the Alabama River and the railroad to Columbus, Georgia, when that place would be a magnificent auxiliary to my further progress into Georgia. * * * *If successful, I suppose that Fort Caswell will be occupied, and the fleet at once sent to the Savannah River. Then the reduction of that city is the next question. It once in our possession, and the river open to us, I would not hesitate to cross the State of Georgia with sixty thousand men, hauling some stores and depending on the country for the balance. Where a million of people find subsistence, my army won't starve. * * * *
I will, therefore, give it as my opinion that your army and Canby's should be reenforced to the maximum; that, after you get Wilmington, you should strike for Savannah and its river; that General Canby should hold the Mississippi River, and send a force to take Columbus, Georgia, either by way of the Alabama or Appalachicola River; that I should keep Hood employed, and put my army in fine order for a march on Augusta, Columbia, and Charleston, and start as soon as Wilmington is sealed to commerce, and the city of Savannah is in our possession. * * * *
‘If you will secure Wilmington and the city of Savannah from your center, and let General Canby have command over the Mississippi River and the country west of it, I will send a force to the Alabama and Appalachicola, provided you give me one hundred thousand of the drafted men to fill up my old regiments; and if you will fix a day to be in Savannah I will insure our possession of Macon and a point on the river below Augusta.’ * * *
This last is sufficiently explicit as to the conditions upon which General Sherman was willing to undertake a march to the sea.
On the 4th of October, while the subject of Sherman's further movement from Atlanta was under consideration, and [145] three weeks before the time he now claims in his Memoirs that he had fully made up his mind in regard to the march to Savannah, General Grant wrote the following letter to General Halleck, both in regard to the nature of the original plan and the modifications suggested by the success in Mobile Bay:
That General Sherman had heard nothing of the plan for the Spring campaign up to the time of his arrival in [146] Nashville, about the 17th of March, 1864, is quite evident from the following extracts from one of his own letters:
These various extracts from the records show conclusively that a campaign from Chattanooga through to the Gulf, originated with General Grant, and that he subsequently modified it on account of the control of Mobile having been secured before Atlanta was captured. It will now be made to appear that the discussion which took place between General Sherman and General Grant was not over the question whether a march to the sea should be made, but whether it should be undertaken before Hood's army was overthrown, this army having passed to General Sherman's rear. As soon as the last move of the enemy had developed itself, and Thomas had been sent back to shoulder the responsibility of taking care of him, General Sherman became strongly possessed with the idea of marching through to the sea without first destroying Hood. He saw no risk in leaving Atlanta, and no longer seemed to think it necessary for Grant to first take Savannah, and Canby to take Columbus. Any route through Georgia, in the absence of Hood, was, as General Sherman expressed it in a telegram to Grant (not given in the Memoirs), ‘all open, with no serious enemy to oppose at present.’
Then the discussion between Sherman and Grant already alluded to began.
Finally, by underestimating Hood's forces, and largely [147] overestimating those proposed to be left with Thomas, Sherman obtained the desired permission, and when Grant had thus been made to believe that Thomas would have ample force to meet Hood in the field and destroy him, and not till then, did he allow Sherman to go.
The overestimates of Thomas' forces, and underestimates (if Hood's were as follows:
November 1st Sherman telegraphed Grant (the dispatch not being given in the Memoirs), that Hood's force was thirty thousand infantry, and from seven to ten thousand cavalry, and that General Thomas would have (according to a summary of General Sherman's figures, as given in detail in this dispatch), from fifty-three to sixty thousand, beside a large force of cavalry—now stated in the Memoirs to have been about ten thousand—thus representing to General Grant that Hood's whole force was only from thirty-seven to forty thousand, while Thomas had from sixty-three to seventy thousand. In the same dispatch he informed Grant that he had retained only fifty thousand men for his March to the Sea, when, as the official returns now printed in his Memoirs (Vol. II, page 172), show, he retained over sixty-two thousand.
No wonder General Grant was finally persuaded to give up that part of his plan which, for its first step, involved the destruction of Hood.
