“... it is difficult to see how General Sherman can escape a still more disastrous fate than that which threatened his predecessor.  He has advanced nearly one hundred and fifty miles from his base of operations, over a mountainous country; and he has no option but to retreat by the same line as he advanced.  This is the first instance of a Federal general having ventured far from water communications.  That Sherman has hitherto done so with success is a proof of both courage and ability, but he will need both these qualities in a far greater degree if he is forced to retreat[1224].”

And W.H.  Russell, in the Gazette, included Grant in the approaching disaster: 

“The world has never seen anything in war so slow and fatuous as Grant’s recent movements, except it be those of Sherman.  Each is wriggling about like a snake in the presence of an ichneumon.  They both work round and round, now on one flank and then on the other, and on each move meet the unwinking eye of the enemy, ready for his spring and bite.  In sheer despair Grant and Sherman must do something at last.  As to shelling!  Will they learn from history?  Then they will know that they cannot shell an army provided with as powerful artillery as their own out of a position....  The Northerners have, indeed, lost the day solely owing to the want of average ability in their leaders in the field[1225].”

On the very day when Russell thus wrote in the Gazette the city of Atlanta had been taken by Sherman.  When the news reached England the Times having declared this impossible, now asserted that it was unimportant, believed that Sherman could not remain in possession and, two days later, turned with vehemence to an analysis of the political struggle as of more vital influence.  The Democrats, it was insisted, would place peace “paramount to union” and were sure to win[1226].  Russell, in the Gazette, coolly ignoring its prophecy of three weeks earlier, now spoke as if he had always foreseen the fall of Atlanta: 

“General Sherman has fully justified his reputation as an able and daring soldier; and the final operations by which he won Atlanta are not the least remarkable of the series which carried him from Chattanooga ... into the heart of Georgia[1227].”

But neither of these political-military “expert” journals would acknowledge any benefit accruing to Lincoln from Sherman’s success.  Not so, however, Lyons, who kept his chief much better informed than he would have been if credulous of the British press.  Lyons, who for some time had been increasingly in bad health, had sought escape from the summer heat of Washington in a visit to Montreal.  He now wrote correctly interpreting a great change in Northern attitude and a renewed determination to persevere in the war until reunion was secured.  Lincoln, he thought, was likely to be re-elected: