Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/437

 Thomas after Johnston's removal from the command of the Army of Tennessee.

When Hood withdrew his army from Sherman's front and turned towards Tennessee, the great raider debated whether to follow Hood or pursue his raid through Georgia and the Carolinas, thus left open to him. He did not long debate, but selecting such corps and divisions as would make up a well organized army of 65,000 men, he sent the debris to Thomas. He even dismounted Wilson's cavalry to furnish the cavalry reserved with his own wing with a better remount, and sent Wilson with his men dismounted to help Thomas to beat Hood, while he marched on his way to the sea with none to make him afraid.

General Lee once said of Sherman's march to the sea: "There was nothing to oppose him, and the only military problem to be solved was a simple calculation as to whether his army could live on the country by taking all the people had."

It was well for Sherman and for his government that the general with whom he dealt so hardly was not of a temper to be apalledappalled [sic] by the dangers of the position in which Sherman had thus placed him.

It is charitable to believe that in making these dispositions for his own movements and for the defence of Nashville, Sherman must have estimated the personal resources of General Thomas very highly; the result amply justified such an estimate. The army with which Thomas gained his great victory was largely made up of forces detached for the occasion from other armies, of new levies and of dismounted cavalry, some of whom were remounted in the presence of the enemy, and was therefore ill-fitted to cope with the veteran army of Hood.

So impatient was the Federal Government of the delay of Thomas in attacking Hood, that on the 9th of December he was ordered to be relieved from the command of the army.

The order was, fortunately for Halleck, suspended. Thomas would not attack 'till'til [sic] he was ready. His victory was decisive. But even after that the Washington city generalissimo, Halleck, complained that Thomas did not press Hood's army.

I have never heard anybody who was in Hood's army at that time justify Halleck's complaints on this score. Thomas' own letter, replying to these indiscreet strictures, shows the stuff of which the writer was made.

In calm review of these operations it is but fair to say that in