General Sherman, in his book (Vol. II, page 162), as already quoted, now that he deems it necessary for history to vindicate his march away from the very enemy that for five months had so stoutly resisted his combined forces, thus allowing Hood to turn upon the fragments left for General Thomas to gather up, states the forces available to General Thomas for a fight at Nashville at from sixty-five to seventy-one thousand, beside seventeen thousand seven hundred cavalry, or a total force of from eighty-two thousand seven hundred to eighty-eight thousand seven hundred. This appears from a summary of his figures and not in direct terms.
The official returns of the forces actually available for the [148] battle of Nashville, which returns were at General Sherman's service when he prepared the above figures, are as follows: Infantry, forty-one thousand eight hundred and fifteen; cavalry, ten thousand five hundred and ninety-six; artillery, three thousand and sixty-one; total, fifty-five thousand four hundred and seventy-two, or twenty-seven thousand two hundred and twenty-eight less than Sherman's lowest estimate.
A few extracts from General Thomas' report of his campaign will test all the above statements of Sherman:
At this time I found myself confronted by the army which, under General J. E. Johnston, had so skillfully resisted the advance of the whole active army of the Military Division of the Mississippi, from Dalton to the Chattahoochee, reenforced by a well equipped and enthusiastic cavalry command of over twelve thousand (12,000), led by one of the boldest and most successful commanders in the rebel army. My information from all sources confirmed the reported strength of Hood's army to be from forty to forty-five thousand infantry, and from twelve to fifteen thousand cavalry. My effective force, at this time, consisted of the Fourth Corps, about twelve thousand (12,000), under Major-General D. S. Stanley; the Twenty-third Corps, about ten thousand (10,000), under Major-General J. M. Schofield; Hatch's division of cavalry, about four thousand (4,000); Croxton's brigade, twenty-five hundred (2,500), and Capron's brigade, of about twelve hundred (1,200). The balance of my force was distributed along the railroad, and posted at Murfreesboro, Stevenson, Bridgeport, Huntsville, Decatur, and Chattanooga, to keep open our communications, and hold the posts above named, if attacked, until they could be reenforced, as up to this time it was impossible to determine which course Hood would take—advance on Nashville, or turn toward Huntsville. Under the circumstances, it was manifestly best to act on the defensive until sufficiently reenforced to justify taking the offensive. * * * *It was therefore with considerable anxiety that we watched the forces at Florence to discover what course they would pursue with regard to General Sherman's movements, determining thereby whether the troops under my command, numbering less than half those under Hood, were to act on the defensive in Tennessee, or to take the offensive in Alabama. * * * *
The possibility of Hood's forces following General Sherman was now at an end, and I quickly took measures to act on the defensive. Two divisions of infantry, under Major-General A. J. Smith, were reported on their way to join me from Missouri, which, with several one-year regiments then arriving in the Department, and detachments collected from points of minor importance, would swell my command when concentrated to an army nearly as large as that of the enemy. * * * * [149]
My only resource then was to retire slowly toward my reenforcemente, delaying the enemy's progress as much as possible to gain time for reenforcements to arrive and concentrate. * * * * Since the departure of General Sherman about seven thousand (7,000) men belonging to his column had collected at Chattanooga, comprising convalescents returning to their commands and men returning from furlough.
‘These men had been organized into brigades to be made available at such points as they might be needed. My command had also been reenforced by twenty (20) new one-year regiments, most of which, however, were absorbed in replacing old regiments whose term of service had expired.’
The very dispatch which General Sherman quotes as Grant's assent to the march, shows that he gave it upon the ground that Thomas, with the force Sherman said he had left him, could destroy Hood. This telegram was in reply to one of November 1st, given just above, mis-stating Thomas' available force. After saying he had telegraphed Sherman on the same day that Hood's army should be looked upon as the ‘object,’ the dispatch continued:
‘With the force, however, that you have left with General Thomas, he must be able to take care of Hood and destroy him. * * * * I say, then, go on as you propose.’
General Sherman interprets the last clause of this order as if it read: ‘Go on and execute the March to the Sea, which you have originated,’ when, in fact, he should have interpreted it: ‘You propose to march without first destroying Hood. As Thomas can now take care of him, I say go.’
