General Johnston’s second campaign thus closed with the loss of every important position which the enemy had attacked. Not only was Vicksburg forced to surrender, with its garrison, but Port Hudson, with its garrison had been captured when he was able to relieve it, but abstained from making the movement lest he should thereby hazard the safety of Jackson, which, in its turn, was lost with the sacrifice of most valuable property. My confidence in General Johnston’s fitness for separate command was now destroyed. The proof was too complete to admit of longer doubt that he was deficient in enterprise, tardy in movement, defective in preparation, and singularly neglectful of the duty of preserving our means of supply and transportation, although experience should have taught him their value and the difficulty of procuring them. It should be added, that neither in this nor in his previous command had it been possible for me to obtain from General Johnston any communications of his plans or purposes beyond vague statements of an intention to counteract the enemy as their plans might be developed. No indication was ever presented to induce the belief that he considered it proper to form combinations for attack as well as defense, and nothing is more certain than the final success of an enemy who with superior forces can continue his operations without fear of being assailed, even when exposing weakness and affording opportunities of which a vigilant adversary would avail himself for attack. I came to the conclusion, therefore, that it would be imprudent to entrust General Johnston with another independent command for active operations in the field. Yet I yielded my convictions, and gave him a third trial, under the following circumstances:
General Bragg, at his own request, was relieved from the command of the Army of Tennessee after the battle of Missionary Ridge, and was succeeded by Hardee, his senior lieutenant general. This officer, distrusting his own ability, earnestly requested the selection of another commander for the army, and a most urgent and general solicitation was made that General Johnston should be assigned to that duty. After relieving General Bragg, of our five generals Lee and Beauregard were the only officers of that grade in the field except General Johnston. Neither of the first two could properly be withdrawn from the position occupied by them and General Johnston thus remained the only officer of rank superior to that of lieutenant-general who was available. The act of Congress authorizing the appointment of general officers with temporary rank had not then been passed. There seemed to be scarcely a choice left, but my reluctance to risk the disasters which I feared would result from General Johnston’s assignment to this command could with difficulty be surmounted. Very pressing requests were made to me by members of Congress. The assignment of this commander was said to be demanded by the common voice of the army, the press, and the people; and, finally, some of my advisers in the Cabinet represented that it might well be the case that his assignment with the disasters apprehended from it would be less calamitous than the injury arising from an apparent indifference to the wishes and opinions of the officers of the State governments, of many members of Congress, and of other prominent citizens. I committed the error of yielding to these suggestions against my own deliberate convictions, and General Johnston entered upon his third important command that of the army designed to recover the State of Tennessee from the enemy. In February, 1864, he was informed of the policy of the Government for his army. It was proposed to re-enforce him largely, and that he should at once advance and assume the offensive for the recovery of at least a part of the State of Tennessee. For this purpose he was advised to accumulate as rapidly as possible sufficient supplies for an advance, and assured that the re-enforcing troops should be sent to him as soon as he was prepared for the movement. Until such time it was deemed imprudent to open the country to incursions of the enemy by withdrawing from other positions, or to delay accumulation of supplies by increasing the number of consumers at the front. The winter was dry and mild. The enemy, as it was reported, not expecting any active movement on our part, had sent most of his horses back to Kentucky to be recruited for the spring campaign.
General Hardee had, just before relinquishing the command, reported our army as fully rested and recovered from the effect of its retreat from Missionary Ridge. He represented that there was effectiveness and sufficient supply in the ordnance, quartermasters, and commissary departments; that the artillery was in good condition, the spirits of the troops excellent, and the army ready to fight. General Bragg sent to General Johnston all the information deemed valuable which had been acquired during his continuance of command. The Government spared nothing of men and materials at its disposal. Batteries made for General Lee’s army were diverted and sent to General Johnston, and he was informed that troops would be sent to re-enforce him a soon as he had collected supplies in depot for a forward movement. Absentees were rapidly returning to the army when he assumed command. Several thousand men had joined their regiments within the twenty days immediately preceding his arrival at Dalton. Troops were withdrawn from Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile to aid him. The main army of Alabama and Mississippi, under General Polk, was placed at his disposal. Cavalry was returned from East Tennessee to assist him.
General Johnston made no attempt to advance. As soon as he assumed command he suggested deficiencies and difficulties to be encountered in an offensive movement, which he declared himself unable to overcome. The enemy commenced advancing in May, and General Johnston began retreating. His retreat was not marked by any general engagement, nor does he appear to have attempted to cut off any portion or detachment of the enemy while they were marching around his flanks. Little fighting was done by his army, except when attacked in entrenchments. His course in abandoning a large extent of country abounding in supplies, amid offering from its mountainous character admirable facilities for defense, so disheartened and demoralized the army that he himself announced by telegram large losses from straggling and desertion. At Allatoona, his position being almost impregnable, the enemy were compelled to make extensive flank movements which exposed them to attack; but they were allowed by General Johnston, who had marched out of his entrenchments, to interpose themselves between him and the ridge without receiving any assault upon their lengthened and exposed flank. He was then maneuvered out of a most formidable position with slight loss to the enemy. By a repetition of a similar course he was driven, without any apparent capacity to help himself through an entire district of mountain passes and defiles, and across rivers until he was finally brought to the suburbs of Atlanta.
