Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea

by Noah Andre Trudeau

  In time Davis promoted Hood to lieutenant general* and assigned him to lead a corps in the Army of Tennessee, then commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston. Hood’s appointment came in time for the bitter spring campaign of 1864, which began in May. By July Davis was thoroughly fed up with Johnston, who had slowed but not stopped or significantly damaged a much larger Union army pushing south from Chattanooga. Johnston, whose management of the campaign would spawn a rancorous postwar controversy, declined to keep Davis informed of his circumstances or intentions, even as he deftly backpedaled his soldiers to the gates of Atlanta. When Johnston intimated he was prepared to abandon the city to preserve the army’s freedom of movement, Davis acted. He removed Johnston from command and—to the surprise of many—promoted John Bell Hood to replace him.

  Thrust into a high place because he was a fighting general, Hood quickly undertook a series of fierce offensive strikes at the Union forces enfolding Atlanta. None succeeded in halting the Yankee juggernaut, and on the night of September 1 Hood pulled the Army of Tennessee out of the Gate City, which immediately fell to Union forces, accompanied by much fanfare in the North. Hood reassembled what remained of his army at Lovejoy’s Station, then shifted it to Palmetto, while the Federals rested easy in their freshest conquest. What was to happen next topped the Davis agenda.

  The Confederate president had expended considerable political capital in appointing Hood, and the reverses suffered by the Army of Tennessee had become a rallying point for antiadministration factions. In the wake of Atlanta’s fall there were even calls for Johnston’s reinstatement, something that Davis refused to consider. Others suggested one of the Confederacy’s underemployed heroes, General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, another on the president’s blacklist. The odds that Davis had come all this way to replace Hood with Beauregard were slim, but the politically canny Confederate leader believed he could exploit the out-of-favor general’s prestige without entrusting him with an army.

  Hood had a ready explanation for his failure to hold the Gate City. It was, he stated, due to fumbling by some of his key subordinates and a lack of nerve on the part of his soldiers. Just a few weeks before their face-to-face Hood had written Davis that according “to all human calculations we should have saved Atlanta had the officers and men…done what was expected of them.” Hood singled out one of his corps commanders for most of the blame: Lieutenant General William J. Hardee. Some sixteen years Hood’s senior, Hardee possessed impeccable military bona fides, even if his manner was annoyingly distant, patrician, and judgmental. Hardee had already played a significant offstage role in undermining the man who had preceded Johnston in command of the Army of Tennessee, General Braxton Bragg. Yet when Bragg had been reassigned and the position offered to Hardee, he had declined, leaving Davis only the distasteful option of summoning Johnston.

  Hardee was no friend of Hood. While he did not question that officer’s experience or courage, he had serious doubts regarding his ability to effectively manage such an important enterprise. Hood, in turn, suspected that Hardee was deliberately undermining his authority and reveling in his failures. Any ground for compromise had long since eroded, leaving Hood adamant that Hardee had to go. It was into this poisonous atmosphere that Jefferson Davis arrived at 3:30 P.M., September 25. Fittingly, it was raining.

  Davis was too good a politician to prematurely reveal his hand. While Hood doubtless used their meeting to continue his tirade against Hardee, Davis made no commitment. What most interested the Confederate president was knowing what Hood intended to do next. The general did have a plan; one that, considering his situation, was about as good as possible. As he was outnumbered by the Union forces in Atlanta by better than two to one, Hood’s best chance to do any real damage was to march around to the city’s north side to disrupt the enemy’s attenuated supply line. This would inevitably draw the Federals away from the city to protect the vital rail link with supply depots in Tennessee. Hood would keep his small army just out of reach to seek opportunities to strike at exposed portions of the enemy’s force, but only when the odds favored him. Even if he could not maneuver the Yankees into such a position, the fact that all the attention was on him meant that the rest of Georgia would be left alone.

  Jefferson Davis liked what he heard. Hood’s plan offered the glittering (albeit remote) prospect of saving Georgia, protecting the Gulf States, and maintaining the vital supply lines that carried produce and materiel from the Deep South to Virginia. If he succeeded, Hood would blight the fruits of the enemy’s spring campaign in Georgia, turn Atlanta’s capture into a hollow victory, and maybe—just maybe—force the Union army back toward Tennessee.

  Should the enemy forces not play along and instead attempt to thrust forward through Georgia, Hood would be close enough to attack their rear. Add to this their familiarity with the Georgia countryside, the prospect of a general rising of guerrilla forces, and an active Confederate cavalry, and Davis had a “not unreasonable hope that retributive justice might overtake the ruthless invader.” Hood also offered his resignation, but Davis was sold enough on the plan’s potential that no change at the top was further considered.

  That night the president was serenaded by the 20th Louisiana band, then visited by a crowd of soldiers to whom he made a short but spirited speech, which was well received. The next day, as Hood later recollected, he and Davis “rode forth together to the front, with the object of making an informal review of the troops. Some brigades received the president with enthusiasm; others were seemingly dissatisfied and inclined to cry out, ‘Give us General Johnston.’” Davis also met with the Army of Tennessee’s principal subordinates, none of whom offered any endorsement for Hood, though only one, Hardee, said a change was needed.

  Hardee’s position came as no surprise to Davis, since he and the punctilious senior officer had already exchanged messages on the subject. It was a source of continuing frustration to Davis that so many of his most experienced leaders would not suppress their self-interest for the good of the cause. “I now ask is this a time to weigh professional or personal pride against the needs of the country?” Davis pressed Hardee at one point. Hardee never budged from his position that it was necessary for Davis to choose one or the other to lead the Army of Tennessee.

  Jefferson Davis left Palmetto on September 27 after authorizing Hood to proceed with his plan unless otherwise instructed, but without a final decision on the Hardee matter. His next destination was the Confederacy’s first capital, Montgomery, Alabama. The journey gave him time to mull over the problem. He made up his mind when the train reached West Point, where he sent a telegram to Hood reassigning Hardee to take charge of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

  By the time he reached the next stop, Opelika, Davis had composed a personal message for Hood. During their face-to-face Davis had reflected on the need to better coordinate the various military assets in the region by appointing someone to oversee operations. Davis, now inclined to proceed with that appointment, was considering General Beauregard for the job. He invited Hood to express his opinion, though he knew from their conversations that the officer would not object.

  Davis arrived in Montgomery early on the morning of September 28. This time the citizens had been forewarned so he was formally welcomed and taken to the state capitol, where he addressed the Assembly. “The time for action is now at hand,” Davis told them. He reiterated the theme that every able-bodied man was needed at the front. He scoffed at any in the crowd who thought it was proper to open negotiations with the North regarding a possible reunification of the states. “Victory in the field is the surest element of strength to a peace party,” Davis proclaimed. Anyone who felt otherwise, he warned, “is on the wrong side of the line of battle.”

  That night Davis met with another of the key figures responsible for defending the southern Confederacy, Lieutenant General Richard Taylor, who commanded the Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana. He was the son of the twelfth U.
S. president (Zachary Taylor) and Davis’s brother-in-law through the president’s first marriage. The officer was a cold-eyed realist. When the president opened their meeting by citing the excellent reports he’d received about the improving morale in Hood’s army, the general’s reply was blunt. “I…warned him of the danger of listening to narrators who were more disposed to tell him what was agreeable than what was true,” Taylor stated.

  When Davis spoke of Hood’s plan to operate on the Union communication and supply lines in hopes of actually drawing the enemy out of Georgia, Taylor was skeptical. The Federal commander, he noted, had enough troops in his Chattanooga and Nashville garrisons to check any northward movement Hood might undertake, leaving him at Atlanta free to “march where he liked.” Davis wanted to know how much help Taylor could supply from his department to assist in central Georgia’s defense. “None,” Taylor replied. He explained that beside the logistical nightmare of trying to move large bodies of men across the Union-controlled Mississippi River, the fact was that few troops serving on its west side would willingly come east. Taylor did allow that bringing a popular figure like Beauregard into the picture would “awaken a certain enthusiasm.”