There is an expression in the congratulatory order issued by General Sherman to his army, after reaching Savannah, which can not well be explained in accordance with his theory that he planned the March to the Sea. Speaking of Hood's movement to his rear as an attempt to decoy him out of Georgia, General Sherman in that order wrote:
‘But we were not thus to be led away by him, and preferred to lead and control events ourselves. Generals Thomas and Schofield, commanding the departments to our rear, returned to their posts and prepared to decoy General Hood into their meshes, while we came on to complete the original journey.’ * * * *[150]
When General Sherman wrote of our ‘original journey,’ he may have had in mind a letter he sent General Banks, then in Louisiana, dated Nashville, April 3, 1864. It contained the following paragraph:
‘All is well in this quarter, and I hope by the time you turn against Mobile our forces will again act toward the same end, though from distant points. General Grant, now having lawful control, will doubtless see that all minor objects are disregarded, and that all the armies act on a common plan.’
Two weeks before this he had returned from the Cincinnati conference with General Grant, where the latter communicated to him the plan of the Atlanta campaign and the movement beyond to Mobile, as he had in the previous January made them known to Generals Halleck and Thomas. As will be seen these letters were written about a month before the opening of the Atlanta campaign, and over five months before the date claimed by General Sherman as the earliest time when he had the March to the Sea in his ‘mind's eye.’
There are some singular and important omissions in General Sherman's story. On page 166, after quoting Grant's dispatch of November 2d, given above, he says: ‘This [November 2d] was the first time that General Grant assented to the March to the Sea.’
And yet, on November 1st, as appears in a dispatch to General Grant, given in one of General Sherman's published reports, he said:
‘Hood's cavalry may do a good deal of damage, and I have sent Wilson back with all dismounted cavalry, retaining only about four thousand five hundred. This is the best I can do, and shall therefore, when I get to Atlanta the necessary stores, move south as soon as possible.’
Was he going without the permission which he here says he did not receive until November 2d?
The fact is, however, that, notwithstanding the statement that Grant's dispatch of November 2d was his first assent to the March, he had really given such assent three weeks [151] before, in the following answer to Sherman's telegram of October 11th, heretofore quoted:
In this permission also, the condition of holding Tennessee firmly against Hood is prominent.
The next day General Grant again telegraphed as follows:
General Sherman, on page 154, says he received no answer to his Kingston dispatch ‘at the time.’ The reason is obvious. It was dated 11:30 P. M. of the 11th, and the next day Sherman left for Rome. His telegraphic communications with Kingston and with Washington, however, remained perfect, and it is not likely that a dispatch from the Lieutenant-General, directing the march of an army through to the sea-coast, would be long delayed. If he had never received it in the field, however, he need not now have made the above mistake of three weeks in so important a date, since General Grant's reply of October 11th was printed in full in his final report of the operations of the armies.
On page 157 Sherman says: ‘So it is clear that at that date [October 17] neither General Grant nor General Thomas heartily favored my proposed plan of campaign.’ And yet the day before this he had telegraphed Halleck:
‘I got the dispatch in cipher about providing me a place to come out on salt water, but the cipher is imperfect, and I can not make out whether [152] Savannah or Mobile be preferred; but I also want to know if you are willing that I should destroy Atlanta and the railroad.’
And on this very date (October 17) he had received the following from General Grant:
‘The moment I know you have started south, stores will be shipped to Hilton Head, where there are transports ready to take them to meet you at Savannah. In case you go south I would not propose holding any thing south of Chattanooga, certainly not south of Dalton. Destroy in such case all of military value in Atlanta.’
As early as October 13th, two weeks before General Sherman claims that he finally decided on this march, General Grant had ordered cooperating forces to proceed to the coast below Savannah and move inland against the Gulf Railroad. This appears in the following from Halleck to Grant, dated Washington, October 22d:
‘I had prepared instructions to General Canby to move all available forces in Mobile Bay and elsewhere to Brunswick and up the Savannah and Gulf Railroad, as directed by you on the 13th, but on learning that Sherman's operations were uncertain I withheld the order.’
