Southern Storm (6 page)

Hood and Sherman: September–November 1864

As Sherman pushed his forces northward along the railroad, repairing it as he went, Hood remained nimbly out of reach. Up to this time the Confederate officer had operated solely with a cavalry force under Major General Joseph Wheeler, but Sherman could foresee the day when the formidable Forrest would be added to the current campaign. As each day of pursuit proved fruitless, Sherman became increasingly convinced that playing Hood’s game accomplished nothing. “It will be a physical impossibility to protect the [rail]roads, now that Hood, Forrest and Wheeler,…are turned loose…. I propose we break up the railroad [we currently control] from Chattanooga [to Atlanta] and strike out with wagons for Milledgeville, Millen and Savannah,” Sherman wired Grant on October 9. “Until we can repopulate Georgia, it
is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its [rail]roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources. By attempting to hold the [rail]roads we lose 1,000 men monthly, and will gain no result. I can make the march, and make Georgia howl.”

Sherman was counting on the special relationship he enjoyed with Grant to enable him to promote his plan. As he later put it, “We were as brothers—I the older man in years, but he 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.” On a more informal occasion, Sherman added of Grant, “He stood by me when I was crazy and I stood by him when he was drunk; and now, sir, we stand by each other always.”

Grant’s grand strategy had been predicated on destroying the enemy’s armies. Sherman knew this and understood that it required careful and patient argument for his friend to accept the concept of turning his most powerful western armies against infrastructure rather than armed forces. (“This may not be war but rather statesmanship,” he suggested to Grant.) Hearing no response from Grant to his October 9 message, Sherman made additional points with a follow-up sent two days later. “Hood may turn into Tennessee and Kentucky, but I believe he will be forced to follow me,” Sherman argued, hoping to assuage Grant’s principal concern. “Instead of being on the defensive, I would be on the offensive, instead of guessing at what he means to do, he would have to guess at my plans. The difference in war is full 25 percent.”

Crossing Sherman’s note in telegraphic transit was one from Grant that spoke both to his professional concerns and his personal regard for Sherman’s particular brilliance. “If there is any way of getting at Hood’s army, I would prefer that, but I must trust to your own judgment. I find I shall not be able to send a force from here to act with you at Savannah. Your movements therefore, will be independent of mine.” The more Grant thought about matters, the more willing he was to be convinced by Sherman’s plan. But Grant answered to a boss in Washington who was not as quick to embrace such a shift in strategy. On October 12 Grant was advised that President Lincoln “feels much solicitude in respect to General Sherman’s proposed movement and hopes that it will be maturely considered…. [A] misstep by General Sherman might be fatal to his army.” Lincoln’s implication was clear; a
mistake by Sherman might be fatal to the administration’s reelection hopes.

Grant addressed this concern the next day, sending his message to Lincoln’s chief of staff, Major General Henry W. Halleck, knowing that the president would see every word. “On mature reflection,” Grant began, “I believe Sherman’s proposition is the best that can be adopted.” After pointing out the impossibility of keeping an Atlanta garrison supplied, he observed that by leaving a barren waste in his wake, Sherman would create a buffer zone to impede any enemy pursuit. Properly reinforced, Thomas could hold Tennessee, and even then Sherman would retain enough strength to defeat Hood if he turned on him. “Such an army as Sherman has (and with such a commander) is hard to corner or capture,” Grant concluded.

Even as this exchange was occurring, Hood and Sherman continued their slow dance in northwest Georgia. As they marched, Sherman’s men foraged extensively, prompting complaints from the affected civilians. “Your friends have broken our railroads, which supplied us bountifully,” Sherman replied, applying his rules of war, “and you cannot suppose our soldiers will suffer when there is abundance within reach.” With Sherman pressing him from the south, Hood veered to the west; by October 15 he had halted at Gaylesville, just on the Alabama side of the Georgia border. Up to now he had closely followed the script he had crafted with Jefferson Davis; although his opponent had not left himself open to any damaging blows, Hood’s men had certainly filled Sherman’s life with vexations. The question Hood now considered was whether or not his accomplishments (and more like them) were enough.