  The optimism Davis had allowed himself after meeting with Hood positively wilted under the officer’s sour barrage. Davis said “he was distressed to hear such gloomy sentiments from me,” but Taylor saw it as his duty “to express my opinions frankly to him.” They conferred a while longer before Davis left the next morning on a circuitous rail journey to his next stop, Augusta, Georgia. Taylor saw the president off without any bitterness about the deteriorating situation. “I had cut into this game with eyes wide open,” he reflected, “and felt that in staking life, fortune, and the future of my children, the chances were against success.”

  The train routing to Augusta brought Davis back through Macon, where General Hardee, now reassigned, boarded on his way to Charleston, South Carolina. There was no enmity between the two, for Davis’s decision had brought solace to both men. “I can say with certainty that General Hardee was not relieved because of any depreciation of his capacity, his zeal or fidelity,” Davis later testified. Hardee, for his part, opined that Hood’s plan was the “best which can be done, if that does not succeed no other will.”

  In Augusta, on October 3, Davis met with General Beauregard. The Louisiana-born officer arrived from an inspection tour of South Carolina with a sense that time was running out on his opportunities for redemption. As the commanding officer at Charleston in 1861, he ordered the batteries to fire on Fort Sumter, and later he was the commander in the field for the first Confederate victory at Manassas. Buoyed by the popular acclaim and political support he received, Beauregard publicly attacked the Davis government for its lack of war preparations, an action that resulted in his banishment to a western subcommand.

  It was at the battle of Shiloh in April 1862, when the officer leading the Southern forces was killed, that Beauregard took the reins of an operation he had opposed, and withdrew his men from the battlefield. His subsequent abandonment of the strategically important transportation and supply hub at Corinth further tarnished his reputation. (“There are those who can only walk a log when it is near the ground,” Jefferson Davis scoffed when he learned of Beauregard’s action, “and I fear he has been placed too high for his mental strength.”) There followed a series of appointments to military backwaters, culminating in June and July 1864, when he found himself sharing the defense of Petersburg, Virginia, with General Robert E. Lee. Although equal in rank, Lee had the full confidence of Jefferson Davis as well as direct control over most of the troops on the field, leaving Beauregard to play an increasingly unhappy second fiddle. His summons to meet with Davis promised the chance to command in the field with the fate of the Confederacy at stake. Such a destiny mated well with Beauregard’s romantic soul.

  Beauregard opened the meeting by proposing a sweeping reorganization of the South Carolina defensive system, part of which involved promoting a favorite aide two steps in rank to lead it. Davis patiently heard him out before tabling the matter* and moving on to his agenda. He started with an overview of Hood’s plan. Davis’s enthusiasm for the intended course of action was obvious to Beauregard, who approved the scheme, pronouncing it “perfectly feasible,…according to the principles of war.” Davis now got down to the main point of their meeting. He proposed to create a new military command jurisdiction, to be called the Division of the West, encompassing five states and including the commands of John B. Hood and Richard Taylor (the South Carolina coastal defenses would be added later). He wanted Beauregard to take charge.

  Beauregard, who had hoped for command of an army, realized at once that what Davis was offering was essentially an administrative and advisory posting, but he would be on his own stage instead of sharing space with others. He understood that much of the appointment was more symbolic than substantial since, as he later stated, “he would be without troops directly under him, with very scanty resources to count upon, and—far worse than all—with a marked feeling of discouragement and distrust growing among the people.” Without making any effort to negotiate terms, Beauregard accepted the new position. He recollected that besides promising him the cooperation of the War Department, Davis suggested that his first official act be to meet with Generals Hood and Taylor. However, before Beauregard left to carry out his new duties, Davis needed him for one more event.