October 19th Sherman telegraphed Thomas:
* * * * ‘I propose with the Armies of Ohio, Tennessee, and two corps of this, to sally forth and make a hole in Georgia and Alabama that will be hard to mend. I will, probably, about November 1st, break up the railroads and bridges, destroy Atlanta, and make a break for Mobile, Savannah, or Charleston.’ * * * *
Under date of October 19, 1864, General Sherman wrote General Halleck as follows:
I must have alternatives; else, being confined to one route, the enemy might so oppose, that delay and want would trouble me; but, having alternatives, I can take so eccentric a course that no general can guess my objective. Therefore, when you hear I am off, have lookouts at Morris Island, S. C., Ossabaw Sound, Ga., Pensacola and Mobile Bays. I will turn up somewhere, and, believe me, I can take Macon, Milledgeville, Augusta, and Savannah, Ga., and wind up with closing the neckband of Charleston so that they will starve out. [153]‘This movement is not purely military or strategic, but it will illustrate the vulnerability of the South.’
Colonel Bowman, in his ‘Sherman and his Campaigns,’ a work written in the interest of Sherman, commenting upon the above letter, says:
‘General Grant promptly authorized the proposed movement, indicating, however, his preference for Savannah as the objective, and fixing Dalton as the northern limit for the destruction of the railway.’
To this alternative letter Halleck replied, under date of October 31:
‘The alternatives mentioned in your letter of October 19th will be prepared for by boats at Hilton Head and Pensacola, with means of transportation to any point where required.’
Certain correspondence, which passed between General Sherman before Atlanta and General Canby before Mobile, has a forcible bearing upon the questions under consideration. It will be noticed that this correspondence began some weeks before the capture of Atlanta, and related to a move beyond upon Montgomery:
[155]
The last letter written by General Sherman to General Grant before cutting loose from Atlanta, was dated November 6th. It is referred to in the Memoirs, but not quoted. It contains the following significant passages:
‘The only question in my mind is whether I ought not to have dogged him [Hood] far over into Mississippi, * * * * but then I thought that by so doing I would play into his hands by being drawn or decoyed too far away from our original line of advance.’
And again, he argues for a movement on Pensacola and Mobile as follows:
Admitting this reasoning to be good, that such a movement [to the sea] per se be right; still there may be reasons why one route would be better than another. There are three from Atlanta—south-east, south, and south-west—all open, with no serious enemy to oppose at present.
The first would carry me across the only east and west railroad remaining to the Confederacy, which would be destroyed, and thereby the communications between the armies of Lee and Beauregard severed. Incidentally I might destroy the enemy's depots at Macon and Augusta, and reach the sea-shore at Charleston or Savannah, from either of which points I could reenforce our armies in Virginia.
The second and easiest route would be due south, following substantially the valley of Flint River, which is very fertile and well supplied, and fetching up on the navigable waters of the Appalachicola, destroying en route the same railroad, taking up the prisoners of war still at Andersonville, and destroying about four hundred thousand (400,000) bales of cotton near Albany and Fort Gaines.
This, however, would leave the army in a bad position for future movements.
The third, down the Chattahoochee to Opelika and Montgomery, thence to Pensacola or Tensas Bayou, in communication with Fort Morgan.
This latter route would enable me at once to cooperate with General Canby in the reduction of Mobile, and occupation of the line of the Alabama.
‘In my judgment the first would have a material effect upon your campaign in Virginia; the second would be the safest of execution; but the third would more properly fall within the sphere of my own command, and have a direct bearing upon my own enemy, “Beauregard.” If, therefore, I should start before I hear further from you, or before further developments turn my course, you may take it for granted that I have moved via Griffin to Barnesville; that I break up the road between Columbus and Macon good; and then, if I feign on Columbus, will move via Macon and Millen to Savannah; or, [156] if I feign on Macon, you may take it for granted that I have shot off toward Opelika, Montgomery and Mobile Bay or Pensacola.’
The following extracts from the final report of General Grant, dated Washington, July 22, 1865, bear pointedly upon the questions under consideration. In describing the combined movements ordered for the Spring of 1864, he says:
‘General Sherman was instructed to move against Johnston's army, break it up, and to go into the interior of the enemy's country as far as he could, inflicting all the damage he could upon their war resources. If the enemy in his front showed signs of joining Lee, to follow him up to the full extent of his ability, while I would prevent the concentration of Lee upon him, if it was in the power of the Army of the Potomac to do so. More specific instructions were not given, for the reason that I had talked over with him the plans of the campaign, and was satisfied that he understood them and would execute them to the fullest extent possible.’
