Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/269

Rh Fighting had been occurring in every Southern State since the middle of May, until the reported number of engagements was 180, besides those fought between the great armies of the two nations, and this is far below the actual number of skirmishes between small bodies in every State. The successes of Grant and Sherman had consisted in merely a gain of ground at a great loss of men. Grant was scarcely better stationed at the end of his campaign, and with the loss of thousands of men, than McClellan was when Lee caused his retreat from Richmond. The chief gain was in the reduction of Confederate numbers, which could not be replaced. Sherman had reached the piedmont of Georgia, where the table-lands stretched before him with rivers running to the sea, but his situation was perilous. Mobile, Savannah and Charleston were still Confederate strongholds, forbidding advance from the South into the Confederate interior. The Trans-Mississippi States, although cut off from the Confederacy in the East, were yet unsubdued and capable of taking care of themselves. The little navy yet left was doing good service, and the privateers were doing full damage wherever they were afloat. The general survey thus made, produced some muttering in the North and inspired some hopes in the South, but the insight of the situation showed a region beginning to suffer heavily from an exhaustion which could not be stayed. The producing area of the Confederacy had been lessened, producers had become much fewer, products had been destroyed, communication by rivers and railroads had been cut off, transportation had been alarmingly reduced, and there was no reliable money. The army official reports showed a considerable strength still left in the numbers of fighting men; but they were necessarily scattered over a vast territory, defending hundreds of important minor positions with inadequate munitions, while the combined armies of Lee and Johnston had not half the strength of either army under Grant or Sher-