  Arm in arm with Beauregard and Hardee, Davis addressed a mass gathering in Augusta. He took care to praise both the officers on stage with him; Hardee, “the hero of many hard-fought fields,” and Beauregard, who “goes with a single purpose…not to bleed but to conquer.” Much of the rest of his speech inspired fear and hope alternately in the hearts of those present. “Would you see the fair daughters of the land given over to the brutality of the Yankees?” he asked. “We are fighting for existence, and by fighting alone can independence be gained. You must consult your hearts, perform more than the law can exact, yield as much as free-men can give, and all will be well,” he exhorted. “Brave men have done well before against greater odds than ours, and when were men ever braver?”*

  The return leg of Jefferson Davis’s visit to the troubled front was made pleasant by a stop in Columbia, South Carolina, where he stayed with his good friends James and Mary Chesnut. James, a colonel in the Confederate army, had been on Davis’s staff for a period. Mary kept an extensive diary that would, in time, become one of the principal windows into life in the South during the Civil War. As Mary remembered it, Davis arrived soon after dawn, and following a hearty breakfast the president tried to relax by sitting out on the Chesnuts’ piazza. The respite was brief, for some boys recognized him as the “man…who looks just like Jeff Davis on a postage stamp.” Before long a large crowd had gathered, forcing Davis to retreat into his room. More citizens arrived, and the pressure increased on Davis to say a few words. At 1:00 P.M. he stepped back out on the piazza, which was by now thronged by what Mary recollected as an immense crowd of men, women, and children.

  Davis began by praising those present for their steadfastness in the “great struggle for the rights of the states and the liberties of the people.” Once more he lambasted any talk of conciliation with the North. With an unspoken reference to his replacement of Johnston by Hood, Davis asked, “Does any man imagine that we can conquer the Yankees by retreating before them, or do you not all know that the only way to make spaniels civil is to whip them?” He returned to one of the core messages of his talks, reiterating that “now is the good and accepted time for every man to rally to the standard of his country and crush the invader upon her soil.”

  Davis spoke movingly of the noble Army of Tennessee’s imminent return to health. He expressed his great hopes for Hood’s operation, which, the president promised his audience, would soon threaten Sherman’s tenuous supply link between Atlanta and Tennessee. Davis built to an upbeat finish. “I believe it is in the power of the men of the Confederacy to pla
nt our banners on the banks of the Ohio [River],” he exclaimed, “where we shall say to the Yankee, ‘be quiet, or we shall teach you another lesson.’”

  Mrs. Chesnut had a mint julep waiting for the president when he finished his speech. That evening, thanks to the generosity of neighbors, a fine dinner was served, with excellent wine. Long after the guests had dispersed, the dinner settings been cleared, and the president departed to continue his journey back to Richmond, Mrs. Chesnut ruminated on her chat with Custis Lee, a Davis aide. Lee, she wrote, “spoke very candidly and told me many a hard truth about the Confederacy and the bad time which was at hand. What he said was not so impressive as the unbroken silence he maintained as to that extraordinary move by which Hood expects to entice…[the Federal force at Atlanta] away from us.”

  The slow ride from Columbia back to Richmond, requiring another three changes of train, provided Davis ample time to reflect on the steps he had taken. All that was within his power to do, he had done. Beauregard, Hood, Taylor, Hardee, Cobb—all would have important parts to play in the difficult days ahead. If those men had actually listened to his words, they understood that their salvation would not come from without but from within their region. “If every man fit to bear arms will place himself in the ranks with those who are already there,” Davis had said, “we shall not battle in vain, and our achievement will be grand, final and complete.” If Hood executed his plan well; if Beauregard could choreograph the resources to meet the threats when they appeared; if Taylor, Hardee, and Cobb understood the need to work together, all would be well.