indecisive and ultimately so useless. But McClellan was in the very reverse of such a position, and could have had no similar reason; for his reenforcements were near, and those of his opponent exhausted. The only excuse that can be made for his timidity as to the use of his reserve must be in the ignorance he labored under as to the great numerical inferiority of Lee [p. 234].

The battle of Antietam was fought September 17, 1862, soon after which McClellan was superseded by Burnside, who followed Lee up to the old lines of the Rappahannock, crossed at Fredericksburg, and on December 13th fought that desperate battle, losing 12,353 to Lee's loss of 4576; soon after which he was replaced by Hooker, who crossed the Rapidan and May 1-4, 1863, fought Lee at Chancellorsville, losing 16,030 to Lee's 12,281, when he fell back again north of the Rappahannock. Then Lee in his turn assumed the offensive and made his campaign into Pennsylvania, resulting in the famous battle of Gettysburg, fought almost coincident with the capture of Vicksburg, viz., July 1-3, 1863, in which Lee was the assailant, losing 23,186 men to 34,621 on the part of Meade,* who fought purely on the defensive. General Meade is entitled to extraordinary honor for his conduct of that battle, because he was ordered to command that army whilst actually on the march, with no time to reconnoiter, study the ground, or become acquainted with his corps and division commanders,- that too in the presence of a victorious army of unknown strength, commanded by a general of known ability and great repute.

The defeat of the Confederate army at Gettysburg and the capture of Vicksburg should have ended the civil war July 4, 1863, but no! the leaders demanded the "last ditch," and their followers seemed willing. The Army of Northern Virginia fell back behind the Rappahannock, and the Army of the Potomac followed and occupied their old ground about Warrenton.

On the 4th day of March, 1864, General U. S. Grant was summoned to Washington from Nashville to receive his commission of lieutenant-general, the highest rank then known in the United States, and the same that was conferred on Washington in 1798. He reached Washington on the 7th, had an interview for the first time with Mr. Lincoln, and on the 9th received his commission at the hands of the President, who made a short address, to which Grant made a suitable reply. He was informed that it was desirable that he should come east to command all the armies of the United States, and give his personal supervision to the Army of the Potomac. On the 10th he visited General Meade at Brandy Station,

Later compilations make the losses: Confederate, 25,873; Union, 23,001.- EDITOR.

and saw many of his leading officers, but returned to Washington the next day and went on to Nashville, to which place he had summoned Sherman, then absent on his Meridian expedition. On the 18th of March he turned. over to Sherman the command of the western armies and started back for Washington, Sherman accompanying him as far as Cincinnati. Amidst constant interruptions of a business and social nature, these two commanders reached the satisfactory conclusion that as soon as the season would permit, all the armies of the Union would assume the "bold offensive" by "concentric lines" on the common enemy, and would finish up the job in a single campaign if possible. The main “objectives" were Lee's army behind the Rapidan in Virginia, and Johnston's army at Dalton, Georgia.

On reaching Washington, General Grant studied with great care all the minutiæ of the organization, strength, qualities, and resources of each of the many armies into which the Union forces had resolved themselves by reason of preceding events, and in due time with wonderful precision laid out the work which each one should undertake. His written instructions to me at Nashville were embraced in his two letters of April 4, and April 19, 1864, both in his own handwriting, which I still possess, and which, in my judgment, are as complete as any of those of the Duke of Wellington contained in the twelve volumes of his published letters and correspondence.

With the month of May came the season for action, and by the 4th all his armies were in motion. The army of Butler at Fort Monroe was his left, Meade's army the center, and Sherman at Chattanooga his right. Butler was to move against Richmond on the south of James River, Meade straight against Lee, intrenched behind the Rapidan, and Sherman to attack Joe Johnston and push him to and beyond Atlanta. This was as far as human foresight could penetrate. Though Meade commanded the Army of the Potomac, General Grant substantially controlled it, and on the 4th of May, 1864, he crossed the Rapidan, and at noon next day attacked Lee. He knew that a certain amount of fighting, "killing," had to be done to accomplish his end, and also to pay the penalty of former failures. In the "wilderness" there was no room for grand strategy, or even minor tactics; but the fighting was desperate, the losses to the Union army being, according to Phisterer, 37,737,† to the Confederate loss of 11,400- the difference due to Lee's intrenchments and the blind nature of the country in which the battle was fought.

