"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the National Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion; but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.

"You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable; and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride. We don't want your negroes, or your horses, or your houses, or your lands, or anything that you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and, if it involves the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it. You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat, then, that, by the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or tittle of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent carloads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes and under the government of their inheritance. But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for anything. Then I will share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter."

Among the considerations that influenced General Sherman's action at that time, two appear to have been paramount—one a hope, the other a fear. The fear was, that some portion of Hood's army would make a serious break in his communications by destroying portions of the long, single-track railroad over which he drew all his supplies from Chattanooga. The hope was, that Georgia, seeing any further prosecution of the war to be useless, would withdraw her troops from the Confederate armies and practically secede from the Confederacy. Some color was given to this from the fact that Gov. Joseph E. Brown had recalled the Georgia militia from Hood's army, while Mr. Davis, on a flying visit to that army, had made a speech in which he threw the blame for the recent disasters upon General Johnston and Governor Brown, and told the soldiers they were about to set out on a campaign that would carry them to Tennessee and Kentucky. Sherman sent word to Governor Brown that if Georgia's troops were withdrawn from the Confederate service, he would pass across the State as harmlessly as possible, and pay for all the corn and fodder that he took; but if not, he would devastate the State through its whole length and breadth.

HON. JOSEPH E. BROWN,
Governor of Georgia. 		ALL THE LIVE STOCK LEFT
ON McGILL'S FARM.

In North Carolina there had been a strong movement for peace this year, the only difference of opinion being as to the method in which peace should be sought. The governor, Zebulon B. Vance, as a candidate for reëlection, represented those who held that the State should only act in coöperation with the other States that were engaged with her in the war. The other party, whose candidate was William W. Holden, held that North Carolina should assert her sovereignty and negotiate peace directly and alone with the United States. Governor Vance probably presented the decisive argument when he said: "Secession from the Confederacy will involve us in a new war, a bloodier conflict than that which we now deplore. So soon as you announce to the world that you are a sovereign and independent nation, as a matter of course the Confederate Government has a right to declare war against you, and President Davis will make the whole State a field of battle and blood. Old Abe would send his troops here also, because we would no longer be neutral; and so, if you will pardon the expression, we would catch the devil on all sides." At the election in August, Governor Vance received fifty-four thousand votes, against twenty thousand for Mr. Holden.

Georgia did not secede from the Confederacy, but Hood did attack the communications. At every important point on the railroad there was a strong guard, and at the bridges there were block-houses with small but well-appointed garrisons. About the 1st of October Hood crossed the Chattahoochee, going northward to strike the railroad. Sherman hurried after him, and on the 5th looked down from Kenesaw Mountain upon the fires that were burning the ties and heating the rails of a dozen miles of his road. Anticipating an attack on Allatoona, which was held by a small brigade under command of Lieut.-Col. John E. Tourtellotte, he signalled over the heads of the enemy a message to Allatoona conveying an order for Gen. John M. Corse, then at Rome, to go to the relief of Tourtellotte with a strong force. Corse obeyed promptly, going down with all the men he could obtain transportation for, and arriving at midnight. In the morning the garrison, now nearly two thousand strong, were summoned to surrender immediately, to avoid a needless effusion of blood. General Corse answered, "We are prepared for the needless effusion of blood whenever it is agreeable to you," and at once his men were attacked from all sides. They were driven into their redoubts, and there made so determined a resistance that after five hours of desperate fighting the Confederates withdrew, leaving their dead and wounded on the field. Corse had lost seven hundred and seven men out of his nineteen hundred and forty-four, including Colonel Redfield, of the Thirty-ninth Iowa, killed, and had himself suffered the loss of an ear and a cheek-bone. The total Confederate loss is unknown; but Corse reported burying two hundred and thirty-one of their dead, and taking four hundred and eleven prisoners, which would indicate a total loss of sixteen hundred. This successful defence of Allatoona was one of the most gallant affairs of the kind in history.

General Thomas had previously been sent to Nashville with two divisions, General Slocum was left in Atlanta with the Twentieth Corps, and with the remainder of his forces Sherman pursued Hood through the country between Rome and Chattanooga and westward of that region. But he could not bring the Confederates to battle, and had little expectation of overtaking them. He thinks he conceived of the march to the sea some time in September; the first definite proposal of it was in a telegram to General Thomas, on the 9th of October, in which he said: "I want to destroy all the road below Chattanooga, including Atlanta, and to make for the sea-coast. We cannot defend this long line of road." In various despatches between that date and the 2d of November, Sherman proposed the great march to Grant and to the President. Grant thought Hood's army should be destroyed first, but finally said: "I do not see that you can withdraw from where you are, to follow Hood, without giving up all we have gained in territory. I say, then, go on as you propose." This was on the understanding, suggested by Sherman, that Thomas would be left with force enough to take care of Hood. Sherman sent him the Fourth and Twenty-third Corps, commanded by Generals Stanley and Schofield, and further reinforced him with troops that had been garrisoning various places on the railroad, while he also received two divisions from Missouri and some recruits from the North. These, when properly organized, made up a very strong force; and, with Thomas at its head, neither Sherman nor Grant felt any hesitation about leaving it to take care of Tennessee.

ALLATOONA PASS, LOOKING NORTH.
(From a war-time photograph.)

Sherman rapidly sent North all his sick and disabled men, and all baggage that could be spared. Commissioners came and took the votes of the soldiers for the Presidential election, and departed. Paymasters came and paid off the troops, and went back again. Wagon trains were put in trim and loaded for a march. Every detachment of the army had its exact orders what to do; and as the last trains whirled over the road to Chattanooga, the track was taken up and destroyed, the bridges burned, the wires torn down, and all the troops that had not been ordered to join Thomas concentrated in Atlanta. From the 12th of November nothing more was heard from Sherman till Christmas.

The depot, machine-shops, and locomotive-house in Atlanta were all torn down, and fire was set to the ruins. The shops had been used for the manufacture of Confederate ammunition, and all night the shells were exploding in the midst of the ruin, while the fire spread to a block of stores, and finally burned out the heart of the city. With every unsound man and every useless article sent to the rear, General Sherman now had fifty-five thousand three hundred and twenty-nine infantrymen, five thousand and sixty-three cavalrymen, and eighteen hundred and twelve artillerymen, with sixty-five guns. There were four teams of horses to each gun, with its caisson and forge; six hundred ambulances, each drawn by two horses; and twenty-five hundred wagons, with six mules to each. Every soldier carried forty rounds of ammunition, while the wagons contained an abundant additional supply and twelve hundred thousand rations, with oats and corn enough to last five days. Probably a more thoroughly appointed army was never seen, and it is difficult to imagine one of equal numbers more effective. Every man in it was a veteran, was proud to be there, and felt the most perfect confidence that under the leadership of "Uncle Billy" it would be impossible to go wrong.