“It is no time for despair, or despondency, that the enemy must be driven from the soil of Georgia; and that the men of Georgia must aid in the great work.”
Confederate President Jefferson Davis offered these reassuring words in Augusta on Sept. 22, 1864, speaking publicly during one of several stops on his journey to meet with Gen. John Bell Hood.
As Davis rode a meandering route over the Southern railroads still in Confederate hands to reach Hood’s headquarters at Palmetto, soldiers of the Army of Tennessee busied themselves fortifying earthworks below the Chattahoochee River. The men in gray awaited a shipment of shoes and various articles of clothing, as the four-month campaign for Atlanta had taken a toll on both.
The veterans also anguished over the civilian refugees flowing south from Atlanta after Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman ordered them to evacuate the city. One soldier said he witnessed “a vast amount of suffering,” with many “without shelter or anyone to provide for them.”
Hardships from the loss of Atlanta on Sept. 2 weighed heavy on citizen and soldier alike, as Davis attempted to bring uplifting news along the route of his trip from Richmond.
Davis stopped in Macon on Sept. 23 and addressed a scheduled assembly. The Southern president, an eternal optimist, offered words of encouragement and recalled for his audience the grim lesson Napoleon learned after his armies invaded Russia in 1812.
“Though misfortune has befallen our arms … our cause is not lost,” Davis said. “Sherman cannot keep up his long line of communication, and retreat sooner or later, he must. And when that day comes, the fate that befell the army of the French Empire and its retreat from Moscow will be reacted.”
“Let us with one arm and one effort endeavor to crush Sherman. I am going to the army to confer with our generals. The end must be the defeat of our enemy.”
When Davis finally arrived in Palmetto on Sept. 25, he met with Hood and his several of his subordinates before reviewing the troops. Amid catcalls for the return of Gen. Joe Johnston, which greatly disturbed Davis and Hood, the president reassured the soldiers of the need to persevere. Stopping to address the 1st Tennessee Infantry, Davis again drew from the Napoleonic era, promising the men they would “make Atlanta a perfect Moscow of defeat to the Federal army.”
Dealing with a Waterloo-like situation of his own, Davis met with Lt. Gen. William Hardee on Sept. 26. Hood had laid most of the blame for his defeats at Hardee’s feet, beginning with the Battle of Peachtree Creek and culminating with the Battle of Jonesboro.
Having an audience with Davis, the beleaguered general took advantage of the occasion to pry away the mud from his boots. Hardee labeled Hood “unjust, ungenerous and unmanly.” Hardee later said that he told Davis, in essence, it’s either him or me: “I insisted on his (Davis) relieving me.”
Davis again met with Hood before leaving for Alabama. He promised Hood he would give the matter serious consideration and inform him, posthaste, of his decision on the turmoil in the army.
Arriving in Montgomery on Sept. 28, Davis sent two dispatches to Hood. One directed him to reassign Hardee to the Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida (a position to safeguard the coasts). The second informed Hood that Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard was coming west to head the vast military territory encompassing Hood’s army as well as Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor’s Department of Alabama and East Mississippi.
Davis reassured Hood of his continuing confidence in him, emphasizing — despite Beauregard’s new position — that Hood maintained the “responsibilities and powers of your special Commands.”
The evening of Sept. 29, the day Davis addressed the Alabama legislature, the Army of Tennessee began crossing the Chattahoochee River. The following day, with the balance of the army across the river and assembled near Dark Corner, Hood prepared to take his soldiers back north, into Cobb County. Their mission: To draw Sherman out of Atlanta by striking where he was most vulnerable — his supply line of the Western & Atlantic Railroad.
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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