Rosecrans was defeated at Chickamauga by Bragg, Sept. 19th and 20th, 1863. On this, Grant was placed in command of the whole Military Division of the Mississippi, and Sherman under him over the Department of the Tennessee. He was at once set to march his troops four hundred miles across to Grant at Chattanooga; accomplished it with wonderful energy, skill and speed; commanded Grant's left at the battle of Chattanooga, beginning the fight, and sustaining and drawing the rebel attacks until their center was weakened enough to enable the Union center under Thomas to storm Missionary Ridge, and win the battle. After the victory and the enemy's pursuit, Sherman's force was sent straightway northward a further hundred miles, to relieve Burnside, now perilously beset in Knoxville. Colonel Bowman thus powerfully states the task which this energetic and enduring commander and army performed:
"A large part of Sherman's command had marched from Memphis, had gone into battle immediately on arriving at Chattanooga, and had had no rest since. In the late campaign officers and men had carried no luggage and provisions. The week before, they had left their camps, on the right bank of the Tennessee, with only two days' rations, without a change of clothing, stripped for the fight, each officer and man, from the commanding general down, having but a single blanket or overcoat. They had now no provisions save what had been gathered by the road, and were ill supplied for such a march. Moreover, the weather was intensely cold. But twelve thousand of their fellow-soldiers were beleaguered in a mountain town eighty-four miles distant; they needed relief, and must have it in three days. This was enough. Without a murmur, without waiting for anything, the Army of the Tennessee directed its course upon Knoxville."
This vigorous forced march was entirely successful; Longstreet, after one violent and vain assault against Burnside's works, fled eastward into Virginia, and Sherman, returning and placing his troops in camp to rest and refresh, returned to Memphis. While there, March 10, 1864, he received that simple and noble letter from Grant, acknowledging the latter's obligations to Sherman and McPherson, which we have copied in our chapter on General Grant. We quote Sherman's reply, which is indeed not less interesting than the letter as a display of frank and manly friendship, and which moreover contains one of Sherman's characteristic prophecies, viz., the final allusion to the winding up of the war by the "Great March," and the siege of Richmond, when the West should once more have been made sure:
"Dear General:—I have your more than kind and characteristic letter of the 4th inst. I will send a copy to General McPherson at once.
"You do yourself injustice and us too much honor in assigning to us too large a share of the merits which have led to your high advancement. I know you approve the friendship I have ever professed to you, and will permit me to continue, as heretofore, to manifest it on all proper occasions.
"You are now Washington's legitimate successor, and occupy a position of almost dangerous elevation; but if you can continue, as heretofore, to be yourself, simple, honest and unpretending, you will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends, and the homage of millions of human beings, that will award you a large share in securing to them and their descendants a government of law and stability.
"I repeat, you do General McPherson and myself too much honor. At Belmont you manifested your traits—neither of us being near. At Donelson, also, you illustrated your whole character. I was not near, and General McPherson in too subordinate a capacity to influence you.
"Until you had won Donelson, I confess I was almost cowed by the terrible array of anarchical elements that presented themselves at every point; but that admitted a ray of light I have followed since.
"I believe you are as brave, patriotic, and just as the great prototype, Washington—as unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest as a man should be—but the chief characteristic is the simple faith in success you have always manifested, which I can liken to nothing else than the faith a Christian has in the Saviour.
"This faith gave you victory at Shiloh and Vicksburg. Also, when you have completed your preparations, you go into battle without hesitation, as at Chattanooga—no doubts—no reverses; and I tell you it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew, wherever I was, that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would help me out, if alive.
"My only point of doubts was in your knowledge of grand strategy, and of books of science and history; but I confess, your common sense seems to have supplied all these.
"Now, as to the future. Don't stay in Washington. Come West; take to yourself the whole Mississippi Valley. Let us make it dead sure—and I tell you, the Atlantic slopes and Pacific shores will follow its destiny, as sure as the limbs of a tree live or die with the main trunk. We have done much, but still much remains. Time and time's influences are with us. We could almost afford to sit still, and let these influences work.
"Here lies the seat of the coming empire, and from the West, when our task is done, we will make short work of Charleston and Richmond, and the impoverished coast of the Atlantic.
Your sincere friend,
W. T. SHERMAN."
When Grant was appointed Lieutenant-General, Sherman succeeded him in the great command of the Department of the Mississippi; and accompanying Grant from Nashville to Cincinnati on the road of the former to Washington, the two great commanders on the way and at the Burnet House in Cincinnati, agreed together upon the whole main structure of that colossal campaign which during the following thirteen months smote into annihilation all that remained of the military power of the rebellion.
Sherman at once set to work to accumulate stores sufficient for a campaign, and his own statements of his motives and views in so doing, are so comically like his doctrines about his "pleb" when a cadet at West Point, that we quote a couple of passages. Having put a stop to the government issues of rations to the poor of East Tennessee, he says:
"At first my orders operated very hardly, but * * * no actual suffering resulted, and I trust that those who clamored at the cruelty and hardships of the day have already seen in the result a perfect justification of my course."
Seeing it himself, it is moreover clear that if they did not, it would not particularly distress him. In stating how he proposed to live if he marched into Georgia, he is as independently and rigidly just:
"Georgia has a million of inhabitants. If they can live, we should not starve. If the enemy interrupt my communications, I will be absolved from all obligations to subsist on my own resources, but feel perfectly justified in taking whatever and wherever I can find. I will inspire my command, if successful, with my feelings, and that beef and salt are all that are absolutely necessary to life, and parched corn fed General Jackson's army once, on that very ground."
All things being ready, Sherman moved from Chattanooga on May 6th, 1864, and by a series of laborious marches, skillful manœuvres and well fought battles, flanked or drove Johnston backwards from one strong post to another, until on the 17th of July, Jefferson Davis greatly simplified and shortened Sherman's problem by putting the rash and incompetent Hood in the place of the skillful and persevering soldier who had with less than half Sherman's force, by using the natural advantages of the country, made him take seventy-two days to advance a hundred miles, and at the end of that time actually had more troops than at first, while Sherman had many less. In fact, Johnston was on the very point of making a dangerous attack on Sherman at the right point, when Hood took command, at once attacked on the wrong one, and was defeated. Still advancing, Sherman manœuvred Hood out of Atlanta; saw that mad bull of a general set off some months later, head down and eyes shut, on his way to dash himself against the steady strength of Thomas at Nashville; and turning back to Atlanta, he prepared for his Great March to the Sea.