It was the same day that Hood arrived at Gaylesville that Sherman received the authorization he had been seeking. The message, dated two days earlier, came from Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who acknowledged that Grant had decided to let Sherman carry out his plan. “You may count on the co-operation of this Department to the full extent of the power of the Government,” the war secretary promised. Sherman had now acquired all the approvals he needed to set out on his march through Georgia. The only problem was Hood, who still posed a threat to Union interests in northern Georgia. If Hood would commit himself to a movement into Tennessee, then Sherman could retrace his steps to Atlanta without censure. Otherwise it would look
as if he was backing away from Hood’s challenge. Sherman let some of his anxiety show in a message to a subordinate commander written on October 16. “I want the first positive fact that Hood contemplates an invasion of Tennessee; invite him to do so,” Sherman instructed. “Send him a free pass in.”

Hood finally obliged Sherman on October 17 by marching his men farther west, away from the threatened Union supply line. That same day, Sherman, monitoring events from the Georgia border to be sure that Hood’s column was receding, started to get affairs in order for what he was now calling his “grand movement into Georgia.” Orders went out to the various Union commands to begin culling out “the most indifferent wagons and worthless mules and horses,…the sick and wounded, prisoners of war, surplus servants, tents, chairs, cots, and the furniture that now fill our wagons and disgrace the army.”

Two days passed, and with Hood showing no signs of wavering from his westward course, Sherman could finally exhale somewhat. In a message sent to Lincoln’s military chief of staff, he stated: “I now consider myself authorized to execute my plan to destroy the railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta,…[and] strike out into the heart of Georgia, and make for Charleston, Savannah, or the mouth of the Appalachicola [River].”

Nevertheless, Sherman kept his forces in place until he was certain that Hood wasn’t going to double back or push into Tennessee close enough to him to necessitate he act. The last thing Sherman needed was the perception that he had ignored a threat he could have parried. Sherman wanted Hood to invade Tennessee, but he needed the act to take place far enough to the west that no one would think he had been lax in his responsibilities. As the days ticked off, Sherman watched Hood and fretted that circumstances might not allow him to undertake his cherished plan. “Damn Hood!” Sherman exclaimed. “If he will go to the Ohio River I’ll give him rations!”

On October 18 Sherman heard from the officer he had left in charge of the Atlanta garrison, who unknowingly proposed to steal his thunder. Major General Henry W. Slocum was not yet included among those whom Sherman believed needed to know of his plans. Slocum reported that matters were so quiet around Atlanta that he thought he might launch his own raid into Georgia with just two divisions. Sher
man responded two days later, letting Slocum know that a grand march was in the works and, further, instructing Slocum to prepare “1,500,000 rations of bread, coffee, sugar, and salt, 500,000 rations of salt meat.” Also, Slocum was to have the “lightest pontoon bridges and trains ready.”

The same day, Sherman received a nervous message from the officer he had left in charge in Tennessee, George H. Thomas. Twenty-four hours later Sherman sought to buck up his subordinate. “If you can defend the line of the Tennessee [River] in my absence of three months, it is all I ask,” Sherman said. He also made clear his intention “to sally forth and make a hole in Georgia and Alabama that will be hard to mend.” On October 20 Sherman sent a long note to Thomas designed to assuage him even more. He revealed a few more details of his planned march, suggesting he might be able to destroy the military production centers of Macon and Augusta. “By this I propose to demonstrate the vulnerability of the South and make its inhabitants feel that war and individual ruin are synonymous terms…. I know I am right in this and shall proceed to its maturity.” Sherman spelled out in no uncertain terms what he expected of Thomas. “I want you to retain command in Tennessee, and before starting I will give you delegated authority over Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, &c., whereby there will be unity of action behind me,” Sherman wrote. “If…Hood turns on you, you must act defensively on the line of the Tennessee [River].”

