Hood attempted to block the march on Jonesboro, and Hardee was sent with his and S. D. Lee’s Corps to attack the Federals, while he himself sought an opportunity to move upon Sherman’s right flank. Hardee’s attack failed, and this necessitated the evacuation of Atlanta. After blowing up his magazines and destroying the supplies which his men could not carry with them, Hood abandoned the city, and the next day, September 2d, General Slocum, having succeeded Hooker, led the Twentieth Corps of the Federal army within its earthen walls. Hood had made his escape, saving his army from capture. His chief desire would have been to march directly north on Marietta and destroy the depots of Federal supplies, but a matter of more importance prevented. Thirty-four thousand Union prisoners were confined at Andersonville, and a small body of cavalry could have released them. So Hood placed himself between Andersonville and Sherman.
In the early days of September the Federal hosts occupied the city toward which they had toiled all the summer long. At East Point, Atlanta, and Decatur, the three armies settled for a brief rest, while the cavalry, stretched for many miles along the Chattahoochee, protected their flanks and rear. Since May their ranks had been depleted by some twenty-eight thousand killed and wounded, while nearly four thousand had fallen prisoners, into the Confederates’ hands.
It was a great price, but whatever else the capture of Atlanta did, it ensured the reëlection of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency of the United States. The total Confederate losses were in the neighborhood of thirty-five thousand, of which thirteen thousand were prisoners.
COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.
SHERMAN IN 1865
If Sherman was deemed merciless in war, he was superbly generous when the fighting was over. To Joseph E. Johnston he offered most liberal terms of surrender for the Southern armies. Their acceptance would have gone far to prevent the worst of the reconstruction enormities. Unfortunately his first convention with Johnston was disapproved. The death of Lincoln had removed the guiding hand that would have meant so much to the nation. To those who have read his published correspondence and his memoirs Sherman appears in a very human light. He was fluent and frequently reckless in speech and writing, but his kindly humanity is seen in both.
