Four Years in Rebel Capitals / An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death

by T. C. De Leon

Then the fall of Atlanta came!

The people were not to be deceived by platitudes about "strategic purposes," or empty nothings about "a campaign to nullify it." They had gotten now beyond that; and saw the terrible blow that had been dealt them in all its naked strength. They felt that an army that had failed to check Sherman, when it was behind strong works, would hardly do so in the open field. They felt that he could now at his leisure bore into the coveted heart of our territory; that the long-attempted "bisection of the rebellion" was accomplished; that further aid, or supplies, from that section was impossible. And then the people of Richmond turned once more with unfailing pride, but lessening hope, toward the decreasing bands that still held their own gates secure. But they saw how the deadly strain was telling upon these; that the end was near.

But even now there was no weak yielding—no despairing cry among the southern people. They looked at the coming end steadily and unflinchingly; and now, for the first time, they began to speculate upon the possible loss of their beloved Capital. It was rumored in Richmond that General Lee had told the President that the lines were longer than he could hold; that the sole hope was to evacuate the town and collect the armies at some interior point for a final struggle that might yet sever the bonds, ever closing tighter and tighter upon us. And the rumor added that Mr. Davis peremptorily and definitely rejected this counsel; declaring that he would hold the city, at any cost and any risk.

For once—whatever cause they had to credit these reports—the popular voice was louder on the side of the unpopular President than on that of the idolized general. The tremendous efforts to capture the Capital; the superhuman exertions made to defend it in the last four years, had made Richmond the cause! People argued that if Richmond was lost, the State of Virginia was lost, too; that there was no point in North Carolina where the army could make a stand, for even that "interior line" then became a frontier. Beyond this the people felt the moral effect of such a step; and that the army, as such, could never be carried out of Virginia. And with the ceaseless discussion of this question, came the first yearnings for peace propositions.

To this extremity, the South had been confident and fixed in her views. Cheated of her hopes of foreign intervention, she had yet believed her ability to work out her own oracle; through blood and toil—even ruin, perhaps—but still to force a peace at last. But now the popular voice was raised in answer to the vague words of peace that found their way over the Potomac. If there be any desire in the North for cessation of this strife, said the people, for God's sake let us meet it half way. Even the Congress seemed impressed with the necessity of meeting any overtures from the North, before it was too late and our dire strait should be known there. But it was already too late; and the resultless mission of Mr. Stephens to Fortress Monroe proved that the Washington Government now saw plainly that it could force upon us the terms it made the show of offering.

The failure of this mission, no less than the great mystery in which the Government endeavored to wrap it, produced a decided gloom among the thinking classes; and it reacted upon the army as well. The soldiers now began to lose hope for the first time. They saw they were fighting a hydra; for as fast as they lopped off heads in any direction, fresh ones sprang up in others. They began, for the first time, to feel the contest unequal; and this depressing thought—added to the still greater privations following the loss of Georgia—made desertion fearfully common, and threatened to destroy, by that cause, an army that had withstood every device of the enemy.

And so the fall wore into winter; and the news from General Hood's lines only added to the gloom. After the truce of ten days, following the fall of Atlanta, Hood had moved around and gotten almost in Sherman's rear. For a moment there was great exultation, for it was believed he would destroy the enemy's communications and then attack him, or force an attack on ground of his own choosing. Great was the astonishment and great the disappointment, when Hood moved rapidly to Dalton and thence into Alabama, leaving the whole country south of Virginia entirely open, defenseless, and at Sherman's mercy.

And, as usual, in moments of general distress, Mr. Davis was blamed for the move. He had, it was said, removed Joe Johnston at the very moment his patient sagacity was to bear its fruits; he had been in Hood's camp and had of course planned this campaign—a wilder and more disastrous one than the detachment of Longstreet, for Knoxville. Whosesoever may have been the plan, and whatever may have been its ultimate object, it failed utterly in diverting Sherman from the swoop for which he had so long hovered. For, while the small bulwark of Georgia was removed—and sent in Quixotic joust against distant windmills—the threatening force, relieved from all restraint, and fearing no want of supplies in her fertile fields, pressed down, "Marching thro' Georgia."

Meantime Hood, with no more serious opposition than an occasional skirmish, crossed the Tennessee at Florence, about the middle of November. The enemy fell back before him, toward Nashville, until it seemed as if his intent was to draw Hood further and further away from the real point of action—Sherman's advance. On the 30th of November, however, Thomas made a stand at Franklin; and then resulted a terrific battle, in which the Confederates held the field, with the loss of one-third of the army. Six of our generals lay amid their gallant dead on that unhappy field; seven more were disabled by wounds, and one was a prisoner. The enemy's loss was stated at far less than ours; and he retired into Nashville, to which place our army laid siege on the 1st of December.

Weakened by the long march and more by the terrible losses of Franklin; ill-supplied and half-fed, Hood's army was compelled to rely upon the enemy's want of supplies driving him out. On the 15th of December he attacked our whole line, so furiously as to break it at every point. Hood's defeat was complete; he lost his whole artillery—over fifty pieces—most of his ordnance and many of his supply trains. In the dreadful retreat that followed, General Forrest's vigorous covering alone saved the remnant of that devoted army; and on the 23d of January, 1865—when he had brought them once more into temporary safety—General Hood issued a farewell order, stating that he was relieved at his own request.