CH. XIII] SHERMAN - THOMAS 399 man showed the same boldness and tenacity in sticking to his purpose when others shook their heads as Grant had shown in his Vicksburg campaign. No general who lacked daring and resolution would have persisted in his determination to advance through Georgia after Hood had crossed the Tennessee river, especially when Grant himself for a while doubted the wisdom of the movement. Sherman was the commander and, even as he knew his men and comprehended the conditions, he knew he could expect no success unless Thomas should defeat Hood. Therein, as / the affair turned out, lay the risk. But Sherman knew Thomas through and through. Classmates at West Point, they had ever since been friends and had been drawn closer together by the vicissitudes of the Civil War despite differences of opinion arising from their diverse temperaments. Sherman had implicit confidence in Thomas, thought that he had furnished him a force sufficient for all emergencies and that the defence of Tennessee was not left to chance. "If I had Schofield," Thomas telegraphed, "I should feel perfectly safe." Sherman had already detached Schofield's corps from his army and sent it northward with instructions to report to Thomas for orders. On the day that Sherman started for the sea, Thomas sent this word: "I have no fear that Beauregard 2 [Hood] can do us any harm now, and if he attempts to follow you, I will follow him as far as possible. If he does not follow you I will then thoroughly organize my troops and I believe I shall have men enough to ruin him unless he gets out of the way very rapidly.' "3 At this time the Union commanders were uncertain whether Hood would follow Sherman or move north toward 1 Nov. 1, 0. R., XXXIX, Pt. 3, 582. 2 Beauregard had been placed in command of the Department and was Hood's superior. 3 Nov. 12, O. R., XXXIX, Pt. 3, 756. 400 SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA [1864 Nashville. The army that marched to the sea proved unnecessarily large and 10,000 men more with Schofield would have saved some trial of soul, yet, as the problem appeared at the time, Sherman must be sufficiently strong to defeat Hood and the scattered forces of uncertain number which would gather to protect Georgia. Moreover, as his ultimate aim was to "re-enforce our armies in Virginia” he must have troops enough to oppose Lee until Grant should be at his heels. He reckoned that the force left in Tennessee was "numerically greater" than Hood's.1 Considering everything that could have been known between November 1 and 12, it seems clear beyond dispute that he made a fair division of his army between himself and Thomas. Sherman reviewed his decision with deliberation, care and foresight; until within six days of his start southward, he held himself ready, if need were, to coöperate with Thomas in the pursuit of Hood, the one moving directly against the Confederates and the other endeavoring to cut off their retreat, for he admitted that "the first object should be the destruction of that army;" 2 but, as the days wore on, he came to believe that the advantages of the march to the sea outweighed those of any other plan and he took the irrevocable step. Stopping at Cartersville on November 12 on his progress southward he received Thomas's last despatch and replied "all right": a bridge was burned, severing the telegraph wire and all communication with Thomas and his government. As was the case with Julian, who "plunged into the recesses of the Marcian or Black forest," so was Sherman's fate for many days "unknown to the world." No direct intelligence from him reached the 10. R., XXXIX, Pt. 3, 659, 660. Gibbon, Chap. XXII. 4 2 Ibid., 659. 40. R., XXXIX, Pt. 3, 757. CH. XIII] SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA 401 North from November 12 to December 14. "I will not at-. tempt to send carriers back," he had written to Grant, "but trust to the Richmond papers to keep you well advised." 1 For these thirty-two days, Lincoln and Grant had no other information of this important movement than what they could glean from the Southern `journals. Sherman's imagination was vividly impressed with the strangeness of the situation: "two hostile armies were marching in opposite directions, each in the full belief that it was achieving a final and conclusive result in the great war." 2 It would be impossible to show an entire consistency in the utterances of this great general; a single aspect of the campaign often claimed his attention to the exclusion of all others and he was so fertile in thought and fluent in expression that the idea uppermost in his brain was apt to burst forth without regard for what else remained behind. As with almost all men of action, the speculation of to-day might supersede that of yesterday only to disappear under that of to-morrow, yet this did not impair his capacity for making a correct decision nor his steadfastness in the execution of a plan. Grant, more reticent and not at all expansive, is not chargeable in the same degree with inconsistency in his written words. He lacked imagination and did not worry. A remark of Sherman's provides an acute estimate of their different temperaments: Grant does not care "for what the enemy does out of his sight but it scares me." 3 While the army was concentrating at Atlanta, the railway station, machine shops and other buildings of that city which might be useful to the enemy in his military operations were destroyed. The right wing and one corps 10. R., XXXIX, Pt. 3, 661. 2 W. Sherman, II, 170. 3 Wilson's Under the Old Flag, II, 17. |