On the night of May 7th both par

+ Later compilation, 17,666.- Editor.

ties paused, appalled by the fearful slaughter; but General Grant commanded" Forward by the left flank." That was, in my judgment, the supreme moment of his life: undismayed, with a full comprehension of the importance of the work in which he was engaged, feeling as keen a sympathy for his dead and wounded as any one, and without stopping to count his numbers, he gave his orders calmly, specifically, and absolutely" Forward to Spotsylvania." But his watchful and skillful antagonist detected his purpose, having the inner or shorter line, threw his army across Grant's path, and promptly fortified it. These field intrenchments are peculiar to America, though I am convinced they were employed by the Romans in Gaul in the days of Cæsar. A regiment, brigade, division, or corps, halting for the night or for battle, faced the enemy; moved forward to ground with a good outlook to the front; stacked arms; gathered logs, stumps, fencerails, and anything which would stop a bullet; piled these to their front, and, digging a ditch behind, threw the dirt forward, and made a parapet which covered their persons as perfectly as a granite wall.

When Grant reached Spotsylvania, on the 8th of May, he found his antagonist in his front thus intrenched. He was delayed there till the 20th, during which time there was incessant fighting, because he was compelled to attack his enemy behind these improvised intrenchments. His losses according to Phisterer were 24,461,* to the Confederate loss of 9000. Nevertheless, his renewed order, "Forward by the left flank," compelled Lee to retreat to the defenses of Richmond.

Grant's memoirs enable us to follow him day by day across the various rivers which lay between him and Richmond, and in the bloody assaults at Cold Harbor, where his losses are reported 14,931 to 1700 by his opponent. Yet ever onward by the left flank, he crossed James River, and penned Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia within the intrenchments of Richmond and Petersburg for ten long months on the pure defensive, to remain almost passive observers of local events, whilst Grant's other armies were absolutely annihilating the Southern Confederacy.

Whilst Grant was fighting desperately from the Rapidan to the James, there were two other armies within the same "zone of operations."—that of the "James" under General Butler, who was expected to march up on the south and invest Petersburg and even Richmond; and that of Sigel at Winchester, who was expected to march up the Valley of Virginia, pick up his detachments from the

* Later compilation, 18,399.- Editor. + Later compilation, 12,737.- EDITOR.

Kanawha (Crook and Averell), and threaten Lynchburg, a place of vital importance to Lee in Richmond. Butler failed to accomplish what was expected of him; and Sigel failed at the very start, and was replaced by Hunter, who marched up the Valley, made junction with Crook and Averell at Staunton, and pushed on with commendable vigor to Lynchburg, which he invested on the 16th of June.

Lee, who by this time had been driven into Richmond with a force large enough to hold his lines of intrenchment and a surplus for expeditions, detached General Jubal A. Early with the equivalent of a corps to drive Hunter away from Lynchburg. Hunter, far from his base, with inadequate supplies of food and ammunition, retreated by the Kanawha to the Ohio River, his nearest base, thereby exposing the Valley of Virginia, whereupon Early, an educated soldier, promptly resolved to take advantage of the occasion, marched rapidly down this valley northward to Winchester, crossed the Potomac to Hagerstown, and thence boldly marched on Washington, defended at that time only by armed clerks and militia. General Grant, fully alive to the danger, dispatched to Washington by water, from his army investing Petersburg, two divisions of the Sixth Corps and the Nineteenth Corps, just arriving from New Orleans. These troops arrived at the very nick of time,-met Early's army in the suburbs of Washington, and drove it back to the Valley of Virginia, whence it had come.

This most skillful movement of Early demonstrated to General Grant the importance of the Valley of Virginia, not only as a base of supplies for Lee's army in Richmond, but as the most direct, shortest, and easiest route for a "diversion" into the Union territory north of the Potomac. He therefore cast around for a suitable commander for this field of operations, and settled upon Major-General Philip H. Sheridan, whom he had brought from the West to command the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac.