Thomas’s first response, sent October 21, did not directly address Sherman’s wishes, but instead enumerated all the units then available to him, which did not match the number Sherman was crediting him with having on hand. Messaging Grant on October 22, Sherman was careful to paint an uncluttered picture. “I feel perfectly master of the situation here,” he declared. “I am now perfecting arrangements to put into Tennessee a force able to hold the line of the Tennessee [River] whilst I break up the railroad [from Dalton to Atlanta]…and push into Georgia, and break up all its railroads and depots, capture its horses and negroes, make desolation everywhere.” On October 23 Sherman made sure that Slocum in Atlanta was filling the larder. “Go on, pile up the forage, corn and potatoes, and keep your artillery horses fat,” Sherman instructed him. “If Georgia can afford to break our railroads, she can afford to feed us. Please preach this doctrine to men who go forth, and are likely to spend it.”

That same day Sherman continued to buttress Thomas’s confidence. “All Georgia is now open to me and I do believe you are the man best qualified to manage the affairs of Tennessee and North Mississippi,” he told him. Three days later Sherman sent Thomas a pair of messages. The first offered overall advice (“Minor points may be neglected, but the stronger places…strengthened”) and proffered assurances that Sherman’s plan would proceed only “provided always you can defend the line of the Tennessee [River].” In the second note Sherman seemed to forget his pledge. “I must leave it [the defense of Tennessee] to you for the present and push for the heart of Georgia.” Sherman was certain that once he began his movement into the heart of the state Hood would “turn back.” Writing to Lincoln’s chief of staff on October 27, Sherman warranted that the troops he was forwarding to Thomas “will enable him to hold Tennessee.” Thomas, Sherman added, “is well alive to the occasion, and better suited to the emergency than any man I have.”

The forces Sherman had selected for his Georgia expedition began marching back toward Atlanta on October 29. His next messages to Thomas emphasized all the troops that were being redirected to assist him. Thomas’s responses were more measured, most often identifying only the units that were on hand and their combat readiness. With Hood poised on the south bank of the Tennessee River, first at Decatur, then farther west at Tuscumbia, and displaying every indication of advancing into middle Tennessee, Thomas’s low force inventories began to take on an urgent tone. His uneasiness was discerned by Halleck and especially Grant, who now reconsidered his appraisal of Sherman’s scheme. On November 1 Grant asked Sherman, “Do you not think it advisable now that Hood has gone so far north to entirely settle him before starting on your proposed campaign?” That same day Halleck added his two cents. “I think you should concentrate all you can against Hood,” he urged, reflecting Lincoln’s insecurities.

Now the time delays inherent in the long communications network began to play their own games. At 9:00
A.M
. November 1, even before Grant’s message with its big question started west, Sherman composed a note that anticipated the last-minute objections. He ran through a generous list of troops either with or on their way to Thomas. He reiterated that if he were to reverse course now, “the work of last summer would be lost.” On November 2 Sherman dispatched a direct answer
to Grant’s November 1 message. “Thomas will have a force strong enough to prevent [Hood’s]…reaching any country in which we have an interest,” he assured his friend and superior officer. Sherman also advanced the argument that turning toward Hood was exactly what the enemy wanted him to do or, as he stated it, “Jeff. Davis’ cherished plan of making me leave Georgia.”

The telegram Sherman received from Grant on November 2 answered the note he had sent before getting Grant’s of November 1. Grant, after looking carefully at the information Sherman had provided, decided to set aside his own misgivings by trusting his friend’s judgment. “With the force…you have left with Thomas, he must be able to take care of Hood and destroy him,” Grant said. “I do not really see that you can withdraw from where you are to follow Hood without giving up all we have gained in territory. I say, then, go as you propose.” Grant’s simple approbation took a weight off Sherman’s shoulders and allowed him to regain his sense of humor. Responding to a note from a subordinate, Sherman hinted at the great raid in the offing and forecast, “You may look for a great howl against the brute Sherman.”

For the next ten days Sherman played a delicate balancing act as he strove to maintain the positive picture he had created for Grant and Lincoln. There was always the chance that Hood would reverse course for a dash back into Georgia that would scuttle Sherman’s plans. There was also the possibility that Thomas would fret enough about the Tennessee situation that Grant would be forced by Lincoln to halt the march. Some elements Sherman could influence or control; for the others he depended on fate.