USA > New Mexico > Men of our day; or, biographical sketches of patriots, orators, statemen, generals, reformers, financiers and merchants, now on the stage of action > Part 9
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to the persistency and stubbornness with which General Sherman held the crest of Tunnel Hill, as to the gallant daring of the other divisions ; and, without the former, the latter could never, by any possibility, have succeeded.
Victory, however, brought no respite to Sherman and his tired veterans. The flying foe was to be pursued and railroad connections severed ; and, while so engaged, they were ordered to the relief of Knoxville, where twelve thousand men under General Burnside were closely besieged by Longstreet. Eighty- four miles of terrible roads, and two rivers, lay between them and Knoxville, which must be reached in three days. Seven days before they had left their camp beyond the Tennessee, with only two days' rations, and but a single coat or blanket per man, officers as well as privates, and with no other provisions but such as they could gather by the road. In that time, also, they had borne a conspicuous part in a terrible battle, and well might they have been excused if they had grumbled at this fresh imposition of extra duty. But with them "to hear was to obey." The railroad bridge across the Hiawassee was repaired and planked ; they then pushed forward to the Tennessee, and found the bridge there destroyed by the enemy, who retreated. Despatching Colonel Long with the cavalry brigade, with orders to ford the Little Tennessee, and communicate tidings of the approaching relief to General Burnside within twenty-four hours, Sherman turned aside to Morgantown, where he extem- porized a bridge, which he crossed on the night of December 4th; and the next morning received information from Burn- side of Colonel Long's safe arrival, and that all was well. Moving still rapidly forward, he was met at Marysville, on the evening of the 5th, by the welcome news of the abandonment of the siege by General Longstreet, on the previous evening. Halting at Marysville, he sent forward two divisions, under
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General Granger, to Knoxville, and every thing there being found safe, returned leisurely with the rest of his army to Chattanooga. The three months' campaign thus closed, had been one of extreme fatigue and brilliant success. Leaving Vicksburg, they had marched four hundred miles, without sleep for three successive nights, fought at Chattanooga, chased the enemy out of Tennessee, and turning more than a hundred miles north- ward, had compelled the raising of the siege of Knoxville. All this had been done, much of the time, in the depth of winter, over a mountainous region, sometimes barefoot, without regular rations or supplies of any kind, and yet without a murmur. " Forty rounds of ammunition in our cartridge-boxes, sixty rounds in our pockets; a march from Memphis to Chattanooga ; a battle and pursuit; another march to Knoxville; and victory everywhere," was the proud answer of one of these fifteenth corps soldiers, in reply to the sentinel who asked him where his badge was. And the cartridge-box with forty rounds, thence- forth, became the emblem of the fifteenth corps.
Early in 1863, Gen. Sherman planned an expedition into Central Mississippi, which was sanctioned by Gen. Grant and which was immediately carried into effect. His idea was to march a movable column of 22,000 men, cut loose from any base, for one hundred and twenty miles through the enemy's country, which should sweep Mississippi and Alabama out of the grasp of the rebels. As a military conception it was un- surpassed in modern times, except by Sherman himself in his later movements; and that it failed of its intended results-and became merely a gigantic raid, which, however, carried terror and destruction into the very heart of the Confederacy-was owing only to the lack of proper energy in the co-operating cavalry force. This force, 8000 strong, leaving Memphis on the 1st of February, was to move down the Mobile and Ohio rail-
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road from Corinth to Meridian, destroying the road as they went. At Meridian they were expected to meet Sherman, who, with 20,000 cavalry, 1200 infantry, and twenty days' rations, left Vicksburg on the 3d. The cavalry force, however, were so badly behind time at starting, that when they did move they met with much opposition from the enemy, who had massed at different points on the route; and they finally turned back. Sherman's share of the expedition was promptly carried out, railroad communications were cut, stores destroyed, negroes brought away, and an immense amount of irreparable damage done. Finding that the co-operating cavalry force was not "on time " at the appointed rendezvous, he turned his face westward from Meridian, followed at a very respectful distance by the enemy, from whom, however, he received no serious opposition. The failure, however, deranged and postponed, for a time, the contemplated attack on Mobile by Farragut. .
