On his first visit to Washington after he became lieutenant-general, Grant found that it was the general expectation of members of Congress that he should infuse his personal energy into the next campaign of the army in Virginia. He learned also that the President, the Cabinet, and General Halleck despaired of the accomplishment of this by any stringency of orders from a distance, and thought it could be done only when he should be near enough to solve questions as they arose by his personal presence and influence. As a subordinate, few men could do better service than General Meade; but he seemed to develop a caution amounting almost to inaction in the presence of the Confederate Army under General Lee. This had allowed the Richmond government to send Longstreet's corps to reinforce Bragg at the west; and it was because the grand opportunity was not improved by Meade that it became necessary to send Hooker a thousand miles with the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps to reinforce Rosecrans. Halleck expressed the sentiment of the administration and of the country when he wrote to Grant on December 13th, "As General Meade's operations have failed to produce any results, Lee may send by rail reinforcements to Longstreet without our knowing it. This contingency must also be considered." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 396.] It was, in fact, what Longstreet strenuously urged his government to do. As late as February 17th, when it was certain that Grant would soon be in command of all the National armies, Halleck, in a long letter of which the burden was that Lee's army must be made the objective in the Eastern campaign, plainly intimated that Meade could not give the Army of the Potomac the necessary aggressive energy. "Meade retreated before Lee with a very much larger force," he said, "and he does not now deem himself strong enough to attack Lee's present army." [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pt. ii. p. 411] After mentioning the opportunities to break or defeat the enemy which had been lost or not improved at Antietam and Chancellorsville, he adds that of Meade after Gettysburg, and continues: "I am also of opinion that General Meade could have succeeded recently at Mine Run had he persevered in his attack." [Footnote: Id., p. 412.] Pointing out that McClellan had operated by exterior lines, and Burnside, Hooker, and Meade by interior ones, and that all had alike failed, he argues that this does not prove anything against either line of operation, whether by the James River or by Culpepper; but the sound military principle still is to avoid scattering the eastern army by North Carolina expeditions and the like, which were then mooted, and to concentrate the forces in the east against Lee's army and fight it out to a finish. [Footnote:Id. p. 413.] The letter is an able one, but the reference to it is now made for the sole purpose of showing how the problem was placed before General Grant when the supreme responsibility was cast upon him. He accepted the view so ably presented. He did not allow the proposed expedition to be made by Burnside, though he had himself favored it before; but united his troops to the army on the Rapidan. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 143.] He kept up for a time a nominal duality of organization, not putting Burnside under Meade or Meade under Burnside. This made an ostensible reason for the next step, which was to take the field there in person and try what effect his own inflexible will might have in giving an aggressive impetus to that army. It seemed to him to be a choice between that and a continued dead-lock to the end of the chapter. Thus it was that Grant gave up his own desire to continue at the head of the western armies which he had led to successive and glorious victories. Thus it was that Sherman was right in saying to him, "Like yourself, you take the biggest load." [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 313.] The decision was not prompted by egotism. There was no vanity in Grant's composition. He simply saw, as he thought, that in that way decisive progress might be made, and so he quietly went that way.
Sherman's relations to Halleck had always been close and most friendly. Outside of official communications they had kept up a personal correspondence, part of which is found in the Official Records. From the day when it became apparent that Grant was to become lieutenant-general, Sherman yielded to his impulse to comfort and reassure his older friend on what must necessarily involve disappointment if not humiliation. In a long letter from the Mississippi in January, he takes pleasure in telling how he had spoken in public of Halleck's good qualities and talents. "I spoke of your indomitable industry and called to mind how, when Ord, Loeser, Spotts, and I were shut up in our stateroom, trying to keep warm with lighted candles and playing cards on the old Lexington, off Cape Horn, you were lashed to your berth studying, boning harder than you ever did at West Point." [Footnote:Id., pt. ii. p. 261.] This was on their voyage out to California during the Mexican War. In a cordial answer (February 16th), Halleck said he expected Grant to receive the promotion, and should most cordially welcome him to the chief command, glad himself to be relieved from so thankless and disagreeable a position. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 408.] He enlarged upon its difficulties, though he did not see, apparently, that it had been in his power to take the field as Grant afterward did, and that it was by his own act that he had become "simply a military adviser of the Secretary of War and the President." He bore witness to the fact that there was more harmony in the western army than in the eastern, saying, "There is less jealousy and backbiting and a greater disposition to assist each other." [Footnote: Ibid.] In reply Sherman assured Halleck of his own belief that Grant would prefer to command the "army of the centre" which was to advance from Chattanooga, and did not want the position of general-in-chief at Washington. [Footnote: Id., p. 498.]
