PREPARATIONS FOR SHERMAN’S GRAND MARCH.
General Thomas, at the head of a considerable body of Union troops, was at this time in readiness to confront the advancing rebels south of Nashville. On hearing that Hood had started to invade Tennessee, General Sherman immediately withdrew his army to Rome, and sent forward two corps, the Fourth and the Twenty-third, one commanded by General Stanley, the other by General Schofield, to reinforce Thomas. These troops went by way of Chattanooga, and safely reached their destination. General Sherman’s remaining force consisted of five corps—the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Twentieth—the latter constituting the garrison of Atlanta. With this force, subsequently condensed into four corps, and amply sufficient for the purpose, he was prepared for his great march across the rebel territory, from Atlanta to the sea. Full details of the plan had been given to General Thomas, who, on his part, felt confident of being able to dispose of Hood.
To cut off all communication between Atlanta and Chattanooga, to destroy every possible facility of transportation in that vicinity, which an enemy might chance to find serviceable, and lastly, to render Atlanta itself entirely useless, were now imperative incidents of Sherman’s campaign. This work was accomplished within the first twelve days of the month of November. In the course of that time, all the wounded and the sick, together with all prisoners, stores and machinery, and surplus artillery that had accumulated at Rome, Atlanta, and other neighboring places were conveyed by railroad to Chattanooga. The road was then destroyed. The hand of destruction was also laid, though lightly, upon Rome, everything being demolished in that city which might chance to become useful to the rebels in future. A contemporary correspondent gives the following account of
THE BURNING OF ROME, GA.
November 11, 1864.
“Rome was evacuated at ten o’clock this forenoon by our (U. S.) forces; but not until the Etowah House, a respectable three-story brick hotel was consumed by fire. Stragglers managed to ignite a lot of straw in the building, and, there being no engines in the town, it was impossible to subdue the flames. A block of fine brick stores was also wantonly destroyed by skulking stragglers. All the barracks were laid in ashes, and a black veil of dark smoke hung over the war-desolated city all day, arising from the smouldering ruins. Owing to the great lack of railroad transportation, General Corse was obliged to destroy nearly a million of dollars’ worth of property, among which was a few thousand dollars’ worth of condemned and unserviceable government stores. Nine rebel guns, captured at Rome by our troops, were burst, it being deemed unsafe to use them. One thousand bales of fine cotton, two flour mills, two rolling mills, two tanneries, one salt mill, an extensive foundry, several machine shops, together with the railroad depots and storehouses, four pontoon bridges, built by General Corse’s pioneer corps, for use on the Coosa and Etowah rivers, and a substantial trestle bridge nearly completed for use, were completely destroyed. This trestle, constructed by the engineer corps, I am told, would have cost fifty thousand dollars north. Recollecting the outrages perpetrated upon Colonel Streight by the ‘Romans,’ our troops, as soon as they learned that the town was to be abandoned, and a portion of it burned, resolved to lay Rome in ashes in revenge. The roaring of the flames, as they leaped from window to window, their savage tongues of fire darting high up into the heavens, and then licking the sides of the buildings, presented an awful but grand spectacle, while then mounted patrol and the infantry men glided along through the brilliant light, like the ghostly spectres of horrid war.”
THE DESTRUCTION OF ATLANTA.
November, 1864.
Atlanta, popularly called the Gate City, is situated seven miles southeast of the Chattahoochie river, and on the line of railroads leading from Savannah to Chattanooga and Nashville, and to Macon, Augusta, Milledgeville, Savannah, and Charleston, in the southeast direction. It is one hundred and one miles from Macon, one hundred and seventy-one miles from Augusta, three hundred and seven miles from Charleston, and two hundred and ninety-two miles from Savannah. Four of the principal railroads of the State terminate at this point. The Georgia railroad extends from Atlanta to Augusta; the Western railroad to Macon; the Atlantic and Western railroad to Chattanooga; and the Lagrange railroad to West Point, seventy-two miles distant. Atlanta was laid out in 1845, and has grown with great rapidity, its population being, in 1850, two thousand five hundred and seventy; in 1853, four thousand two hundred and eighty; and in 1860, nine thousand eight hundred and seventy.
Its destruction by General Sherman has sometimes been condemned as an act of vandalism, whereas it was—as subsequent events sufficiently demonstrated—a timely and unavoidable military act, dictated by the most imperative prudential reasons.
The following narrative of the burning of Atlanta is furnished by an eye-witness:
“Atlanta was of strategic value only so long as it remained a great railroad centre; it had now no longer any value to our troops, as every railroad leading to it was destroyed—the railways gutted, torn up, and the very iron of which they were composed, put beyond use. For miles the country round about it had been made a complete waste, so that there was no possibility of the rebels again occupying it. But had we remained there all winter, Hood and the rebel cavalry would also have remained hanging about the place, and whenever opportunity offered, harassing our men, though they would have, at any time, fled before our army. The ever-active mind of General Sherman scorned such petty warfare; he therefore determined to render the city itself as unfit for rebel habitation as he had already rendered the country around it unfit for the movements of an army.