It is not easy to accept his interpretation of his former dispatch. Waiting indefinitely to see whether the National army would advance, and declaring the administration plan impracticable, hardly looks like assuming the initiative. It was not a difference as to details. The very gist of the subject under discussion was a prompt advance against the parts of our army before they could be united for any purpose. The question would naturally arise, What might happen in the places from which troops were drawn, if they were not used by Johnston immediately? The latter had already said to Longstreet that his requisitions on the commissaries and quartermaster's departments for supplies and wagon-trains were so large as to make filling them "a greater undertaking than anything yet accomplished by those departments, and if they succeed, it will not be very soon." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 618.] Yet these were only part of the conditions which he considered essential to any advance.
There seems to have been no rejoinder to Johnston's last telegram, and the subject was dropped. Longstreet was persuaded by his correspondence with Johnston that the combined movement could not be made, and turned to the scheme (already mentioned), of mounting his troops and making an expedition from southwestern Virginia into Kentucky. This was decisively rejected by the Richmond government. [Footnote: Id., p. 748.] Grant was now known to be in Virginia, inspecting the commands there and preparing for an active campaign. Concentration on both sides, and not further morselling of armies was to be the wholesome order of the day, and Longstreet was soon ordered to report to Lee. Between Bragg and Johnston correspondence was limited to the current business of the army, and general plans of campaign were not again mentioned. In April, Johnston became uneasy at the silence which indicated that the President regarded it unprofitable to discuss plans with him, and sent Colonel B. S. Ewell of his staff to Richmond to make explanations in person. He was politely received, and his visit no doubt tended to relax a little the strain in the relations between Mr. Davis and Ewell's chief; but it was too late to accomplish what had been hoped for in January. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. pp. 839, 842.] Spring had come, and Sherman's concentration was in progress; indeed it was almost completed. Ewell reported to Johnston again on the 29th of April. On the 1st of May Schofield was at the Hiwassee River in touch with the left wing of Thomas's army, whilst McPherson was closing in on the right.
The certainty that Grant was in Virginia had brought the Confederate government to the conclusion that Lee must be reinforced by Longstreet and by whatever troops Beauregard could spare. The Atlantic coast States were thus to supply Lee with men and means. About four thousand men were to be immediately added to Johnston's army, mostly drawn from Mobile. Polk's infantry would be sent to him also, if, as was nearly certain, Sherman's advance on Atlanta should prove to be our great effort in the West. [Footnote: Id., p. 841.] The doubt whether one of our columns might not move through Alabama made it necessary to continue to the last moment ready for either event. The Gulf States would then become the feeders of Johnston's army in the campaign.
The very unsatisfactory relations between Mr. Davis and General Johnston cannot be overlooked if we would judge intelligently the events of the Atlanta campaign. It may be that the general was right in thinking a winter advance impracticable, though Lee's concurrence in the President's plan is no small argument in its favor. It is, nevertheless, the indisputable province of a government to determine, in view of the whole situation, political and military, whether continued operations are necessary. The army is organized for the sole purpose of reaching the ends at which its government aims in the war. The expenditure of life and treasure should be stopped and the government should sue for peace, unless its armies can be relied upon to act in hearty subordination to its view of the existing exigencies. The general should meet it with absolute ingenuousness and the promptest and clearest decision. He should act at once or ask to be relieved in time to let another carry out the plan. Mr. Davis, like Mr. Lincoln on several occasions, had reason to feel that a prolonged discussion had in fact thwarted him, and that he had not the cordial service he might fairly expect.
One of the results of the financial embarrassments of the Confederacy was the great and growing depreciation of its paper currency. Its officers in the field found their pay a merely nominal pittance, and those who had no independent fortune were reduced to the greatest straits. Interesting evidence of this has been preserved in petitions forwarded to the War Department in February, asking that rations might be issued to them as to the private soldiers. The scale of prices attached to their petition was that at which the government sold the enumerated articles to its officers, and was supposed to show the average cost and not a market price fixed by the retail trade. They paid for bacon $2.20 per pound, for beef 75 cents, for lard $2.20, for molasses $6 per gallon, for sugar $1.50 per pound, for a coat $350, for a pair of boots $250, for a pair of pantaloons $125, for a hat from $80 to $125, for a shirt $50, for a pair of socks $10. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 658.] Their statements were verified and approved by their superiors, and General Johnston, in forwarding the petitions, said that at existing prices the pay of company officers was worth less than that of the private soldiers. [Footnote: Id., p. 661.]
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN: DALTON AND RESACA
The opposing forces--North Georgia triangle--Topography--Dalton--Army of the Ohio enters Georgia--Positions of the other armies--Turning Tunnel Hill--First meeting with Sherman--Thomas--Sherman's plan as to Dalton--McPherson's orders and movement--Those of Thomas and Schofield--Hopes of a decisive engagement--Thomas attacks north end of Rocky Face--Opdycke on the ridge--Developing Johnston's lines--Schofield's advance on 9th May--The flanking march through Snake Creek Gap--Retiring movement of my division--Passing lines--Johnston's view of the situation--Use of temporary intrenchments and barricades--Passing the Snake Creek defile--Camp Creek line--A wheel in line--Rough march of left flank--Battle of Resaca--Crossing Camp Creek--Storming Confederate line--My division relieved by Newton's--Incidents--Further advance of left flank--Progress of right flank--Johnston retreats.
The history of the campaigns of 1864-1865 under Sherman have been given in another form, and I need not repeat the narrative of the connected movements of his forces. [Footnote: See "Atlanta," and "The March to the Sea, Franklin and Nashville.">[ I shall confine myself to the more personal view of events as they came under my own eye, and to such additional knowledge as the publication of the Records has brought within our reach.