Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 13.djvu/446

 General Sherman's Method of Making War. 445

the laws of civilized nations and the 'customs of war ' ; but if at a loss at any time, I know where to seek for information to refresh my memory."

General Hood made the correspondence, or part of it, public, on which fact General Sherman remarks to General Halleck. "Of course he is welcome, for the more he arouses the indignation of the South- ern masses the bigger will be the pill of bitterness they will have to swallow."

About the middle of September, General Sherman being still at Atlanta, endeavored to open private communication with Governor Brown and Vice President Stephens, whom he knew to be at variance with the Administration at Richmond on certain points of public policy. Mr. Stephens refused to reply to a verbal message, but wrote to Mr. King, the intermediary, that if the General would say that there was any prospect of their agreeing upon " terms to be submitted to the action of their respective governments," he would, as re- quested, visit him at Atlanta. The motives urged by Mr. King were General Sherman's extreme desire for peace, and to hit upon ' ' some plan of terminating this fratricidal war without the further effusion of blood." But in General Sherman's dispatch of Septem- ber i jth to Mr. Lincoln, referring to these attempted negotiations, the humanitarian point of view is scarcely so prominent. He says, " It would be a magnificent stroke of policy if I could, without sur- rendering a foot of ground or of principle, arouse the latent enmity to Davis of Georgia."

On October 2oth he writes to General Thomas from Summervillc, giving an idea of his plan of operations: "Out of the forces now here and at Atlanta I propose to organize an efficient army of 60,000 to 65,000 men, with which I propose to destroy Macon, Augusta, and it may be, Savannah and Charleston. By this I propose to de- monstrate the vulnerability of the South, and make its inhabitants feel that war and individual ruin are synonymous terms."

Dispatch of October 22 d to General Grant : " I am now perf ing arrangements to put into Tennessee a force able to hold the line of the Tennessee, while I break up the railroad in front of Dalton, including the city of Atlanta, and push into Georgia and break up all its railroads and depots, capture its horses and negro* desolation everywhere; destroy the factories at Macon, Mil and Augusta, and bring up with 60,000 men on the sea-shore Savannah or Charleston."

To General Thomas, from Kingston, November u: