Hampton, too, had done his share as ever in the long war. He had caught Sheridan at Trevellian's Station, and compelled him to retreat and entirely abandon his part of Grant's new programme; and a little later he came upon Kautz and Wilson—in a railroad raid below Petersburg—and defeated them disastrously, capturing their trains, artillery and a large proportion of their men.
Thus, by July, these rough and repeated lessons had taught even General Grant that hammering with flesh and blood upon earthworks was too costly; that barn-burning and railroad-tearing cavalry were not effectual to reduce the city that had so laughed to scorn his brilliant tactics of the left flank!
A more disgusted, if not a wiser man, he sat down and fortified for a regular siege; as fully convinced as ever that the blood of the soldiers was the seed of the war; as fixed in his theory that he could spare seven lives for one and gradually by this fearful "swapping, with boot," reduce the capital he had failed to win by soldierly methods or skillful combination.
And the southern people felt that was the test to be applied to them now. Bayonet and steel, rapine and torch had failed; but now the process of pulverizing was to come. "Southern blood!" was General Grant's war-cry—"Southern blood by the drop, if it take rivers of ours. Southern lives by the score—and we can well pay for them with the hundred!"
And, looking the alternative squarely in the face, the southern people for the last time girded their loins for the shock; feeling they could do what men might and when they could no longer do—they could die!
Once more the tide of battle had rolled away from Richmond; but it surged up, redder and rougher, against her sister city. And staunch little Petersburg braced herself to meet its advancing waves—ever offering to them her dauntless breast and ever riding above them, breathless but victorious. Old men with one foot in the grave—boys with one foot scarce out of the cradle, stood side by side, with the bronzed veterans of Lee's hundred fights. Women sat quiet, the shells of Grant's civilized warfare tearing through their houses and through the hospitals. And fearless for themselves, they worked steadily on, nursing the wounded and the sick; giving from their daily-decreasing store with self-forgetfulness; encouraging the weak by their presence and their courage.
But not alone the fierce sounds immediately around them claimed the attention of the people of the Capital. From North Georgia came the hoarse echo of renewed strife; and they felt, in sober truth, more immediate anxiety for the result there than at their own doors. Inured to danger and made familiar with its near approach, the people of Virginia looked calmly forward to the most fearful shock of battle, if it was nothing more. They knew the crushing force of Grant's numbers, but the danger was tangible and they could see a possible issue out of it, through blood and sacrifice. But they knew and felt that Atlanta was the back door to Richmond. Let the enemy once enter that and divide the spinal column of the Confederacy, and what hope was there! For a brief space the maimed and dying body might writhe with final strength; the quivering arms strike fierce, spasmodic blows; but no nourishment could come—the end must be death—and death from inanition!
The people knew and felt this fully. They were perfectly aware that, should Atlanta fall and the enemy penetrate to our rear lines of communication, the cause was lost. We might make a fierce resistance for the moment; but without supplies, all organized plan must cease. And the wildest hope indulged in that event was the possibility of a detached and guerrilla warfare that would make the country untenable.
Therefore, every eye was turned toward Dalton, where Johnston's little army now was—every ear was strained to catch the first echo of the thunder about to roll so ominously among the Georgia mountains.
Upon General Grant's elevation to the chief command, General W. T. Sherman had been left in charge in the West. Not discouraged by the failure of Grant's quadruple advance, two months before, Sherman divided his army—like that operating on the Rapidan—into three corps. Thomas, leading the center, or direct advance; Schofield, the left on the North-east, and McPherson the right on the South-west—he moved upon Dalton, almost simultaneously with Grant's passage of the Rapidan. And like Grant, he essayed a flank movement; but with far different result.