There was a clamor throughout the South for his removal, and the appointment of a general who would take the offensive. Jeff Davis disliked Johnston on personal grounds, and appointed Hood his successor. That officer hurled his troops against Sherman's breastworks, and suffered a damaging defeat. Sherman in turn made a flank movement, and compelled Hood to evacuate Atlanta, which Sherman occupied on the 2d of September. Jeff Davis hastened West. He conceived the idea of forcing Sherman to retreat from Atlanta to Nashville, by invading Tennessee. As Hood's army had been driven from Chattanooga to Dalton, losing all its strong positions, this plan is one of the most remarkable in military history. It is hardly within the sphere of sober criticism, but appropriately belongs to the comic page. "Your feet shall again press the soil of Tennessee, within thirty days," said Davis to the soldiers. "The invader shall be driven from your territory. The retreat of Sherman from Atlanta shall be like Napoleon's from Moscow."
Sherman had already contemplated a movement to Savannah, and had opened correspondence with Grant.
"Until we can repopulate Georgia it is useless to occupy it; but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources. By attempting to hold the roads we will lose a thousand men monthly, and will gain no result. I can make the march and make Georgia howl.... Hood may turn into Tennessee and Kentucky, but I believe he will be forced to follow me. Instead of being on the defensive, I would be on the offensive. Instead of guessing at what he means, he would have to guess at my plans. The difference in war is fully twenty-five per cent. I can make Savannah, Charleston, or the mouth of the Chattahoochee, and prefer to march through Georgia, smashing things to the sea."
Grant authorized the movement. Hood was preparing to move north.
Sherman's right wing, commanded by Howard, was composed of Osterhaus's Fifteenth Corps and the Seventeenth, under Blair; Slocum had his left wing, containing the Fourteenth Corps under Jeff. C. Davis, and the Twentieth with Williams.
The Twentieth was consolidated from the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps of the Army of the Potomac, which had fought at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg.
Sherman sent his last despatch to Washington on the 11th of November. On the 17th, the day on which Sherman left Atlanta, Hood crossed the Tennessee River, to make the movement which was to compel Sherman to evacuate Georgia!
Sherman's southward march was a surprise to the Rebels. They affected joy, and predicted his destruction.
Said the Augusta Constitutionalist:—
"The hand of God is in it. The blow, if we can give it as it should be given, may end the war. We urge our friends in the track of the advance to remove forage and provisions, horses, mules, and negroes, and stock, and burn the balance. Let the invader find the desolation he would leave behind him staring him in the face.... Cut trees across all roads in front of the enemy, burn the bridges, remove everything possible in time, and, before the enemy arrives, burn and destroy what cannot be removed,—leave nothing on which he can subsist; and hide the millstone and machinery of the mills.... The Russians destroyed the grand army of Napoleon, of five hundred thousand men, by destroying their country, by the fulness of fire applied to their own cities, houses, and granaries. Let Georgians imitate their unselfishness and love of country for a few weeks, and the army of Sherman will have the fate of the army of Napoleon."[72]