Sheridan promptly repaired to his new sphere of operations, quickly ascertained its strength and resources, and resolved to attack Early in the position which he had chosen in and about Winchester, Va. He delivered his attack across broken ground on the 19th of September, beat his antagonist in fair, open battle, sending him "whirling up the Valley," inflicting a loss of 5500 men to his of 4873, and followed him up to Cedar Creek and Fisher's Hill. There Early recomposed his army and fell upon the Union army on the 19th of October, gaining a temporary advantage during General Sheridan's absence; but on his opportune return his army resumed the

offensive, defeated Early, captured nearly all his artillery, and drove him completely out of his field of operations, eliminating that army from the subsequent problem of the war. Sheridan's losses were 5995 to Early's 4200; but these losses are no just measure of the results of that victory, which made it impossible to use the Valley of Virginia as a Confederate base of supplies and as an easy route for raids within the Union lines. General Sheridan then committed its protection to detachments and with his main force rejoined General Grant, who still held Lee's army inside his intrenchments at Richmond and Petersburg.

I now turn with a feeling of extreme delicacy to the conduct of that other campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta, Savannah, and Raleigh, which with liberal discretion was committed to me by General Grant in his minute instructions of April 4, and April 10, 1864. To all military students these letters must be familiar, because they have been published again and again, and there never was and never can be raised a question of rivalry or claim between us as to the relative merits of the manner in which we played our respective parts. We were as brothers-I the older man in years, but he the higher in rank. We both believed in our heart of hearts that the success of the Union cause was not only necessary to the then generation of Americans, but to all future generations. We both professed to be gentlemen and professional soldiers, educated in the science of war by our generous Government for the very occasion which had arisen. Neither of us by nature was a combative man; but with honest hearts and a clear purpose to do what man could we embarked on that campaign which I believe, in its strategy, in its logistics, in its grand and minor tactics, has added new luster to the old science of war. Both of us had at our front generals to whom in early life we had been taught to look up,- educated and experienced soldiers like ourselves, not likely to make any mistakes, and each of whom had as strong an army as could be collected from the mass of their nine millions of Southern people, of the same blood as ourselves, brave, confident, and well equipped; in addition to which they had the most decided advantage of operating in their own difficult country of mountain, forest, ravine, and river, affording admirable opportunities for defense, besides the other equally important advantage that we had to invade the country of our unqualified enemy and expose our long lines of sup. ply to the guerrillas of an "exasperated people." Again, as we advanced we had to leave guards to bridges, stations, and intermediate depots, diminishing the fighting force, whilst our ene

my gained strength by picking up his detachments as he fell back, and with railroads to bring supplies and reënforcements from his rear. In Europe war is confined to actual belligerents wearing uniforms, publicly proclaiming their character. Not so with us. Men professing to be peaceful farmers and physicians- yea, preachers of the Gospel - were apprehended in doing acts of a most damaging nature; and I recall to memory a case when our pickets brought to me three preachers with double-barreled guns who said they were hunting for birds as food for their tables. On drawing the charges, each gun contained twelve buckshot, which would have killed a man at sixty yards. I instance these facts to offset the common assertion that we of the North won the war by brute force, and not by courage and skill.

On the historic 4th day of May, 1864, the Confederate army at my front lay at Dalton, Georgia, composed, according to the best authority, of about 45,000 men, commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston, who was the equal in all the elements of generalship with General Lee, and who was under instructions from the war powers in Richmond to assume the offensive northward as far as Nashville. But he soon discovered that he would have to conduct a defensive campaign. Coincident with the movement of the Army of the Potomac, as announced by telegraph, I put my armies in motion from our base at Chattanooga. These were the armies of the Ohio, 13,559 men; of the Cumberland, 60,773; of the Tennessee, 24,465 — grand total, 98,797 men and 254 guns.

I had no purpose to attack Johnston's position at Dalton in front, but marched from Chattanooga to feign at his front and to make a lodgment in Resaca, eighteen miles to his rear, on "his line of communication and supply." The movement was partially, not wholly, successful; but it compelled Johnston to let go Dalton and fight us at Resaca, where, May 13th-16th, our loss was 2747 and his 2800. I fought offensively and he defensively, aided by earth parapets. He then fell back to Calhoun, Adairsville, and Cassville, where he halted for the battle of the campaign; but, for reasons given in his memoirs, he continued his retreat behind the next spur of mountains to Allatoona.

Pausing for a few days to repair the railroad without attempting Allatoona, of which I had personal knowledge acquired in 1844, I resolved to push on towards Atlanta by way of Dallas; this Johnston quickly detected, and forced me to fight him at New Hope Church, four miles north of Dallas, resulting in losses of 3000 to the Confederates to 2400 to us.

