Unlike young Carrie Berry’s father, who we learned last week did not “know where on earth to go,” Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood knew exactly where he wanted to be.
The morning of Sept. 18, 1864, he began moving the Army of Tennessee to Palmetto, 27 miles southwest of Atlanta. Three days earlier, Hood had ordered cavalry Maj. Gen. Joe Wheeler “to move in this direction. … By next week, the left flank of the army will rest on the Chattahoochee River.”
Since the fall of Atlanta on Sept. 2, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman had refrained from attacking Hood’s army. It lingered to the south, little more than a day’s march from the city. Though Sherman believed he could “quickly bounce him out,” he thought Hood “better there where I can watch him than further off.” As Hood prepared to upset Sherman’s web, the Federal general spent time drafting initial plans for future military efforts of his armies in Georgia.
Writing to Maj. Gen. Oliver Howard on Sept. 14, Sherman indicated he must postpone his intended visit with Howard, as “I had better stay here (in Atlanta) and get up my report and papers.”
Sherman knew his friend and immediate superior, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, had dispatched a courier to Atlanta carrying special instructions, and Grant expected to receive a report from Sherman as to his plans. Before the messenger reached Atlanta, Sherman would spend several days contemplating events across the theaters of war.
Chomping on his cigar while writing Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck in Washington, Sherman reported on Georgia Gov. Joe Brown’s decision to recall the state militia “to gather the corn and sorghum of the State” — meaning it no longer would be in support of Hood’s army. Sherman had written to Brown, suggesting a meeting between the two men and maybe even Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens. Sherman held out hope that the officials “want to visit me.”
Perhaps the cigar smoke clouded his judgment, as neither Brown nor Stephens seriously considered Sherman’s invitation. Still, President Abraham Lincoln felt “great interest” in Sherman’s message to Halleck, especially the “contemplated visit to you” by the Confederate officials. The general took advantage of the opportunity to correspond with the commander-in-chief. He wrote back the same day, Sept. 17, promising to provide updates.
Sherman elaborated on his designs for meeting with Brown: He hoped to persuade him to remove Georgia from the Confederate States of America. Indicating he had worked through a “Mr. Wright, former member of Congress … and a Mr. King, of Marietta,” Sherman believed he could, “without surrendering a foot of ground or of principle, arouse the latent enmity to Jeff. Davis of Georgia.”
Continuing to compose his report for Grant, Sherman took time to update Washington on the progress of removing all citizens from his surroundings. “Atlanta is pretty well cleared out of the families, so that source of trouble is disposed of,” he wrote.
In a follow-up message, he avowed, “Atlanta is a fortified town, was stubbornly defended and fairly captured. As captors, we have a right to it.” He continued to espouse various justifications for his orders to evacuate the city. “These are my reasons. … It makes no difference whether it pleases General Hood and his people or not.”
Pleasing the commander of the Army of Tennessee did not rank high on Sherman’s list of priorities, but his hopes of satisfying Grant with his grand plan reigned paramount.
Arriving in Atlanta, Grant’s courier, Lt. Col. Horace Porter, met with Sherman and took possession of the message to deliver back to Virginia. The letter, dated Sept. 20, sent thanks for Grant’s congratulations on the capture of Atlanta, and offered encouragement for a Federal breakthrough on the Richmond-Petersburg front.
Before turning his thoughts toward Georgia, Sherman offered his opinions on Mobile, Ala. — “no further effort on our part” – and Wilmington, N.C., one of the last seaports open to Confederate blockade runners – “The destruction … is of importance only in connection with the necessity of cutting off all foreign trade” for the South.
Ominously for Georgia, Sherman wrote that if Federal naval forces could secure the Savannah River, the Northern general believed he could “cross the State of Georgia with 60,000 men. … Where a million of people live, my army won’t starve. The possession of the Savannah River is more than fatal to the possibility of a Southern independence; they may stand the fall of Richmond, but not of all Georgia.”
As Sherman considered his options, soldiers in the Army of Tennessee busied themselves removing telegraph lines and taking up the iron rails between Lovejoy’s and Griffin as they prepared to untangle the Federal snare. And Hood awaited a visit from Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author and lecturer. He can be contacted at: www.civilwarhistorian.net
For more on the Civil War in Georgia, follow the AJC: http://www.ajc.com/s/opinion/ and http://www.myajc.com/s/battleofatlanta/
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