On the 12th of March, 1864, Sherman succeeded to the com- mand of the grand military division of the Mississippi, recently vacated by Gen. Grant, who had been elevated to the command of the armies of the United States. This division comprised the departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and, for the time, Arkansas; and the forces under his command -soon to be increased-numbered, at that time, over 150,000 men, under such leaders as Thomas, McPherson, Schofield, Hooker, Howard, Stoneman, Kilpatrick, Rousseau, and others of equal ability and fame. At a conference with Grant, soon after this event, plans for the coming campaign had been fully discussed and agreed upon. It was decided that a simultaneous forward movement of the eastern and western armies should take place in May, one aiming for Richmond, Virginia, and the other for Atlanta, Georgia. In less than fifty days, Sherman had concentrated the different army corps at Chattanooga, as
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well as immense stores of arms, ammunition and cannon ; had re-organized and drilled his men, remounted and increased his cavalry, and made all the arrangements, even to the minutest detail, for the expected campaign. On the seventh of May, his army of 98,797 effective men (of which 6149 were cavalry and 4460 artillery) and 254 guns, moved forward to its gigantic work-the capture of Atlanta, 130 miles distant. The region of Northern Georgia through which they were to pass, abounds in rugged hills, narrow and steep defiles and valleys, with rapid and deep streams; and is, in all respects, a difficult country for military movements. In addition to its natural topographical advantages, the Chattanooga and Atlanta railroad threaded many of these mountain passes, and these points, therefore, had received the special attention and scientific skill of Gen. John- ston, the rebel commander, who had added immensely to their strength by almost impregnable fortifications. Opposed to the Union troops, also, were about 45,000 well trained soldiers, re- inforced during the subsequent campaign by nearly 21,000, and commanded by Johnston, Hardee, Hood, and other picked gen- erals of the Confederacy. Again, while the rebel army, if com- pelled to retreat, would be only falling back upon its base of supplies, Sherman's army, already 350 miles from the primary base at Louisville, and 175 from its secondary base at Nashville, was increasing that distance by every step of its advance; and was under the necessity of guarding its long and constantly in- creasing line of communications (one, and for a part of the dis- tance, two lines of railroad, and in certain conditions of naviga- tion, the Tennessee river) from being cut by the rebel cavalry, as well as from the attacks of guerrillas. Yet Sherman, during the succeeding five months' campaign, retained this line of nearly 500 miles, wholly within his control, turning to the sig- nal discomfiture of the enemy every attempt which they made
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to destroy it. Dalton, a position of great strength, and which could only be reached by the Buzzard Roost's Gap, a narrow and lofty defile in the great rock-faced ridge of the Chattoo- gata mountains, was the first point of attack. Protected by a formidable abatis, and artificially flooded from a neighboring creek, and commanded by heavy batteries, this defile, through which the railroad passed, and which offered the only route to Dalton, was impregnable by a front attack. Leaving Thomas and Howard to demonstrate vigorously against it, therefore, Sherman, with the rest of his army, flanked it by a movement through Snake Creek Gap, towards Resaca, on the railroad, eighteen miles below Dalton. Johnston, however, fell back on Resaca before the Union army had reached it, while Howard passed through Dalton close in Johnston's rear. Once in Re- saca, Johnston showed fight, and Sherman having pontooned the Oostanaula, south of the town, and sent a division to threaten Calhoun, the next place on the railroad, and a cavalry division to cut up the railroad between Calhoun and Kingston, gave bat- tle at Resaca, which place, after two days' heavy fighting, the rebel commander abandoned in the night of the 15th, burning the bridge behind him, with a loss of some 3500, of whom 1000 were prisoners, eight guns and a large amount of stores, etc. Pressing fiercely on his flying footsteps, Sherman sent the 14th corps to Rome, which was captured and garrisoned, and after a severe skirmish at Adairsville, he reached Kingston on the 18th, captured it, and gave his troops a few days' rest, while he re- opened communications with Chattanooga, and brought forward supplies for his army. On the 23d, with twenty days' rations, he moved forward again, flanking the dangerous defile of Allatoona Pass, by a rapid march on the town of Dallas. Johnston, fearing for the safety of his railroad communications, felt compelled to leave his fortified position and give battle. In rapid succession
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followed the severe engagements at Burnt Hickory on the 24th, at Pumpkinvine creek and at New Hope church, on the 25th, and Johnston's grand attack on General McPherson at Dallas, on the 28th, where the former was repulsed with a loss of over three thousand. While this had been going on, Sherman had extended his left, so as to envelope the rebel right, and to occupy all the roads leading eastward towards Allatoona and Ackworth, and finally occupied Allatoona Pass with his cavalry, with a feint of moving further south. Suddenly, however, he reached Ackworth, and Johnston was obliged to fall back, on the 4th of June, to Kenesaw mountain. Sherman now fortified and garrisoned Allatoona Pass as a secondary base, repaired his communica- tions, and on the 9th of June received full supplies and rein- forcements by railroad from Chattanooga.
