removal was cautiously communicated to the Generals of the higher grade. They promptly united in a request to the Government for a revocation of the order. But Gen. Johnston took leave of them at once; and veteran commanders, who had never blanched before the enemy, now gave way to emotions which do honour at times even to warriors. It was thought best to withhold the announcement of the intelligence from the army until Gen. Johnston had left its vicinity.

On the next day Gen. Johnston sent the following dispatch to Richmond, which closed his service in the field, until public opinion and the voice of Congress demanded his restoration again to command, when he was once more to appear, but at a time when he could only bear a part in the formalities of the final dissolution. The dispatch was as follows:

Gen. S. Cooper:

NEAR ATLANTA, July 18, 1864.

Com

Your dispatch of yesterday received and obeyed. mand of the Army and Department of Tennessee has been transferred to Gen. Hood. As to the alleged cause of my removal, I assert that Sherman's army is much stronger, compared with that of Tennessee, than Grant's, compared with that of Northern Virginia. Yet the enemy has been compelled to advance more slowly to the vicinity of Atlanta than to that of Richmond and Petersburg, and has penetrated much deeper into Virginia than into Georgia. Confident language by a military commander is not usually regarded as evidence of competency.

J. E. JOHNSTON.

Besides the cause assigned for his removal in the official telegram of Gen. Cooper, it was alleged in the Government newspapers in Richmond that Gen. Johnston had disregarded the instructions and wishes of President Davis. But there had been no instructions except those for assuming the offensive, given while at Dalton in the preceding winter, and these it had been impracticable at any time to execute. Other than those, there had been no expression of the President's wishes, except just before the army had reached the Chattahoochee, which was a warning to Johnston against fighting with a river at his back, as well as against crossing it.

It was also semi-officially charged that he had intended giving up Atlanta-a charge which the vigorous measures he was engaged in for strengthening the place, and the fact that his own. family and effects were there under permanent arrangements, disproved.

As to the reason which had been officially alleged, it was palpably insufficient, as coming from the government at Richmond, near which Gen. Lee had, in a manner equally masterly, executed a defensive movement under the same necessity. On this subject, Gen. Johnston wrote unofficially, a few weeks later:-"After his experience in the Wilderness, Gen. Lee adopted as thorough a defensive as mine, and added by it to his great fame. The only other difference between our operations, was due to Gen. Grant's bull-headedness and Sherman's extreme caution, which carried the armies in Virginia to Petersburg in less than half the time in which Sherman reached Atlanta. From our relative losses, I might have expected to be very soon stronger than Sherman. His army beaten on the east of the Chattahoochee, might have been destroyed." The same government which made this objection had virtually promoted Gen. Bragg, who had retreated from central Kentucky into North Georgia, with a force far less disproportioned to that of his adversary than Gen. Johnston's.

The effect of the intelligence of Johnston's removal was as depressing upon the Confederate army before Atlanta as it was exhilarating upon that of the enemy. Sherman, no longer observing the "extreme caution" which had been the highest proof he could have given of his appreciation of Johnston's ability, now became bold and audacious. And, verily, the Furies were at that time let loose upon Georgia and the ill-fated Carolinas.

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CHAPTER XXXV.

The fall of Atlanta and what it involved.-Gen. Johnston foretells Sherman's "march to the sea."-The Va Victis.-Gen. Johnston restored to command.The North Carolina campaign.-Sherman's stipulations for a surrender.-Interference from Washington.-Qualities of Gen. Johnston as a great commander.— His military peculiarities.-Compared to George Washington.-His patriotic and noble silence nnder censure.-His person and deportment.-Literary accomplishments. His advice to the Southern people on their duties after the surrender.

THE fall of Atlanta through the unskilful action of Gen. Hood was one of the worst calamities of the war. How so invaluable a prize was lost on the part of the Confederacy, has been ineffaceably stereotyped on the pages of history. A General of great activity had advanced upon the place, by observing an unwearied caution coupled with sleepless diligence, and moving with a force doubly stronger than that defending it. With equal skill and caution, and with a success in retreat unsurpassed in history, he had been resisted. But a controlling power at a distance, in an evil moment, ordered the abandonment, by the weaker army, of the wary, skilful, and safe policy of defence, for the assumption of an audacious and reckless series of aggressive measures.