At the beginning of April Sherman wrote again to Halleck, expressing his belief that he could make his army a unit in action and feeling. "We have never had," he said, "and God grant we never may have the dissensions which have so marred the usefulness of our fellows whom a common cause and common interests alone ought to unite as brothers." [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 222.] It was in this letter that he asked Halleck to say to the President that he would prefer not to be nominated to the vacant major-generalship in the regular army. "I have now all the rank necessary to command, and I believe all here concede to me the ability, yet accidents may happen, and I don't care about increasing the distance of my fall. The moment another appears on the arena better than me, I will cheerfully subside. Indeed, now, my preference would be to have my Fifteenth Corps, which was as large a family as I feel willing to provide for; yet I know Grant has a mammoth load to carry. He wants here some one who will fulfil his plans, whole and entire and at the time appointed, and he believes I will do it. I hope he is not mistaken. I know my weak points, and thank you from the bottom of my heart for past favors and advice, and will in the future heed all you may offer, with the deepest confidence in your ability and sincerity."
A single reference more will complete this sketch of the relations of those prominent men. The week before the opening of his campaign (April 24th) Sherman wrote again: "I see a mischievous paragraph that you are dissatisfied and will resign; of course I don't believe it. If I did, I would enter my protest. You possess a knowledge of law and of the principles of war far beyond that of any other officer in our service. You remember that I regretted your going to Washington for your own sake, but now that you are there you should not leave." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 469.] This hearty friendship and cordial comradeship lasted unbroken till Halleck's too famous advice to Mr. Stanton after Lincoln was assassinated, to direct Sherman's subordinates in the Gulf States and in the West not to obey the orders he might issue in pursuance of his convention with the Confederate General Johnston. That was a sore blow which shattered this lifelong friendship, though it now seems probable that had Halleck's dispatch to Stanton not been published without the rest of the correspondence, Sherman might have found possible a more innocent meaning for his words than they seemed to have when they were read by themselves. This, however, is not the place to discuss that subject. [Footnote: See Chap. L., post.]
In considering Sherman's means of supplying his army in the field, we must note the situation and connections of Nashville, which made it naturally the principal depot for operations in Alabama and Georgia. A hundred and eighty-six miles by rail south of the Ohio River, centrally situated as the capital of Tennessee, it was directly connected with Chattanooga by a hundred and fifty miles of railroad, and indirectly by way of Decatur, Alabama, and Stevenson, a line thirty-five miles longer. These railway connections would of themselves make Nashville an important post, but it had also the advantage of water communication with the Ohio. It lies at the southern bend of the Cumberland River, the course of which is nearly due north from the city to its mouth, and the stream is navigable for steamboats the greater part of the year. The Tennessee, a much larger river, is nearly parallel to the Cumberland in this part of its course, and a partially constructed railroad from its banks at Johnsonville to Nashville, seventy-odd miles, was completed during the winter. With these three lines of communication, there was very little danger that the great Nashville depot could run short of munitions or rations, or be seriously isolated by raids of the enemy. It was to communication between Chattanooga and Nashville that Sherman had to give his best thought and will. The War Department had sent out Colonel McCallum, the General Superintendent of Military Railways in January, and improvements had then been begun, which under Sherman's energetic command made a brilliant success of this part of the military administration through the whole campaign. [Footnote: See "Sherman" (Great Commanders Series), pp. 199 et seq. Also letter of McCallum to Stanton, Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 143-145: Order appointing Adna Anderson general superintendent of transportation and W. W. Wright chief engineer of construction, Id., p. 365: Sherman's order organizing the military use of the railways, Id., pt. iii. p. 279.] The management of the railways in use was given to Adna Anderson, and the engineering and bridge-construction to W. W. Wright. These gentlemen were both civil engineers and experts in railroad building and management. Military rank was given them later in order to enable them to control officers and men of the army on proper occasions. Their skill and energy were of inestimable value to the army, and gave them brilliant reputations which they fully earned. They remained in their military railway duties to the end of the war, and were distinguished in the same profession in civil life to the end of their lives. When Sherman assumed command of the Division of the Mississippi, about eighty carloads a day was the limit of the capacity of the road and the delivery at Chattanooga. It was only half of what was needed to insure rapid progress of the campaign. By the 1st of May it had increased to a hundred and thirty cars a day, with exceptional days on which the delivery ran higher; but a steady average of a hundred and fifty (the needed quantity) had not been reached, and every day's advance into Georgia would increase the length of the line. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. pp. 466, 490.]
In a characteristic letter to General Thomas, Sherman explained the necessity of having the railway management directed from his own headquarters instead of those of the Army of the Cumberland, and in one to Mr. Lincoln he tersely repelled the idea that he was unduly hard on the inhabitants of the country and their business. [Footnote: Id., p. 489; and vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 25, 33.] General Meigs, the quartermaster-general, who knew the country by personal inspection, fully agreed with Sherman and wrote him on April 20th, advising him to "resist the pressure of civilians and private donations and supplies; march your troops, and devote the cars solely to transportation of military necessities.... Many civilians," he added, "can give charitable, patriotic, benevolent, and religious reasons to be allowed to go to the front; the reasons are so good that nothing but an absolute and unchangeable prohibition of all such travel will do any good." [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 434.]
