Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/139

 The Medical History of the Confederate States. 133

less than fifty thousand Confederate troops against General Sher- man's powerful, thoroughly armed and equipped army of more than one hundred thousand brave, stalwart Western soldiers. In his slow retreat, General Johnston was ever ready to give battle, and whilst inflicting greater losses upon his great adversary than his own forces sustained, he, nevertheless, during this incessant fighting maintained the morale, discipline, valor and thorough organization and arma- ment of his soldiers.

The chief executive of the Southern Confederacy, with all his lofty patriotism and burning ardor for the defence of his bleeding country, placed too high an estimate upon his own individual military genius, and failed to grasp in all its bearings the problem of the terrible death struggle of the young nation.

General Hood combined with unbounded energy and dauntless courage and glowing patriotism a fiery ambition for military glory which led him to overestimate his own military genius and resources and at the same time to underestimate the vast resources and mili- tary strategy of his antagonist.

When General Hood ceased to confront General Sherman, and opened the way for his desolating march through the rich planta- tions of Georgia ; the Empire State of the South, the fate of the Con- federacy was forever sealed. The beleagured Confederacy, torn and bleeding along all her borders, was in no position to hurl her war- worn, imperfectly clad and poorly armed and provisioned battalions upon fortified cities.

The effort to destroy forces aggregating in Georgia and Tennessee near two hundred thousand effectives by a force of less than forty thousand men, which had cut loose from its base of supplies, ex- ceeded the wildest dream of untamed military enthusiasm.

Of the gallant soldiers whose blood reddened the waters of the Tennessee and enriched the hills and valleys of Georgia, Tennessee furnished seventy regiments of infantry and twelve regiments of cavalry.

If the soldiers furnished by Tennessee to the Federal army be added, it is only just to say that she alone furnished more than one hundred thousand men to the American war of i86i-'65, and won afresh the title of the Volunteer State.

Noble Tennessee ! The generous and prolific mother of brave soldiers and of beautiful and intrepid women.

What changes have been wrought in a quarter of a century ! The songs of birds, the sturdy blows of the woodman's axe have sup-