The country was almost in a state of nature few or no roads, nothing that a European could understand, but where the bullet killed its victim as surely as at Sevastopol. Johnston had meantime picked up his detachments, and had received reënforcements from his rear which raised his aggregate strength to 62,000 men, and warranted him in claiming that he was purposely drawing us far from our base, and that when the right moment should come he would turn on us and destroy us. We were equally confident and not the least alarmed. He then fell back to his position at Marietta, with Brush Mountain on his right, Kenesaw his center, and Lost Mountain his left. His line of ten miles was too long for his numbers, and he soon let go his flanks and concentrated on Kenesaw. We closed down in battle array, repaired the railroad up to our very camps, and then prepared for the contest. Not a day, not an hour or minute was there a cessation of fire. Our skirmishers were in absolute contact, the lines of battle and batteries but little in rear of the skirmishers; and thus matters continued until June 27th, when I ordered a general assault, with the full coöperation of my great lieutenants, Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield, as good and true men as ever lived or died for their country's cause; but we failed, losing 3000 men, to the Confederate loss of 630. Still, the result was that within three days Johnston abandoned the strongest possible position and was in full retreat for the Chattahoochee River. We were on his heels; skirmished with his rear at Smyrna Church on the 4th day of July, and saw him fairly across the Chattahoochee on the 10th, covered and protected by the best line of field intrenchments I have ever seen, prepared long in advance. No officer or soldier who ever served under me will question the generalship of Joseph E. Johnston. His retreats were timely, in good order, and he left nothing behind. We had advanced into the enemy's country 120 miles, with a single track railroad, which had to bring clothing, food, ammunition, everything requisite for 100,000 men and 23,000 animals. The city of Atlanta, the gate city opening the interior of the important State of Georgia, was in sight; its protecting army was shaken but not defeated, and onward we had to go,-illustrating the principle that an army once on the offensive must maintain the offensive."

We feigned to the right, but crossed the Chattahoochee by the left, and soon confronted our enemy behind his first line of intrenchments at Peach Tree Creek, prepared in advance for this very occasion. At this critical moment the Confederate Government rendered us most valuable service. Being dis

satisfied with the Fabian policy of General Johnston, it relieved him, and General Hood was substituted to command the Confederate army. Hood was known to us to be a "fighter," a graduate of West Point of the class of 1853, No. 44, of which class two of my army commanders, McPherson and Schofield, were No. and No. 7. The character of a leader is a large factor in the game of war, and I confess I was pleased at this change, of which I had early notice. I knew that I had an army superior in numbers and morale to that of my antagonist; but being so far from my base, and operating in a country absolutely devoid of food and forage, I was dependent for supplies on a poorly constructed, single-track railroad back to Louisville, five hundred miles. I was willing to meet our enemy in the open country, but not behind well-constructed parapets.

Promptly, as expected, the enemy sallied from his Peach Tree line on the 18th of July, about midday, striking the Twentieth Corps (Hooker), which had just crossed Peach Tree Creek by improvised bridges. The troops became commingled and fought hand to hand desperately for about four hours, when the Confederates were driven back within their lines, leaving behind their dead and wounded. These amounted to 4796 men, to our loss of 1710. We followed up, and Hood fell back to the main lines of the city of Atlanta. We closed in, when again, Hood holding these lines by about one-half his force, with the other half made a wide circuit by night, under cover of the woods, and on the 22d of July enveloped our left flank "in air," a movement that led to the hardest battle of the campaign. He encountered the Army of the Tennessee,skilled veterans who were always ready to fight, were not alarmed by flank or rear attacks, and met their assailants with heroic valor. The battle raged from noon to night, when the Confederates, baffled and defeated, fell back within the intrenchments of Atlanta. Their losses are reported 8499 to ours of 3641; but among these was McPherson, the commander of the Army of the Tennessee. Whilst this battle was in progress, Schofield at the center, and Thomas on the right, made efforts to break through the intrenchments at their fronts, but found them too strong to assault.