The business management of the military railways was a matter of greatest importance, but it must be supplemented by an adequate system of defence. To cut the long line and interrupt the communications of the army would, of course, be the constant effort of the enemy. Every wooden bridge across a stream was a most vulnerable point. A burnt bridge meant a delay of trains till it could be rebuilt, and Sherman's estimate that he must receive at the front a hundred and fifty car-loads daily, shows how soon trouble would be caused if the steady roll of car-wheels should cease. For the freight cars of that day, ten tons made a load, and with the light locomotives and iron rails then in use, twenty or thirty cars made a full train. A system of blockhouses for the protection of the bridges had been gradually developed by the engineers of the Army of the Cumberland on suggestions made by General Halleck and others, and was under the charge of Colonel W. E. Merrill, who enlarged and improved it. This able officer was retained at the head of the defensive system, and his success in it was noteworthy. [Footnote: Colonel Merrill has given a valuable memoir on the construction and use of the blockhouses, in "Ohio Loyal Legion Papers," vol. iii. p. 389. After the war, he was for many years United States Engineer in charge of Ohio River improvements.]
With a careful system of railway work went also thorough study of the wagon trains necessary in the field to carry the baggage of the army, its ammunition, and a few days' rations, its hospital supplies, and the records and papers of all the business departments. Besides the supplies for men, the food for the teams, for the cavalry horses, and for the horses of mounted officers makes in the aggregate a bulk and weight astonishing to those who for the first time undertake the calculation. Great droves of beef cattle accompanied the march, and were coming forward on all the roads from the country in the rear where they could be bought and collected. The purchase, driving, coralling, feeding, and distributing of these made, of itself, a great business for the commissaries of subsistence. The introduction of the shelter tent of two india-rubber blankets got us rid of the regimental trains, which at the beginning of the war had been the most unwieldy of all our impedimenta. The two soldiers who were thus partners in the little house they carried on their backs, clubbed all their arrangements for comfort, and by working together greatly reduced the hardships of campaigning. Sherman applied the full force of his mind and the strong impulse of his personal example to discarding everything not essential to the army work, and to securing the utmost mobility in his columns. Throughout the campaign his own headquarters looked small and bare compared with those of many of his subordinates. Some writers have ridiculed this, as if it were a mere "fad" of the general; but it was both wise and shrewd to keep before the army the constant lesson that privation was necessary, and that the orders on the subject must be obeyed, since the commander set the example of obedience. It was akin to Bonaparte's marching on foot through the burning sands of Syria after his repulse from St. Jean d'Acre. It was speaking to the soldiers in the ranks a language which they understood, and which helped them in their arduous work more than proclamations.
A marked trait of Sherman's military intellect was his accurate judgment of the force of his enemy, and his freedom from the common fault of overestimating the army opposed to him. In his correspondence with General Thomas in April, discussing the preparations for the campaign and the severe reduction of burdens to a scale which was "rather the limit of our aim than what we can really accomplish," he had occasion to acknowledge the receipt of information concerning the enemy which Thomas had collected. "I read the reports of your scouts with interest," he said, but added, "I usually prefer to make my estimate of the enemy from general reasoning rather than from the words of spies or deserters." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 323.] The remark is significant. Prior to the opening of a campaign, whilst affairs are quiet, pretty reliable information of an enemy's strength and positions may usually be got; but when the time of action comes, the very air is full of excitement, and the "secret service" is apt to be a machine for self-delusion. Precedent knowledge supplemented by actual contact with the enemy is the best reliance for a capable general. His own reasoning from trustworthy data at the earlier point of departure, is, with such aids, his best guide. He knows where his enemy must be and what his force ought to be, better than his spies, or the enemy's deserters who, by a common stratagem, may be really hostile spies stuffed with the disturbing information they are sent to reveal.
In the Confederate Army changes had also been occurring under the stress of Bragg's great defeat which culminated in the loss of Missionary Ridge on the 25th of November. Dissatisfaction with the conduct of the campaign was prevalent in both military and civil circles. Lee pointed out the embarrassment which must result to Longstreet from Bragg's misfortune, especially as the retreat of the latter had been promptly followed by Grant's occupation of Cleveland. Communication between Longstreet and Bragg was thus interrupted, and unless short work was made of Burnside, Longstreet would have to retreat into Virginia or North Carolina. [Footnote:Id., vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 779.] In the letter to President Davis which contained these suggestions, Lee added a strong hint that Beauregard was the most available officer of proper rank to succeed to the command of which Bragg asked to be relieved on the 29th. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 682.] The unfortunate Bragg coupled with this request another; namely, that the causes of the defeat should be investigated. In his official report [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. ii. p. 665] he attributed it to a panic amongst the troops holding the apparently impregnable heights of Missionary Ridge, and he characterized the conduct as shameful. "The position was one," he said, "which ought to have been held by a line of skirmishers against any assaulting column." He declared that our troops reached the crest so exhausted by climbing as to be powerless, and that "the slightest effort would have destroyed them." One who stands on that ridge and looks down into the valley can easily agree with this opinion, and believe that no commander would order his troops to attack the position in front. The impulse of Wood's and Sheridan's divisions to attack, and the feebleness of the resistance of the astonished Confederates, are both phenomenal, and in a superstitious age would certainly have been attributed to supernatural influences.