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 1864] Sherman's plan. Thomas in Tennessee. 523 (3) THE DEFENCE OF TENNESSEE. With the view of making Atlanta a strong and purely military post, capable of being defended by a small garrison, Sherman ordered the removal of all its inhabitants, sending them north or south as they chose, and arranging a temporary truce for the purpose. Contracting his lines, and making his fortification impregnable, he remained here a month, collecting supplies for his army, and preparing for the next stage of the campaign, the course of which was for a time undecided. Sherman's doubts were however solved by the Confederates. Jefferson Davis personally visited Hood in his camp toward the end of September ; and it was agreed between them that, in order to relieve the situation in Georgia, Hood should make an aggressive movement into Tennessee. For a month or more the two armies played a somewhat blind game, the Confederates endeavouring to attack and destroy, the Federals to defend and reconstruct the railroad and support their garrisons at various points between Nashville and Atlanta. Eventually Sherman formed the conclusion that, instead of losing a thousand men a month in merely defending the road and gaining no further result, the wiser course would be to divide his army, to send back part of it for the defence of Tennessee, to abandon the whole line of railroad from Chatta- nooga to Atlanta, and, taking the offensive, to march with the remainder to the sea, and " make the interior of Georgia feel the weight of war." He sent a number of tentative suggestions of this kind to Washington, but not until November 2 did he receive from General Grant the distinct permission to go on as he proposed. It is agreed that, after Grant and Sherman, the ablest commander who had won his spurs in the west was George H. Thomas. This officer held important commands in the Army of the Cumberland with signal success, from the first battle at Mill Spring, Kentucky, in January, 1862, to the battle of Chickamauga, where his resolute heroism saved the day; and he had distinguished himself throughout the stubborn campaign which led to the capture of Atlanta. With full confidence in the courage and sagacity here displayed under his own eyes, Sherman, as soon as Atlanta had been made safe, sent Thomas back to Chattanooga to supervise military operations in Tennessee, instructing him, after his own army had been formed, to collect a force at Nashville, made up partly from his own troops and partly from recruits and reinforcements from the North, in order to meet and defeat the projected Confederate invasion under Hood. That commander's movement unfolded itself toward the end of September, when he abandoned his position at Lovejoy's Station on the Macon railroad, in order to take up another to the west, on the CH. XVI.