The Army of the Tennessee was then shifted, under its new commander (Howard), from the extreme left to the extreme right, to reach, if possible, the railroad by which Hood drew his supplies, when he again, on the 28th of July, repeated his tactics of the 22d, sustaining an overwhelming defeat, losing 4632 men to our 700. These three sallies convinced him that his predecessor, General Johnston, had not erred in standing on the defensive. There

after the Confederate army in Atlanta clung to his parapets. I never intended to assault these, but gradually worked to the right to reach and destroy his line of supplies, because soldiers, like other mortals, must have food. Our extension to the right brought on numerous conflicts, but nothing worthy of note, till about the end of August I resolved to leave one corps to protect our communications to the rear, and move with the other five to a point (Jonesboro') on the railroad twenty-six miles below Atlanta, not fortified. This movement was perfectly strategic, was successful, and resulted in our occupation of Atlanta, on the 3d of September, 1864. The result had a large effect on the whole country at the time, for solid and political reasons. I claim no special merit to myself, save that I believe I followed the teachings of the best masters of the "science of war" of which I had knowledge; and better still, I had pleased Mr. Lincoln, who wanted "success very much. But I had not accomplished all, for Hood's army, the chief "objective," had escaped.

Then began the real trouble. We were in possession of Atlanta, and Hood remained at Lovejoy's Station, thirty miles south-east, on the Savannah railroad, with an army of about 40,000 veterans inured to war, and with a fair amount of wagons to carry his supplies, independent of the railroads. On the 21st of September he shifted his position to Palmetto Station, twenty-five miles south-west of Atlanta, on the Montgomery and Selma railroad, where he began his systematic preparations for his aggressive campaign against our communications to compel us to abandon our conquests. Here he was visited by Mr. Davis, who promised all possible coöperation and assistance in the proposed campaign; and here also Mr. Davis made his famous speech, which was duly reported to me in Atlanta, assuring his army that they would make my retreat more disastrous than was that of Napoleon from Moscow. Forewarned, I took immediate measures to thwart his plans. One division was sent back to Rome, another to Chattanooga; the guards along our railroad were reënforced and warned of the coming blow. General Thomas was sent back to the headquarters of his department at Nashville, Schofield to his at Knoxville, and I remained in Atlanta to await Hood's "initiative." This followed soon. Hood, sending his cavalry ahead, crossed the Chattahoochee River at Campbelltown with his main army on the 1st of October, and moved to Dallas, detaching a strong force against the railroad above Marietta which destroyed it for fifteen miles, and then sent French's division to capture Allatoona. I followed Hood, reaching Kenesaw Mountain in time to see in the dis

tance the attack on Allatoona, which was handsomely repulsed by Corse. Hood then moved westward, avoiding Rome, and by a circuit reached Resaca, which he summoned to surrender, but did not wait to attack. He continued thence the destruction of the railroad for about twenty miles to the tunnel, including Dalton, whose garrison he captured. I followed up to Resaca, then turned west to intercept his retreat down the Valley of Chattooga; but by rapid marching he escaped to Gadsden, on the Coosa, I halting at Gaylesville, whence to observe his further movements. Hood, after a short pause, crossed the mountains to Decatur, on the Tennessee River, which, being defended by a good division of troops, he avoided, and finally halted opposite Florence, Alabama, on the Tennessee River. Divining the object of his movement against our communications, which had been thus far rapid and skillful, I detached by rail General Schofield and two of my six corps to Nashville, all the reënforcement that Thomas deemed necessary to enable him to defend Tennessee, and began my systematic preparations for resuming the offensive against Georgia. Repairing the broken railroads, we collected in Atlanta the necessary food and transportation for 60,000 men, sent to the rear all impediments, called in all detachments, and ordered them to march for Atlanta, where by the 14th of November were assembled 4 infantry corps, I cavalry division, and 65 field guns, aggregating 60,598 men. Hood remained at Florence, preparing to invade Tennessee and Kentucky, or to follow me. We were prepared for either alternative.

According to the great Napoleon, the fundamental maxim for successful war is to "converge a superior force on the critical point at the critical time." In 1864 the main "objectives" were Lee's and Johnston's armies, and the critical point was thought to be Richmond or Atlanta, whichever should be longest held. Had General Grant overwhelmed or scattered Lee's army and occupied Richmond he would have come to Atlanta; but as I happened to occupy Atlanta first, and had driven Hood off to a divergent line of operations far to the west, it was good strategy to leave him to a subordinate force, and with my main army to join Grant at Richmond. The most practicable route to Richmond was near a thousand miles in distance, too long for a single march; hence the necessity to reach the sea-coast for a new base. Savannah was the nearest point, distant three hundred miles, and this we accomplished from November 12th to December 21, 1864. According to the Duke of Wellington, an army moves upon its belly, not upon its legs; and no army dependent on wagons