Hood's army was driven back into their trenches. Sherman threw his hosts under cover of night on a wide flanking movement and Atlanta fell.
Under the mighty impulse of this news Lincoln was reëlected, the peace party of the North defeated and the doom of the Confederacy sealed.
CHAPTER XLI
THE FALL OF RICHMOND
The conspirators who had complained most bitterly of Davis for the appointment of Lee to the command of the army before Richmond when McClellan was thundering at its gates, now succeeded in passing through the Confederate Congress a bill to create a military dictatorship which they offered to the man for whose promotion they had condemned the President.
Lee treated this attempt to strike the Confederate Chieftain over his head with the contempt it deserved. Davis laughed at his enemies by the most complete acceptance of their plans.
His answer to Senator Barton's committee was explicit.
"I have absolute confidence in General Lee's patriotism and military genius. I will gladly coöperate with Congress in any plan to place him in supreme command."