Hood, and CHAP. I. could "defeat Grant, and allow General Lee, in command of our combined armies, to march upon "Advance Washington or turn upon and annihilate Sherman." This fantastic vision seemed as easy as "good morning" to the courageous heart and narrow mind of General Hood. Retreat," p. 268. Report Committee 1865-66. Supplement, Vol. I., p. 232. แ Eager as Sherman was to march southward, and little as he cared for what damage Hood might do in the rear, he was for a long time uncertain what course he should pursue in reference to him. On on Conduct the 17th of October he had said to Thomas that of the war, Hood would not dare to go into Tennessee. If he wants to, "let him go; and then we can all turn on him and he cannot escape"; and on the 26th, after his reconnaissance to Gadsden had revealed the fact that the rebel army had gone, he again said to Thomas, "If it turns up at Guntersville I will be after it; but if it goes, as I believe, to Decatur and beyond, I must leave it to you at present, and push for the heart of Georgia." Even after he was satisfied that Hood had gone towards Decatur, he told Halleck that he would wait a few days to hear what headway Hood was making and that he might yet turn to Tennessee, though it would be a great Halleck, pity to take a step backward. "I think," he adds, Report with his humorous coolness, "it would be better of the War. even to let him ravage the State of Tennessee, provided he does not gobble up too many of our troops." Sherman to Oct. 27. Committee on Conduct Supplement, Part I., p. 242. Hood, "Advance and Retreat," p. 274. Hood's intention, as we have seen, was really to cross at Guntersville, in which case he would have had Sherman upon his heels; but he postponed his ruin a few weeks by passing further west. The reason he gives for this course was his lack of cav alry and his desire to effect a junction with General Forrest before crossing. He did not even attempt to cross at Decatur, or, at least, the movement he made in this direction, which was promptly checked by General Granger, in garrison there, with considerable loss to the Confederates, Hood insists was intended merely as a slight demonstration. Sherman, though he sometimes complains of Hood's baffling eccentricities, seems to have read his mind on many occasions like an open book. He telegraphed on the 28th of October, not knowing of the result at Decatur, that Hood would not assault that place and that Granger did not want too many men. The next day he received information of Hood's feeble demonstration against it, and of Granger's successful sortie, in which he killed and wounded a considerable number of Confederates and captured over a hundred. Granger added his belief that Hood would go to Tuscumbia before crossing; he was evidently out of supplies, as the first thing the prisoners asked for was something to eat. Hood continued on his way west and reached Tuscumbia, on the south bank of the Tennessee, on the 31st of October. General Grant's doubts of the wisdom of Sherman's movement southward, which were so strong on the 1st of November that he recommended him to beat Hood before he started, gave way before Sherman's intense eagerness to be off, and on the 2d, as we have seen, he gave his full consent. From that moment there was no question that one of the gravest responsibilities of the war rested upon the broad shoulders of General Thomas. CHAP. I. Hood to 1864. 1864. CHAP. I. This weighty load was well placed. Sherman said, "General Thomas is well alive to the occasion, and better suited to the emergency than any man I have." He might have gone further and said that no man then alive on the continent was better suited to the work in hand. Grant, it is true, never rated Thomas at his real value; but he acquiesced in Sherman's opinion on this as on almost all other occasions. Sherman's confidence was full and unlimited. He issued an order that "in the event of military movements or the accidents of war separating the general in command from his military division, Major-General George H. Thomas, commanding the Department of the Cumberland, would exercise command over all the troops and garrisons not absolutely in the presence of the General-in-Chief." The Departments of the Ohio and Tennessee were thus placed completely under his command. Thomas had not sought these honors or responsibilities; he accepted them most reluctantly. "I do not wish," he said, "to be in command of the defense of Tennessee unless you and the authorities in Washington deem it absolutely necessary"; but having once accepted the charge he executed it with all that human courage and human wisdom could bring to the task. During the whole month of November the situation was extremely grave. Hood's army had, by the utmost exertion, been recruited up to its full strength. He himself says that desertions had ceased, and he started, at least, with his organization perfect and his subordinate generals entirely in harmony with him, now that Hardee was gone; with three corps of infantry, commanded by Gen 1864. Report of MajorGeneral Thomas, Committee of the War. on Conduct Supplement, Part I., p. 369. erals S. D. Lee, Cheatham, and Stewart, comprising CHAP.I. a force variously estimated at from 40,000 to 45,000; and he was accompanied besides by a formidable body of cavalry, under Forrest, of 10,000 to 12,000. Thomas's force was, on the 1st of November, greatly inferior to that of Hood. A large part of it was dispersed along the garrisoned posts of the southern frontier of Tennessee, and this, of course, could not be displaced. His movable force he estimated at 22,000 infantry, and a little over 4000 cavalry. He received about this time some 12,000 new recruits from the North; but these did not make up his losses by the expiration of terms of service and by the furloughing of soldiers going North. The forces upon which he most relied were the Fourth Corps, under Stanley, and the Twenty-third Corps, under Schofield; and he was promised in addition to these an excellent corps under A. J. Smith, which had been serving temporarily under Rosecrans. At the time of the battle of Nashville, however, Thomas had at hand of all arms, about 55,000. As soon as Thomas learned that Hood had appeared in force on the Tennessee, Schofield and Stanley were ordered to be concentrated at Pulaski; but before this could be accomplished Forrest had made an attack at Johnsonville, one of Thomas's bases of supply on the Tennessee River, and, after a feeble and discreditable resistance on the part of the garrison of the place, had caused the destruction of several transports and a large amount of valuable Government property. Schofield arrived at Nashville on the 5th, when the Nov., 1864. advance of his corps was immediately dispatched to Johnsonville by rail; but on reaching there he СНАР. І. found that Forrest, having done all the damage possible, had retreated. Schofield left the place sufficiently garrisoned, and with the rest of his command marched to join the Fourth Corps at Pulaski, and to assume command of all the troops in that vicinity. Though Stanley's commission as major-general antedated his, Schofield had the higher rank as commander of a department. His orders from Thomas were to retard the advance of Hood into Tennessee as much as possible, without risking a general engagement, until Smith's command should arrive from Missouri, and General J. H. Wilson, who had been put in command of all the cavalry in the department,- and who came indorsed by Grant with the prediction that he would increase the efficiency of that arm fifty per cent.,- had time to remount the cavalry regiments whose horses had been taken for Kilpatrick. 1864. Hood, "Advance and Retreat," p. 273. A fortnight had been spent by Hood and Beauregard at Tuscumbia and the contemplated campaign discussed by them in all its bearings. On the 6th of November Hood telegraphed to Jefferson Davis his intention to move into Tennessee, to which Mr. Davis answered, that if Sherman, as reported, had "sent a large part of his force southward, you may first beat him in detail and subsequently, without serious obstruction or danger to the country in your rear, advance to the Ohio River." On the 12th, which was the day on which communication ceased between Sherman and Thomas, Hood telegraphed again to the Confederate President, giving his reasons for not having fought Sherman; saying he did not then regard his army as in proper condition for a pitched battle, but that it was now |