The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 2 (of 2) / A Narrative and Critical History

by George Cary Eggleston

But when he had settled himself in Atlanta, depopulated the town and sent its helpless people into exile, Sherman found himself in a sore predicament. His sole base of supplies was at Chattanooga—a hundred miles away—and his only line of communication with that base was a single track railroad running through a hostile country and subject to interruption at any hour. His enemy occupied a position near Atlanta from which he could not be dislodged without fearful slaughter, and the enterprise of that enemy in attacks upon the Federal line of communications was hourly made evident. Sherman's problem of future operations was an exceedingly perplexing one. But whatever its decision might ultimately be, he prepared himself for it by bringing forward great quantities of provisions and ammunition and strengthening his rear in every possible way. At every station on the line of railroad between Atlanta and Chattanooga, he placed small bodies of men, entrenching them to resist cavalry. At important points he built strong blockhouses for further defense.

More important still, in anticipation of a northward advance of the Confederates, he asked for and secured strong reinforcements for Thomas, whom he had stationed at Nashville, with command of all the strategic points in Tennessee and Northern Georgia.

In the meanwhile Sherman himself was watching Hood, and meditating upon the question of what further movements he might undertake with his army at Atlanta, now that he had effectually secured Nashville, Chattanooga and the other strategic points north of his position.

He was also busily engaged in diplomacy. At that time there was widespread discontent at the South with the conduct of the war and not a little despair. To many minds, including those of a number of influential statesmen, the conviction had come that all hope of the ultimate success of the Confederate cause had passed away, and that it was high time to give up the effort and make peace while yet the South's resisting power was great enough to serve as an argument in behalf of favorable terms.

In North Carolina this sentiment took form in the open candidacy of Mr. Holden for the governorship on a platform which advocated the secession of that state from the Confederacy, and the conclusion of peace between the United States and North Carolina as an independent sovereignty entirely free to return at will to the Union.

This was logical enough, but it was of course impracticable. The foundation stone of the Confederacy was the contention that each state was independently sovereign and could withdraw at its own good pleasure from any union or confederacy into which it might have entered. But logic or no logic, law or no law, sovereignty or subjection, it was certain that while war was on the Richmond government would never permit North Carolina to withdraw from the Confederacy and become again one of the United States. The geographical position of North Carolina was such that Confederate consent to such a program would have been Confederate suicide. Nevertheless, and in face of the certainty of Confederate warfare, the candidate who advocated this course received 20,000 votes against his adversary's 54,000.

In Georgia the discontent took a form even more dangerous to Confederate interests. The Governor of that state, Joseph E. Brown, was almost in open rebellion against the Richmond government. On the tenth of September he recalled and furloughed all the Georgia militia that had been serving under Johnston and afterwards under Hood, thus seriously weakening Hood's already inferior force at a time when it stood in peculiar need of strengthening. He still further claimed for his state the right to recall from the Confederate armies everywhere all the Georgia troops that were enlisted in that service. With the scarcely disguised purpose of thus taking Georgia out of the Confederacy and making a separate peace for that state, he issued a summons for the legislature to meet almost immediately.

Further than this, Georgia's most famous statesman and by all odds that state's most influential citizen was Alexander H. Stephens. Mr. Stephens had opposed secession to the bitter end and his selection to be Vice-President of the Confederacy had clearly been dictated by the desire of the politicians to placate him and the multitude of strong Union men who looked to him for leadership. Mr. Stephens had at no time during the war been on terms of intimacy with Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis could not distrust the integrity of such a man, but he always distrusted his sympathy with the plans and purposes of the Richmond Government, and when the grave discontent arose in Georgia, he attributed it largely to the influence of Mr. Stephens's sentiments. For these were everywhere known.

Mr. Stephens believed firmly in the constitutional right of secession, but, in common with many others, and especially in common with the Virginians, he had from the first held that secession was uncalled for by anything that Mr. Lincoln's election in 1860 implied or threatened. He had insisted upon love for the Union as stoutly as Alexander Hamilton himself—for whom Mr. Stephens was named—could have done. Believing as he did firmly in the right of a state to secede and in the paramount obligation of every citizen to yield allegiance to his state, Mr. Stephens accepted Georgia's secession without in the least approving it.

In the autumn of 1864 he was convinced, as many other thinking men at the South were, that the military problems of the war had been in effect decided; that there was absolutely no further ground for hope of Southern success, and that further continuance of the war could mean nothing else than a needless sacrifice of life and of the substance of the people. He made no concealment of these views and the number of Southern men who shared them grew daily greater.