Moving forward again, he proceeded to press Johnston, who held a finely fortified position in a triangle, formed by the north- ern slopes of Pine, Kenesaw, and Lost mountains. After several days' artillery practice, General Johnston was found, on the morning of the 15th, to have abandoned the first named moun- tam, and to be occupying a well intrenched line between the two latter. Sherman still pressed him until he evacuated Lost mountain, and, finally, was obliged to make another change- with Kenesaw as his salient, covering Marietta with his right wing, and with his left on Norse's creek, by which means he hoped to gain security for his railroad line. A sally by Hood's corps upon the Union lines, on the 22d, was repulsed with a heavy loss to the assailants ; and, on the 27th, Sherman made an assault upon Johnston's position, which was unsuccessful. ! Despite the heavy loss which they sustained, the Union troops were not dispirited, and a skilful manœuvre by Sherman, com- pelled the evacuation of Marietta, on the 2d of July. General Johnston remained well intrenched on the west bank of the
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Chattahoochie, until the 5th, when a flank movement of Sher- man compelled him to cross, which he did in good order. But, on the 7th and 8th of July, Sherman secured three good points for crossing the river, and the Confederates were obliged to fall back to Atlanta, leaving their antagonist in full possession of the river. While giving his men the brief rest, which they so much needed, before his next move on Atlanta, eight miles dis- tant, Sherman on the 9th, telegraphed orders to a force of two thousand cavalry (which he had already collected at Decatur, over two hundred miles in Johnston's rear) to push south and break up the railroad connections around Opelika, by which the rebel army got its supplies from central and southern Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, and then join him at Marietta. The cavalry, under General Rousseau, set out promptly, and, within twelve days, destroyed thirty miles of railroad, defeated the rebel General Clanton, and reached Mari- etta on the 22d, with a loss of only thirty men. Meanwhile, the main army had been enjoying a rest, supplies had been brought forward, railroad guards and garrisons strengthened, roads and bridges improved and the attention of the rebels woll diverted by cavalry expeditions which were sent down the river. On the 17th, then, a general advance was made, and the same evening the Union army formed its line along the old Peach Tree road. The next day McPherson and Schofield, swinging around upon the Augusta railroad, east of Decatur, broke it up most effectually, and, on the 19th, Thomas crossed Peach Tree creek on numerous bridges thrown across in face of the enemy's lines. All this was accomplished with heavy skirmishing, and on the 20th, Hood (who, three days previous, had succeeded General Johnston in the supreme command of the Confederate army), taking advantage of a gap between two corps of the Union army, hurled his whole force upon its left
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wing, with the hope of cutting off and routing it. His skilfully conceived stratagem, however, was foiled by the unexpected steadiness of the Union soldiers, and after a terrible battle the enemy was driven back to his intrenchments, with a loss of over five thousand men. Retreating to his interior lines along the creek, forming the outer lines of the defences proper of Atlanta, Hood now massed nearly his whole force, and, upon the 22d, fell upon Sherman's left with great fury. Six times during the day his columns desperately charged upon the Union lines, but at night he was compelled to withdraw with a loss of fully 12,000 men, of whom over 3000 were killed, 5000 stand of arms and eighteen flags. The Union loss was but 1,720, but among the slain was the able and beloved Major- General James B. McPherson, commander of the army of the Tennessee, whose death was not only a serious blow to General Sherman, but was generally regarded as a national misfortune. The day following this severely contested battle, General Gar- rard's cavalry force, which had been sent to Covington, Georgia, to break the railroad and bridges near that place, returned to headquarters, having fully executed his mission with great damage to the rebel cotton and stores, and a considerable num-
ber of prisoners. An expedition, however, planned by General Sherman for the destruction of the Atlanta and Macon, and the West Point railroads, with the view of severing Atlanta from all its communications and compelling its surrender, was not so successful. A portion of it, under General McCook, performed its share speedily and well, but the co-operating force under General Stoneman unfortunately failed-the general and a large number of his men being captured-while McCook was obliged to fight his way out; the whole entailing a heavy loss of cavalry to the Union army.
