Up to his occupation of Atlanta, Sherman’s further plans had neither been arranged by Grant nor determined by himself, and for a while remained somewhat undecided.  For the time being, he was perfectly secure in the new stronghold he had captured and completed.  But his supplies depended upon a line of about one hundred and twenty miles of railroad from Atlanta to Chattanooga, and very near one hundred and fifty miles more from Chattanooga to Nashville.  Hood, held at bay at Lovejoy’s Station, was not strong enough to venture a direct attack or undertake a siege, but chose the more feasible policy of operating systematically against Sherman’s long line of communications.  In the course of some weeks both sides grew weary of the mere waste of time and military strength consumed in attacking and defending railroad stations, and interrupting and reestablishing the regularities of provision trains.  Toward the end of September, Jefferson Davis visited Hood, and in rearranging some army assignments, united Hood’s and an adjoining Confederate department under the command of Beauregard; partly with a view to adding the counsels of the latter to the always energetic and bold, but sometimes rash, military judgment of Hood.

Between these two Hood’s eccentric and futile operations against Sherman’s communications were gradually shaded off into a plan for a Confederate invasion of Tennessee.  Sherman, on his part, finally matured his judgment that instead of losing a thousand men a month merely defending the railroad, without other advantage, he would divide his army, send back a portion of it under the command of General Thomas to defend the State of Tennessee against the impending invasion; and, abandoning the whole line of railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and cutting entirely loose from his base of supplies, march with the remainder to the sea; living upon the country, and “making the interior of Georgia feel the weight of war.”  Grant did not immediately fall in with Sherman’s suggestion; and Sherman prudently waited until the Confederate plan of invading Tennessee became further developed.  It turned out as he hoped and expected.  Having gradually ceased his raids upon the railroad, Hood, by the end of October, moved westward to Tuscumbia on the Tennessee River, where he gathered an army of about thirty-five thousand, to which a cavalry force under Forrest of ten thousand more was soon added.

Under Beauregard’s orders to assume the offensive, he began a rapid march northward, and for a time with a promise of cutting off some advanced Union detachments.  We need not follow the fortunes of this campaign further than to state that the Confederate invasion of Tennessee ended in disastrous failure.  It was severely checked at the battle of Franklin on November 30; and when, in spite of this reverse, Hood pushed forward and set his army down before Nashville as if for attack or siege, the Union army, concentrated and reinforced