And again:
It was the original design to hold Atlanta, and by getting through to the coast, with a garrison left on the southern railroads, leading east and west through Georgia, to effectually sever the East from the West.
In other words, cut the would-be Confederacy in two again, as it had been cut once by our gaining possession of the Mississippi River. General Sherman's plan virtually effected this object.
That part of Sherman's plan here referred to, is his proposition to march through Georgia without holding Atlanta.
The above citations from the official records, and chiefly from those in General Sherman's possession, are quite sufficient to show that the correct history of the March to the Sea is not given in the Memoirs.
There was this important difference between Grant's plan and Sherman's: Grant's contemplated a prior destruction of Hood's army. Sherman's was a march away from an enemy. This branch of the subject will be treated at length in a subsequent chapter.
The records thus far produced are sufficient to show that General Grant, while still in command at Nashville, and two [157] months before his promotion as Lieutenant-General, had planned a movement from Chattanooga through to Mobile, and that he then had in mind a cooperation on the part of the Eastern armies. There are records to show, further, that in the preceding November he was contemplating a concert of action between these armies, and his idea was to secure a commander for the Army of the Potomac who would act in full accord with him. He settled upon W. F. Smith as that officer, and thus urged his promotion:
His object in making these recommendations appears from further correspondence.
Early in December he wrote General Halleck expressing the opinion that East Tennessee and his immediate front were safe; that the roads were such that extensive movements in that latitude were impossible for either army, and so a small force could hold his lines while he should move on Mobile, and thus greatly advance the Spring operations. In this letter [158] his intention of including Mobile in his plan of a movement in the Spring from Chattanooga, also appears. Omitting the description of the general situation, it is as follows:
The Assistant Secretary of War having visited General Grant, and talked over the question of this campaign, returned to Washington and reported fully to the authorities.
General Halleck then telegraphed General Grant as follows:
The communication of the Assistant Secretary which presented the matter at greater length, shows that the question of putting General W. F. Smith in command of the Army of the Potomac had been thoroughly discussed, and Grant, the President, the Secretary of War, and General Halleck agreed that it would be better to select Smith than General Sherman:
While all the records show that General Grant planned that Atlanta campaign which was finally executed, and that from its inception, it was in his mind a march to the sea, designed to divide the Confederacy; it is also true that this question of cutting through the territory of the rebels from the West, had been discussed at one or two prominent headquarters in the East, sometime before General Grant, in a different way from any suggested at these discussions, entered practically upon the work. Notes are in existence of a conversation at General McDowell's headquarters, on the day following the battle of Cedar Mountain in August, 1862, upon the policy of severing the Confederacy by an army operating from the West through Atlanta, a movement on Savannah and Charleston from the rear, and a march up the coast. These were General McDowell's ideas, though no definite combinations of troops were suggested for carrying them out.
Early in the following year, General Pope wrote Secretary Stanton presenting a very elaborate plan for an advance from Murfreesboro to Mobile, through Atlanta. It involved the immediate abandonment of Grant's move against Vicksburg, and the transfer of his army to Rosecrans' front, an advance by Burnside through Cumberland Gap, the occupation of Chattanooga with a permanent garrison of sixty thousand men, and a movement thence on Atlanta with a force at least one hundred and fifty thousand strong. At the same time he proposed that forty thousand men from the Eastern army should be thrown into Pensacola, and marched north on [161] Montgomery to meet an equal number to be sent from the one hundred and fifty thousand at Atlanta. The line thus taken was to be permanently held by sixty thousand at Chattanooga, one hundred thousand at Atlanta, sixty thousand at Montgomery, and ten thousand at Mobile and Pensacola. Such a division of the Confederacy, General Pope argued at length, would soon lead to its overthrow. This plan involved the abandonment of the attempt to open the Mississippi. It remained for General Grant, however, to achieve this most important river division of the Confederacy, and then turning eastward to divide it again by the move from Chattanooga. And this division, Sherman, under the direction of Grant, accomplished with his force of one hundred thousand, which furnished both his garrisons and his moving column.
So the records not only show that General Grant planned the March to the Sea which was finally executed, but also, that general plan of operations for the closing year of the war was his conception.