No information was sent to me which tended to dispel the apprehension then generally expressed that Atlanta also was to be abandoned when seriously threatened. Some of those who had most earnestly urged General Johnston’s assignment to the command of the army when it was at Dalton now with equal earnestness pressed his prompt removal.
The consequences of changing a commander in the midst of a campaign were regarded to be so embarrassing that, even when it was considered by others too plainly necessary for doubt or delay, I preferred, by direct inquiry of General Johnston, to obtain that which had been too long withheld his plan for future operations. A telegram was sent to him insisting on a statement of his purpose, so as to enable me to anticipate events. His reply showed that he intended leaving the entrenchments of Atlanta under the guard of the Georgia militia, and moving out with his army into the field. This was regarded as conclusive that Atlanta was also to be given up without a battle, and I could perceive no ground for hoping that General Johnston, who had failed to check the enemy’s march from Dalton to Atlanta, through a country abounding in strong positions for defense, would be able to prevent the further advance through a level country to Macon, amid the consequent severance of the Confederacy by a line passing through the middle of Georgia. He was therefore relieved. If I had been slow to consent to his assignment to that command, I was at least equally slow to agree to his removal.
I could not discover between the forces of General Johnston and General Sherman any such disparity as was alleged, nor do I believe that our army in
any military department since the beginning of the war has been so nearly equal in numbers with the enemy as in this last campaign of General Johnston. His report, dated October 20, 1864, states that he had lost in killed and wounded in infantry and artillery during this campaign, 10,000 men, and from all other causes, principally slight sickness, 4,700. Of his cavalry the losses are not stated. His report, however, omits to state that his returns to the Adjutant-General’s Office exhibit a loss of over 7,000 captured by the enemy. His losses, therefore, in infantry and artillery were about 22,000, without including cavalry. Yet, notwithstanding these heavy losses, General Johnston’s returns of July 10, a few days before his removal from command, show an aggregate present of 73,849 men, of whom 50,932 are reported to be effective. But his return of the previous month shows that among those not reported as effective were quite 11,000 men performing active service on extra duty, and as non-commissioned staff officers and musicians. The available force present must therefore have been about 62,000 men. The aggregate present of the 10th of March previous (after the arrival of the part of Hardee’s corps that had been detached, although too late to aid General Polk in opposing Sherman’s raid through Mississippi) was 54,806, and the effective present 42,408. It thus appears that so largely was General Johnston reinforced that after all the losses of his campaign his army had increased about 19,000 men present, and about the same number of men available for active duty.
As the loss in killed and wounded, sick and prisoners, in infantry and artillery alone was 22,000 men, and would probably be swollen to 25,000 by adding the loss in cavalry, and as the force available on the 10th of July was about 62,000, it is deduced that General Johnston had been in command of an army of about 85,000 men fit for active duty to oppose Sherman, whose effective force was not believed to have been much in excess of that number. The entire force of the enemy was considerably greater than the numbers I have mentioned, and so was General Johnston’s; but in considering the merits of the campaign it is not necessary to do more than compare the actual strength of the armies which might have joined the issue of battle. When it is considered that with forces thus matched General Johnston was endeavoring to hold a mountainous district of our own country with numerous fortified positions, while the enemy was in the midst of a hostile population and with a long line of communications to guard, it is evident that it was not the want of men or means which caused the disastrous failure of his campaign. My opinion of General Johnston’s unfitness for command has ripened slowly and against my inclinations into a conviction so settled that it would be impossible for me again to feel confidence in him as the commander of an army in the field. The power to assign generals to appropriate duties is a function of trust confided to me by my countrymen. That trust I have ever been ready to resign at my country’s call, but while I hold it, nothing shall induce me to shrink from its responsibilities or to violate the obligations it imposes.
1 Jefferson Davis’s letter to Colonel Phelan, together with the report he wrote to the Confederate Congress regarding Joseph Johnston’s war record, can be found in OR 47, pt. 2, 1, 303-1, 312.
Bibliography
NEWSPAPERS
Augusta Constitutionalist
Chicago Tribune
Hillsboro Ohio News Herald
Louisville Daily Journal
Mobile Advertiser and Register
Nashville Banner
Nashville Tennessean
New Orleans Daily Picayune
New Orleans Picayune
New Orleans Times
New York Herald
New York Times
New York Tribune
San Antonio Herald
PERIODICALS
Blue and Gray
Century Quarterly
Civil War Gazette
Confederate Veteran
Georgia Historical Quarterly
National Tribune
North American Review
North and South
The Lost Cause, Quarterly Journal of the Kentucky Division (Sons of Confederate Veteran)
NEWSLETTERS
John Bell Hood Historical Society Newsletter
THESIS
Brown, Thomas, “John Bell Hood: Extracting Truth from History.” A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of History, San Jose State University, August 2011.
GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS
War of the Rebellion: A Compellation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I (Washington, DC, 1880-1901).
Williamson, R.S., Official Report, “Explorations and Surveys for a Railroad Route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Explorations for a Railroad Route from the Sacramento Valley to the Columbia River,” U.S. War Department, 1855.
MANUSCRIPTS AND COLLECTIONS
Barker Center Archives, University of Texas, Austin, TX
William Stanton letter to Mary Moody
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Salt Lake City, UT
LDS Church Archives, W.G. Davenport Memoirs
Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Jefferson Davis Papers
Gilder Lehrman Collection, New York, NY
Telegram, John Bell Hood to Braxton Bragg
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Joseph Wheeler Papers
Hood Personal Papers (Anonymous)
John Bell Hood Personal Papers
Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH
Thomas Taylor Letters
Rosanna A. Blake Library of Confederate History, Marshall Univ., Huntington, WV
Oration of Gen. J. B. Hood, Survivor’s Association, Charleston, SC, Dec. 12, 1875
Southern Historical Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Virgil Murphey Diary
John Copley, A Sketch of the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee: With Reminiscences of Camp Douglas
Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, TN
Bell Family Papers
Brown-Ewell Papers
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL
Henry Clayton Papers
University of the South, Sewanee, TN
Leonidas Polk Papers
Wesley Clark Collection, Dallas, TX
Transcript of Tennessee Senator Gustavus Henry’s speech, November 29, 1864
Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH
Braxton Bragg Papers
FILMS
Wide Awake Films, The Battle of Franklin: Five Hours in the Valley of Death, Kansas City MO, 2005.
INTERNET
Catton, Bruce. “Rock of Chickamauga,” book review of F. F. McKinney’s Education in Violence. http://home.earthlink.net/~oneplez/majorgeneralgeorgehthomasblogsite.
“Funeral of General Robert E. Lee.” www.gdg.org/Research/People/RELEE, Virginia Military Institute Archives, “The Funeral of General Robert E. Lee,” 1-2; William Nalle letter, “The Funeral of General Robert E. Lee,” March 4, 2011.
BOOKS AND ARTICLES
Ambrose, Stephen, Duty, Honor Country: A History of West Point. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966.
Bailey, Anne J., The Chessboard of War: Sherman and Hood in the Autumn Campaigns of 1864. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
Bailey, Ronald, The Battles for Atlanta. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1985.
Bales, Stephen, Natural Histories: Stories from the Tennessee Valley. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2007.
Beach, John, History of the 40th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. London, OH: Shepard and Craig Printers, 1884.
Benet, Stephen Vincent, John Brown’s Body. Lanham, MD: Ivan R. Dee Publisher, 1990.
Blight, David W., Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001.
Blount, Russell Jr., The Battles of New Hope Church. New Orleans, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2010.
Bobrick, Benson, Master of War: The Life of George H. Thomas. New York, NY: Si
mon and Schuster, 2009.
Bonds, Russell, War Like the Thunderbolt: The Battle and Burning of Atlanta. Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2009.
Bowden, Scott and Bill Ward, Last Chance for Victory: Robert E. Lee and the Gettys burg Campaign. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2001.
Bradley, Michael R., It Happened In the Civil War. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2002.
Buck, Irving A., Cleburne and His Command. Jackson, TN: McCowat-Mercer Press, 1959.
Buell, Thomas B., The Warrior Generals: Combat Leadership in the Civil War. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, 1997.
Burns, Ken, The Civil War. Vintage eBooks, Chapter 4.
Burton, Brian K., Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001.
Carpenter, Noel, A Slight Demonstration: Decatur October 1864, A Clumsy Beginning of Gen. John B. Hood’s Tennessee Campaign. Austin, TX: Carol Powell, publisher, 2007.
Casdorph, Paul D., Confederate General R. S. Ewell: Robert E. Lee’s Hesitant Commander. Lexington, KY: The University of Kentucky Press, 2004.
Castel, Albert, Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of1864. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1992.
Chesnut, Mary, A Diary from Dixie, Isabella Martin and Myrta Avary, eds. Avenel, NJ: Gramercy Books, 1997.
Clark, Charles T., Opdycke’s Tigers—125th Ohio, Published by Direction of the 125th OVI Association. Columbus, OH: Sparr & Glenn, 1895.
Connelly, Thomas, Autumn of Glory: The Army of Tennessee 1862-1865. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1971.
——, The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and his Image in American Society. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.
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