The dispirited army of Hood lay, after the fall of Atlanta, for a month on the road to Macon. Visited there by President Davis, towards the end of September, preparations soon after began to be made for some permanent movement. By the last day of the month, this new strategy had become developed. Hood crossed the Chattahoochee, and was marching on the line of Sherman's communications. Sherman followed until the 5th of October, far enough to signal the garrison at Allatoona to hold out against the approaching danger. On the 6th of October, Gen. Johnston, living privately at Macon, and not having heard what Sherman was doing, wrote unofficially to Richmond: "It is said that our army is on Sherman's route to Chattanooga. This movement has uncovered the route through Macon, by which the army of

Virginia is supplied, and the shops at which ammunition is prepared and arms are repaired for the Army of Tennessee. If Sherman understands that either Charleston, Savannah, Pensacola or Mobile is as good a point for him as Chattanooga, he will not regard Hood's movement."

Gen. Hood and his erratic offensive soon came to grief. His army, after severe defeats in Tennessee, soon ceased to be, as an army, among the things of earth. Gen. Sherman, instead of restor ing, destroyed his communications with Chattanooga, and returned to Atlanta. The country was open to him "from the centre all round to the sea." He could march forth at his pleasure. Having concentrated his troops at Atlanta, he was ready, by the 15th November, to set forward, in whatever direction he pleased. One week before, on the 8th of the month, Gen. Johnston, about to leave Macon, wrote thence unofficially to Richmond: "I could not tell the public what I would have done if left in command. I do not hesitate to tell you, though, that if I had been left in command of that army, it is very unlikely that Atlanta would have been abandoned. At all events, ten or twelve thousand soldiers, whose lives have been thrown away, would have been saved. Nor would I have left Sherman, with a force about equal to my own, in the heart of Georgia, to make such an excursion as our army is now engaged in. If Sherman understands his game, he can now cut off Gen. Lee's supplies, which pass through this place, and break up all our establishments for the repair of arms and preparation of ammunition; and this without risk, without the chance of being compelled to fight-a necessity which he can avoid by marching to Charleston, Savannah, Pensacola, or Mobile. At this season the country can furnish his army an abundance of food and forage. Sherman, in his extreme caution, may not venture upon such a course. Should he do so, he will win.

"His army has been greatly reduced since his occupation of Atlanta. It was formed in 1861 for three years. The terms of most of the regiments have expired, and a very large number refused to reënlist. I expected them to be discharged during the summer, as their times expired. Sherman, however, made an arrangement with them for their service until the capture of Atlanta."

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But Sherman's "extreme caution" had been thrown off with the removal of Johnston; and he now resolved on turning his face to the seaboard. What inducements he offered to secure the reënlistment of his men, may be inferred from the license which they indulged in the long marches of the months that followed. Hood had re-created Sherman's army by exposing the private wealth of three States, as the tempting booty for reenlistment. Then came the va victis; for it had been inade a matter of contract.

By the middle of the succeeding February, Mr. Seddon had left the War Department at Richmond; Gen. Breckinridge had taken his place; Gen. Lee had been made General-in-chief of all the Confederate forces; Sherman had subdued Georgia and South Carolina, and sacked and burned Columbia; Gen. Beauregard, commanding in those States, had failed, from inadequacy of troops, to check the formidable invasion; Gen. Bragg, falling into hopeless unpopularity at Richmond, had been assigned to the Department of North Carolina, and had been in charge at Wilmington when that city fell under the operations of Commodore Porter and Gen. Terry, successfully directed against Fort Fisher.

And now, yielding to the boldly-pronounced wishes of Congress, and the universal demands of the people, no less than to the dictates of his own spontaneous judgment, Gen. Lee called Gen. Johnston forth from retirement, and placed him in command of all the troops that could be collected from the two Carolinas to the Mississippi. Gen. Johnston immediately took measures for concentrating the detached forces which had been at Charleston under Hardee, in the vicinity of Charlotte with Beauregard, in Wilmington under Bragg, and in other quarters under whatever commanders; and moving them in the direction of Fayetteville, North Carolina. On the other hand, the enemy were endeavouring to concentrate in the same quarter, by the union of Sherman from Columbia, Terry from Wilmington, and Schofield, who was approaching from Newbern, through Goldsboro. By the 18th March, Johnston had so far succeeded as to get together a body of fourteen thousand troops, at Bentonville, North Carolina, and to plant himself in the path of Sherman, who was marching from Fayetteville north-eastward towards