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66 CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION [1864

Sherman now began to swing round to the south and southeast of Atlanta, till at last he cut its communications with the Confederacy. Hood evacuated the city and his opponent entered it, September 5th. The northern troops, after their four months' incessant marching and fighting, now got a little well-earned rest. Their total losses from Chattanooga were 32,000. The Confederates had sacrificed about 35,­000--the larger part under Hood.

The last of September Hood struck out boldly for Tennessee, menacing, and, in fact, temporarily rupturing Sherman's long supply-line from Nashville. Leaving one corps to hold Atlanta, Sherman raced back for 100 miles in pursuit. The railroad being well guarded, Hood could do no serious damage, and finally turned west into Alabama. Sherman now resolved on a march to the sea.

1864] THE WAR IN THE CENTRE 67

Thomas, with three corps, was sent to Tennessee to look out for Hood. The 62,000 troops remaining at Atlanta were put into light marching trim, and the wagons filled with 20 days' rations and 200 rounds of ammunition per man. All storehouses and other property useful to the enemy were then destroyed, communications with the North cut, and November 15th a splendid army of hardy veterans swung off for the Atlantic or the Gulf, over 200 miles away. Their orders were to live on the country, the rations being kept for emergencies; but no dwell­ings were to be entered, and no houses or mills destroyed if the army was unmolested. The dwelling-house prescription was, alas, too often broken over. There was little resistance, Georgia having been drained of its able-bodied whites. Negroes flocked, singly and by families, to join "Massa Linkum's boys." The railroads were de­stroyed, and the Carolinas thus cut off from the Gulf States.

68 CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION [1864

Each regiment detailed a certain number of foragers. These, starting off in the morning empty-handed and on foot, would return at night riding or driving beasts laden with spoils. "Here would be a sil­ver-mounted family carriage drawn by a jackass and a cow, loaded inside and out with everything the country produced, vegetable and animal, dead and alive. There would be an ox-cart, similarly loaded, and drawn by a nondescript tan­dem team equally incongruous. Perched upon the top would be a ragged forager, rigged out in a fur hat of a fashion worn by dandies of a century ago, or a dress­-coat which had done service at stylish balls of a former generation. The jibes and jeers, the fun and the practical jokes, ran down the whole line as the cortege came in, and no masquerade in carnival could compare with it for original humor and rollicking enjoyment. … The camps in the open pine-woods, the bon­fires along the railways, the occasional sham battles at night with blazing pine-­knots for weapons whirling in the darkness, all combined to leave upon the minds of officers and men the impression of a vast holiday frolic." [footnote: The March to the Sea, by Major-General J. D. Cox. Campaigns of the Civil War. Scribners.]

1864] THE WAR IN THE CENTRE 69

At the start Sherman was uncertain just where he should strike the coast. The blockade vessels were asked to be on the lookout for him from Mobile to Charleston. By the middle of December the army lay before Savannah. Hardee held the city with 16,000 men, but evacuated it Decem­ber 20, 1864, Sherman entering next day. He wrote to Lincoln, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savan­nah." The capture of Fort McAllister a week before had opened the Ogeechee River, and Sherman now established a new base of supplies on the sea-coast.

The North rang with praises of the Great March, which had pierced like a knife the vitals of the Confederacy. Geor­gia, with her arsenals and factories, had been the Confederacy's workshop. Twenty thousand bales of cotton had been burned upon the march, besides a great amount of military stores. The 320 miles of rail­road destroyed had practically isolated Virginia from the South and the West. And all this had been done with the loss of less than 1,000 men.

70 CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION [1865

Meanwhile Thomas had dealt the Confederacy another staggering blow. The adventurous Hood had advanced with his army of 44,000 to the very gates of Nash­ville. The deliberate Thomas, spite of prickings from Grant, waited till he felt prepared. Then he struck with a Titan's hand. The first day's fight, December 15th, drove the Confederate line back two miles. Hood formed again on hills running east and west, and hastily fortified. All next day the battle raged. Late in the afternoon the works on the Confed­erate left were carried by a gallant charge. Total rout of Hood's brave army followed. It fled south, demoralized and scattered, never to appear again as an organized force. In the two days' battle, 4,500 prisoners and 53 guns were taken.

The Battle-Field of Nashville.