neither be done nor attempted unless you watch it every day and hour and force it.”  Grant now came to Hunter’s army and gently placed Sheridan in that general’s place.  The operations of that autumn, which established Sheridan’s fame and culminated in his final defeat of Early at Cedar Creek on October 19, made him master of all the lower part of the valley.  Before he retired into winter quarters he had so laid waste the resources of that unfortunate district that Richmond could no longer draw supplies from it, nor could it again support a Southern army in a sally against the North.

In the month of November Sherman began a new and extraordinary movement, of which the conception was all his own, sanctioned with reluctance by Grant, and viewed with anxiety by Lincoln, though he maintained his absolute resolve not to interfere.  He had fortified himself in Atlanta, removing its civil inhabitants, in an entirely humane fashion, to places of safety, and he had secured a little rest for his army.  But he lay far south in the heart of what he called “Jeff Davis’ Empire,” and Hood could continually harass him by attacks on his communications.  Hood, now supervised by Beauregard, was gathering reinforcements, and Sherman learnt that he contemplated a diversion by invading Tennessee.  Sherman determined to divide his forces, to send Thomas far back into Tennessee with sufficient men, as he calculated, to defend it, and himself with the rest of his army to set out for the eastern sea-coast, wasting no men on the maintenance of his communications, but living on the country and “making the people of Georgia feel the weight of the war.”  He set out for the East on November 15.  Hood, at Beauregard’s orders, shortly marched off for the North, where the cautious Thomas awaited events within the fortifications of Nashville.  At Franklin, in the heart of Tennessee, about twenty miles south of Nashville, Hood’s army suffered badly in an attack upon General Schofield, whom Thomas had left to check his advance while further reinforcements came to Nashville.  Schofield fell back slowly on Thomas, Hood rashly pressing after him with a small but veteran army now numbering 44,000.  Grant and the Washington authorities viewed with much concern an invasion which Thomas had suffered to proceed so far.  Grant had not shared Sherman’s faith in Thomas.  He now repeatedly urged him to act, but Thomas had his own views and obstinately bided his time.  Days followed when frozen sleet made an advance impossible.  Grant had already sent Logan to supersede Thomas, and, growing still more anxious, had started to come west himself, when the news reached him of a battle on December 15 and 16 in which Thomas had fallen on Hood, completely routing him, taking on these days and in the pursuit that followed no less than 13,000 prisoners.

There was a song, “As we go marching through Georgia,” which was afterwards famous, and which Sherman could not endure.  What his men most often sang, while they actually were marching through Georgia, was another, and of its kind a great song:—­