At the Hiwassee we were a hundred and forty miles from Bull's Gap, and had made the distance in three days, marching half the way and being carried the other half by rail. In going south we seemed to meet the advancing spring. In the upper valley we could only see a suspicion of green, here and there, on an early tree, but at our Sunday camp at Charleston in a fine bend of the Hiwassee, a fresh green robe covered all the hills, and the sun was so bright and warm that the shade of my clean new tent was very comfortable. It would be hard to find a scene better making a romance of campaigning than that about us. Chilhowee and the great Smoky Mountains piled their deep blue masses against the eastern horizon, whilst at our feet rolled as beautiful a river as ever bore a musical Indian name. The grassy banks rise about a hundred feet above the water, and then the hills roll and rise around us in charming variety. Near the water's edge a great spring pours out from the bank in a swift steady stream two yards wide and six inches deep, giving sweet and pure water enough for a whole army, and the zigzag paths to it are filled with picturesque groups of soldiers loaded with camp kettles or canteens. We should have been dull indeed if we had not felt the exhilaration of the scene.
GRANT, HALLECK AND SHERMAN--JOHNSTON AND MR. DAVIS
Grant's desire for activity in the winter--Scattering to live--Subordinate movements--The Meridian expedition--Use of the Mississippi--Sherman's estimate of it--Concentration to be made in the spring--Grant joins the Potomac Army--Motives in doing so--Meade as an army commander--Halleck on concentration--North Carolina expedition given up--Burnside to join Grant--Old relations of Sherman and Halleck--Present cordial friendship--Frank correspondence--The supply question--Railway administration--Bridge defences--Reduction of baggage--Tents--Sherman on spies and deserters--Changes in Confederate army--Bragg relieved--Hardee--Beauregard--Johnston--Davis's suggestion of plans--Correspondence with Johnston--Polk's mediation--Characteristics--Bragg's letters--Lee writes Longstreet--Johnston's dilatory discussion--No results--Longstreet joins Lee--Grant and Sherman have the initiative--Prices in the Confederacy.
The threshold of the new campaign is a fit place to pick up the threads of the relations of Sherman to his superiors and his subordinates, and to notice the manner in which he laid out the responsible work before him.
Grant had no thought of suspending operations in winter, further than circumstances should make it imperative. As soon as the siege of Knoxville was raised, he applied himself earnestly to the question, What next? His first choice would have been to start from Chattanooga as a base, and make the Confederate Army his object. The insuperable obstacle to this was the impossibility, at the time, of supplying the forces already collected on the upper Tennessee. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 503.] The railroad to Nashville must be practically rebuilt and made much more efficient than it was, or both Thomas's and Foster's armies would be tied fast without the possibility of advancing. To make it possible to feed Sherman's auxiliary force, he sent it down the river to Bellefonte, some thirty miles below Bridgeport, opened steamboat communication with it, and set it at work repairing the railway from Nashville to Decatur and from Decatur to Stevenson. This would furnish an additional line to Chattanooga when completed, and would make an accumulation of stores there a possibility. He saw the risks involved in this scattering of forces, but he had no choice; they must scatter to live. He did not mean that the army should be inactive, however; as early as the 7th of December, 1863, he wrote quite fully to Halleck suggesting a movement from the lower Mississippi on Mobile, using for this purpose the forces that would be relieved from guarding the lines about Chattanooga. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 349.]
By the middle of the month he had begun to organize a cavalry force under Gen. W. Sooy Smith, to move against Forrest in West Tennessee, and was giving shape to other plans of activity. [Footnote: Id., pp. 429, 431, 473.] Sherman had taken a short leave of absence to visit his family upon the death of one of his sons, a bright lad, whose loss was a severe bereavement. On his return to duty, he was directed to go down the Mississippi, visit the important posts of his department, and take steps to suppress guerilla interference with the navigation of the Mississippi. Before leaving his command, he had suggested an active movement of part of his army in northern Alabama, to break up the railroad in the neighborhood of Corinth, whilst he himself led a force up the Yazoo River to attack Granada from the south, with a similar purpose. He thought he could do this and get back in time to take part in the "plan of grand campaign" which Grant was studying. In the same letter he said he deemed Sooy Smith "too mistrustful of himself for a leader against Forrest," and suggested Brigadier-General Joseph A. Mower, of whose energy and courage he had a high opinion. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 445.]
On the subject of the necessity of protecting the river navigation by every means, Sherman expressed himself in superlatives, as he was apt to do, but his meaning was plain and sensible. He said to Logan, to secure its safety "I would slay millions. On that point I am not only insane, but mad," and will convince the natives that "though to stand behind a big cotton-wood and shoot at a passing boat is good sport and safe, it may still reach and kill their friends and families hundreds of miles off." [Footnote: Id. vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 459.] Out of this discussion came finally his suggestion of an extensive movement from Vicksburg upon Meridian for the purpose of destroying the railway lines, especially in the vicinity of the latter place, and of isolating the region bordering on the Mississippi, so that a small force could garrison it and protect commerce. The suggestion was adopted by Grant. With Sherman's column the cavalry under Sooy Smith was to co-operate. [Footnote: Id., pp. 473, 527.]
Meridian was made the objective point of this movement, though Grant intimated to Halleck that if Sherman found it would not too greatly prolong the subordinate campaign, he might march on Mobile. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 100.] When the march began, Sherman allowed it to be given out that he would attack Mobile, but this was to deceive the enemy. In his correspondence with General Banks he limited his task to that which has been stated, though he asked Banks to help him keep up the notion that Mobile was aimed at, as it would deter the enemy from heavily reinforcing General Polk by the garrison there and by troops sent from Atlanta. "I must return to the army in the field in Alabama in February," said he, "but propose to avail myself of the short time allowed me here in the department, to strike a blow at Meridian and Demopolis." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 114.] In this view the movement was a success, notwithstanding the failure of the cavalry column to co-operate. [Footnote: Id., p. 498.] The biographer of General Polk disputes the importance and the permanence of the interruption of railway communication in Mississippi; [Footnote: Leonidas Polk, Bishop and General, vol. ii. p. 309.] but it is certain that no important hostile movement from that region was made again till Hood's campaign against Thomas a year later, and that was seriously if not fatally delayed by the want of railway communication between Florence or Tuscumbia and the interior of the Gulf States.