On the 28th of July, Hood in full force again assaulted the
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Union army on the Bell's Ferry road-expecting to catch its right flank "in air." He found, however, that Sherman was perfectly prepared for him-and, after six desperate assaults, gave it up as a bad job, having lost fully 5000 men, which, with his losses in the previous battles of the 20th and 23d, placed nearly one half of his force hors du combat. Hoping, by threatening his communications, to draw Hood out from his fortifications, Sherman now extended his line southwesterly towards East Point. The ruse failed, however, and the only alternative remaining to compass the capture of Atlanta, in- volved the necessity of another flank movement of the whole army, a difficult and unwelcome matter both as regarded the further removal of the army from its base of supplies and the apparent raising of the siege. But there seemed to be no other way, and accordingly, on the nights of the 25th and 26th, a por- tion of his army was withdrawn to the Chattahoochie, and Hood congratulated himself that a cavalry expedition which he had sent northward to break the Union connections between Allatoona and Chattanooga, had alarmed Sherman for the safety of his communications, and compelled him to raise the siege. The joy of the rebels, however, was of short duration ; on the 29th of August, they learned that Sherman's army was sweeping their own railroad communications at West Point with a " besom of destruction"-and on the 31st, two rebel corps, which had been hastily pushed forward to Jonesboro, were heavily repulsed by the advancing Union armies. Find- ing his communications now irretrievably lost, by this flank movement of his antagonist, Hood retreated, on the night of September 1st, to Lovejoy's Station. Atlanta was occupied, the next day, by the victorious Union troops, and the city was immediately converted into a strictly military post. The loss of Atlanta, was a severe blow to the rebels; and, under orders
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from President Davis, on the 24th of September, Hood ini- tiated a series of movements by which he hoped to recover not only it, but northern Georgia and east and middle Ten- nessee. Sherman, however, kept a watchful eye upon him and pursued him closely to Gaylesville, where he could watch him intrenched at Will's Gap, in Lookout mountain. Divin- ing, further, that Hood meditated a union with General Dick Taylor at Tuscumbia, Alabama, and a joint attempt by them, for the recovery of middle and east Tennessee, he divided his army, giving a share to his trusted friend General George H. Thomas, with orders to hold Tennessee against the rebels. Then, announcing to his army that he should follow Hood northward no longer, but "if he would go to the river, he would give him his rations," he moved back to Atlanta, by the 1st of November, and sent the railroad track, property of value, etc., at that city and along the line, to Chattanooga, which thenceforward became the outpost of the Union army in that direction. Leaving Tennessee safe in Thomas's charge, and Schofield to keep the rebels out of Chattanooga and Nashville, Sherman now prepared for a campaign which he had already projected through Georgia and North Carolina "to the sea." "They are at my mercy," he telegraphed to Washington, "and I shall strike. Do not be anxious about me. I am all right." With the army under his command, consisting of nearly 60,000 infantry, and 10,000 cavalry, he proposed to cut loose from all bases, and, with thirty or forty days' rations and a train of the smallest possible dimensions, to move southeastward through the very heart of the Confederacy, upon Savannah; thence, if favored by circumstances, to turn northward through North and South Carolinas, thus compelling the surrender or evacuation of Richmond. With General Sherman, action follows close on thought. Destroying all the public buildings of Atlanta, he
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moved forward in two columns, the right commanded by Gen- eral Howard and the left by General Slocum, while a cloud of cavalry floating around the main body, shrouded the real inten- tions of the march with a degree of mystery impenetrable to the enemy. General Howard's column, accompanied by Gen- eral Sherman, passed through East Point, Rough and Ready, Griffin, Jonesboro, McDonough, Forsythe, Hillsboro, and Monti- cello, reaching Milledgeville, the capital of Georgia, on the 20th of November; thence via Saundersville and Griswold to Louis- ville. The left wing, meanwhile, under Slocum, had marched through Decatur, Covington, Social Circle, Madison ; threatened Macon with attack, then through Buckhead and Queensboro, and divided, one part moving towards Augusta, the other to Eatonton and Sparta. Here, uniting, they entered Warren and finally joined the right wing at Louisville. The whole force now moved down the left bank of the Ogeechee to Millen and thence to the Savannah canal, where their scouts, on the 9th of December, communicated with General Foster and Admiral Dahlgren, who where there waiting for their arrival.
