There can be no just comparison of these two campaigns, either as illustrating the same system of tactics, or as yielding the same results. The aggregate of Federal forces in Georgia did not exceed, at the beginning of the campaign, one hundred thousand men, if indeed it reached that figure. To oppose this, Johnston had forty-five thousand. We have already stated the aggregate of Federal forces in Virginia to have been at least four times the force that, under any circumstances, Lee could have made available. The public did not interpret as retreats, the parallel movements by which Lee successively threw himself in the front of Grant, wherever the latter made a demonstration. Not once had Lee turned his back upon the enemy, nor abandoned a position, save when the baffled foe, after enormous losses, sought a new field of operations. At its conclusion, Grant had sustained losses in excess of the whole of Lee’s army, abandoned altogether his original design, and sought a base of operations, which he might have reached in the beginning, not only without loss, but without even opposition.
Some explanation of the widely disproportionate results achieved in Virginia and Georgia, is to be found in the different tactics of the Federal commanders. Sherman, whose nature is thoroughly aggressive, yet developed great skill and caution. Instead of fruitlessly dashing his army against fortifications, upon ground of the enemy’s choosing, he treated the positions of Johnston as fortresses, from which his antagonist was to be flanked.
But while this explanation was appreciated, the public was much disposed to accept the two campaigns as illustrations of the different systems of tactics accredited to the two Confederate commanders. It was seen that in Virginia the enemy occupied no new territory, and, at the end of three months, was upon ground which he might easily have occupied at the beginning of the campaign, but to reach which, by the means selected, had cost him nearly eighty thousand men.[76] In Georgia, on the other hand, Sherman had advanced one hundred miles upon soil heretofore firmly held by the Confederacy, and without a general engagement of the opposing forces. In Virginia, the enemy had no difficulty as to his transportation, and the farther Grant advanced towards James River, the more secure and abundant became his means of supply. In Georgia, Sherman drew his supplies over miles of hostile territory, and was nowhere aided by the proximity of navigable streams.
When in a censorious mood, the popular mind is not over-careful of the aptness of the parallels and analogies, wherewith to justify its carping judgments. Without denying his skill, or questioning his possession of the higher qualities of generalship, people complained that “Johnston was a retreating general.” Whatever judgment may have arisen from subsequent events, it can not be fairly denied that when Johnston reached Atlanta, there was a very perceptible loss of popular confidence, not less in the issue of the campaign than in General Johnston himself. It was in deference to popular sentiment, as much as in accordance with his views of the necessity of the military situation, that President Davis, about the middle of July, relieved General Johnston from command. Sympathizing largely with the popular aspiration for a more bold, ample, and comprehensive policy, and appreciating the value of unlimited public confidence, Mr. Davis had lost much of his hope of those decisive results, which he believed the Western army competent to achieve.
The dispatch relieving General Johnston was as follows:
“Richmond, Va., July 17, 1864.
“To General J. E. Johnston:
“Lieutenant-General J. B. Hood has been commissioned to the temporary rank of General, under the law of Congress. I am directed by the Secretary of War to inform you, that as you have failed to arrest the advance of the enemy to the vicinity of Atlanta, and express no confidence that you can defeat or repel him, you are hereby relieved from the command of the Army and Department of Tennessee, which you will immediately turn over to General Hood.
“S. COOPER,
“Adjutant and Inspector-General.”
This order sufficiently explains the immediate motive of Johnston’s removal, but there was a train of circumstances which, at length, brought the President reluctantly to this conclusion. The progress of events in Georgia, from the beginning of spring, had developed a marked difference in the views of General Johnston and the President. Early in the year Mr. Davis had warmly approved an offensive campaign against the Federal army, while its various wings were not yet united. The Federal force, then in the neighborhood of Dalton, did not greatly exceed the Confederate strength, and Mr. Davis, foreseeing the concentration of forces for the capture of Atlanta, believed the opportunity for a decisive stroke to exist before this concentration should ensue. General Hood likewise favored this view of the situation. He urged that the enemy would certainly concentrate forces to such an extent, if permitted, as would gradually force the Southern army back into the interior, where a defeat would be irreparable, with no new defensive line, and without the hope of rallying either the army or the people. General Johnston opposed these views, on the ground that the enemy, if defeated, had strong positions where they could take refuge, while a defeat of the Confederate force would be fatal. This difference of opinion is to be appropriately decided only by military criticism, but it can not be fairly adjudged that an offensive in the spring would not have succeeded, because it failed in the following autumn. Circumstances were altogether different.