There were other Confederate cruisers like unto the Alabama, including the Shenandoah, the Florida, the Tallahassee, the Tacony, and the Georgia. These ships largely aided in that destruction of American commerce in which the Alabama had taken the lead. But none of them had so picturesque a career as was that of the Alabama, while the careers of all of them are fitly represented by that of Admiral Semmes's ship.
The destructive activities of these ships were afterwards made the subject of an international arbitration, and Great Britain was condemned to pay to the United States an indemnity of $15,500,000 for her neglect of international comity in permitting them to sail from her ports.
[CHAPTER XLIX]
Sherman's Campaign against Atlanta
The plan by which General Grant hoped to crush the Confederacy during the summer of 1864 and to make an end of the resisting power of its armies has been set forth already. In that plan, as the reader will remember, an operation second in importance only to Grant's own campaign in Virginia was Sherman's southward march from Chattanooga, which was intended to defeat Johnston, seize upon Atlanta, and push forward thence through the heart of the Confederacy, either to Mobile or to Savannah, in either case cutting the Confederacy in two and leaving Lee with no substantial country behind him. Sherman had already in the spring swept through the country from Vicksburg to Chattanooga, paralyzing Confederate resistance there, breaking up all the railroad communications, and opening a wide path on the east of the Mississippi river for any military operations that the Federal Government might decide to institute in that quarter of the country. Then Grant in pursuance of his policy of putting his strongest lieutenants into the most important commands under himself, had ordered Sherman to take control of all the forces in the West, subject to no dictation whatsoever, except such as Grant himself might find occasion to exercise. And in giving Sherman his orders, Grant steadfastly bore in mind his conviction that Sherman was a general too capable and too energetic to need minute instruction or anything more than general orders. To Sherman he assigned a command and a duty. He left it to Sherman's own judgment so to handle the command as to execute the duty, and accomplish the purpose intended.
Many months earlier Grant had left affairs undirected in a part of the smaller area which he then controlled upon the avowed ground that "Sherman was there." Upon the same principle and in the same abounding confidence in his lieutenant, he thought it sufficient in 1864 to tell Sherman in a general way what he wanted him to do in aid of the general purposes of the campaign, and to leave him to do it in his own way. In scarcely any other act of his life did Grant better illustrate the breadth and strength of his own capacity than he did in thus appreciating and trusting Sherman, and in treating Meade in like manner in Virginia so far as his own presence with Meade's army permitted.
Sherman's problem was difficult of execution, but perfectly simple in its terms. It was his duty to assail Johnston, destroy him if possible, seize upon Atlanta, the great railroad center of the South, and push a column thence to the sea. For the accomplishment of this purpose Sherman had the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by General George H. Thomas, the Army of the Tennessee, commanded by General James B. McPherson, and the Army of the Ohio, commanded by General John M. Schofield. His total fighting force was about 100,000 men.
Opposed to him was Johnston, who lay at Dalton, Georgia, with about 43,000 men.
Sherman had hope of reinforcements sufficient at least to make good his losses on the march which he was about to undertake, while Johnston perfectly knew that he could hope for no reinforcement at all. Sherman had lines of communication over which he could bring to his army 130 carloads of provisions each day. Johnston's men sometimes had scanty rations, and sometimes none at all. He had no secure source of supply in any quarter, as was usually the case with Confederate armies at this period of the war. Lee's army had received a ration of three quarters of a pound of uncooked flour to each man at Spottsylvania just before the movement from that point, and it was three days later—three days of hard fighting and hard marching—before the majority of them received any other rations whatsoever. Johnston's army was similarly starved during the campaign of Atlanta.