During this magnificent march of three hundred miles, they had met with no very serious opposition, and the few troops which the rebel generals could muster, were skilfully thrown out of his way by Sherman's feints on Macon and Augusta- by which they were garrisoned for the defence of those cities. So completely, indeed, was General Bragg fooled by his wily antagonist, that when Savannah was actually attacked, he was unable to come to its relief. Fort McAllister was carried by storm, by the Union troops, on the 13th of December, and on the 16th, the city, which, by some strange oversight, had only a garrison of one hundred and fifty men, was summoned to surrender. General Hardee, who commanded these, refused, whereupon Sherman commanded to invest the city, with the
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design of bombarding it. But, on the night of the 20th, under cover of a heavy fire from the rebel gunboats and batteries, Hardee abandoned the city, which was entered the next day by the Union army. Into the hands of the victors fell 150 guns, 13 locomotives, 190 cars, large stores of ammunition and sup- plies, 3 steamers, and 33,000 bales of cotton in warehouses. The expedition, the entire loss of which was less than 400 men, gave freedom to over 20,000 slaves who accompanied it to Savannah; and its course was marked by over 200 miles of destroyed railroad, which effectually broke the enemy's con- nection with Hood's and Beauregard's armies. Simultaneously, also, with their victorious entry into Savannah, Sherman and his brave veterans received the welcome news, that the Union army in Tennessee, decoying Hood to Nashville, had there turned upon him, and utterly routed him even beyond the borders of Alabama. From every quarter, indeed, of Sherman's military jurisdiction, came the good news, that in each place his subordinates had proved themselves worthy of the trusts com- mitted to their charge. Hopefully then, the great leader turned to the completion of his self-imposed and herculean task.
South Carolina-Columbia, its capital, and Charleston, "the nest of the rebellion," were yet to be humbled beneath the mailed foot of loyalty. Refreshed, recruited and strengthened at every point, the army commenced its march to the northward, on the 14th of January, 1865. Two corps (15th and 17th) were sent by transports to Beaufort, South Carolina, where they were joined by Foster's command, and the whole force moved on the Savannah and Charleston railroad. A few days later, the two remaining corps (14th and 20th) crossed the Savannalı river, and despite the overflowed and terrible condition of the roads, struck the railroad between Branchville and Charleston, early in February ; compelled the enemy to evacuate the former
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place on the 11th, and breaking up the road so as to effectually prevent reinforcement from the west, entering Orangeburg on the 16th, and Columbia on the 18th, close on the heels of Beauregard's retreating force. This movement flanked Charles- ton, and Hardee, finding it untenable, retreated in the light of a conflagration, which laid two thirds of the business portion of that beautiful city in ashes. On the morning of February 18th, the Union troops from Morris island, entered the city, and the " old flag" once more floated over Fort Sumter. Moving in two columns, the 17th and 20th corps marched from Columbia to Winnsboro, thirty miles north, on the Charlotte and Columbia railroad, which was thoroughly destroyed. Sending Kilpatrick towards Chesterville, in order to delude Beauregard into the be- lief that he was moving on that point, Sherman turned east, his left wing directed towards Cheraw, and his right threatening Florence. On the 3d of March occurred the short and not very severe battle of Cheraw, a success for the Union arms, and on the next day, March 4th, President Lincoln's second inauguration was celebrated by a salute from the rebel guns which they had captured. On the afternoon and night of the 6th, the Union army crossed the Great Pedee river, and in four columns, with outlying cavalry, swept through a belt of country forty miles wide, entering Laurel Hill, North Carolina, on the 8th, and reaching Fayetteville on the 11th. Thus far, the results of the campaign had been, 14 captured cities, hundreds of miles of railroads, and thousands of bales of cotton destroyed, 85 cannon, £
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