Sherman’s fame increased rapidly after that.  When Grant departed for the East to take command of the Army of the Potomac, he planned for Sherman a campaign against Atlanta, Georgia—­a campaign which Sherman carried out in the most masterly manner, marching into Atlanta in triumph on September 2, 1864.  The campaign had cost him thirty-two thousand men, but the Confederate loss had been much heavier, and in Atlanta the Confederacy lost one of its citadels.  It was especially valuable because of the great machine shops located there, and these Sherman proceeded to destroy before starting on his famous “march to the sea.”

This, the most spectacular movement of the whole war, was planned by Sherman, who secured Grant’s permission to carry it out, and the start was made on the fifteenth of November.  The army marched by four roads, as nearly parallel as could be found, starting at seven o’clock every morning and covering fifteen miles every day.  All railroads and other property that might aid the Confederates were destroyed, the soldiers were allowed to forage freely, and in consequence a swath of destruction sixty miles wide and three hundred miles long was cut right across the Confederacy.  A locust would have had difficulty in finding anything to eat after the army had passed.  It encountered no effective resistance, and by the middle of December, came within sight of the sea.

On December 21, Sherman entered Savannah, and wired Lincoln that he presented him the city as a Christmas gift.  Then he turned northward to join Grant, taking Columbia, Fayetteville, Goldsboro and Raleigh, and destroying Confederate arsenals, foundries, railroads and public works of all descriptions.  Lee had surrendered four days before Sherman marched into Raleigh, and the next day a flag of truce from General Joseph E. Johnston opened negotiations for the surrender of his army.

This, the virtual close of the Civil War, ended Sherman’s career in the field.  In 1866, he was made lieutenant-general, and three years later succeeded Grant as commander-in-chief of the army, retiring from the service in 1884, at the age of sixty-four.

Whatever may have been the relative merits of Grant and Sherman as commanders, there can be no question as to the greatest cavalry leader in the Union armies, and one of the greatest in any army, Philip Henry Sheridan.  Above any cavalry leader, North or South, except “Stonewall” Jackson, Sheridan possessed the power of rousing his men to the utmost pitch of enthusiastic devotion; young, dashing and intrepid himself, his men were ready to follow him anywhere—­and it was usually to victory that he led them.

Sheridan was a West Pointer, graduating in 1853, and was appointed captain at the outbreak of the war.  It was not until May of 1862 that he found his real place as colonel of cavalry, and not until the first days of the following year that he had the opportunity to distinguish himself.  Then, at the battle of Murfreesboro, he broke through the advancing Confederate line which was crumpling up the right of the Union army, and turned the tide of battle from defeat to victory.  As a reward, he was appointed major-general of volunteers.  In April, 1864, he became commander of the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac, and three months later made his famous raid along the valley of the Shenandoah.