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ACROSS THE CHATTAHOOCHEE (JULY 3-17)
Assuming that Johnston would retreat beyond the Chattahoochee and
hoping to catch him before he did, Sherman ordered a vigorous pursuit.
As usual when it came to assessing Johnston's intentions, he was wrong.
Two weeks before Johnston, at the urging of his chief of artillery,
Brigadier General Shoup, had authorized the construction of a fortified
line along the north bank of the Chattahoochee where it would cover the
railroad bridge. After a halt at Smyrna Camp Ground on July 3-4, he
withdrew to this position on July 5. Although Johnston had done the same
at Resaca, Sherman at first refused to believe that "such a general as
he" would fight with a river to his back. Not until Sherman made a
personal reconnaissance did he admit that indeed this was the case. He
also concluded that the new enemy line could not be carried by assault
and so, like all of the previous ones, it would have to be
outflanked.
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THE SOUTH BANK OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER WITH CONFEDERATE WORKS IN THE
FOREGROUND. (LC)
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There were two ways that could be done. One was to cross the
Chattahoochee downstream from the fortifications (to the southwest), the
other was to cross upstream from there (to the northeast). Johnston
expected Sherman to adopt the first approach: not only would this place
him closer to Atlanta but hitherto all of his large-scale flanking
maneuvers had been to his right. Instead, Sherman chose the second
option, for unlike the first it would enable him to keep his army
between the Confederates and the vital railroad.
Accordingly, on July 8 Schofield, acting on Sherman's instructions,
secured a bridgehead on the south (actually west) side of the
Chattahoochee at Isham's Ford, and on the following day Brigadier
General Kenner Garrard's cavalry division did the same further north at
Roswell. Neither Schofield nor Garrard encountered serious resistance
because none was present owing to Johnston's assumption that Sherman
would attempt to cross downstream. On the night of July 9 Johnston,
realizing that he had been outgeneraled and that his position now was
untenable, withdrew his army to the other side of the river, burned the
railroad bridge, and then established his headquarters at the Dexter
Niles house, a mere three miles from the center of Atlanta. In the city,
when they learned of the retreat, hundreds of the inhabitants fled, and
the evacuation of military hospitals and machinery, already under way,
accelerated.
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GENERAL HENRY HALLECK (LC)
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MAJOR GENERAL GRENVILLE DODGE'S XVI CORPS CROSSES THE CHATTAHOOCHEE AT
ROSWELL'S FERRY. (FRANK AND MARIE WOOD PRINT COLLECTION)
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Sherman refrained from an immediate pursuit. His troops needed to
rest and catch their psychological breath before making a final lunge at
Atlanta. Besides, he no longer felt compelled to maintain constant
pressure on Johnston. On June 28, just one day after his bloody, futile
assault at Kennesaw, he had received a telegram from Halleck in
Washington. It read:
Lieutenant General Grant directs me to say that the movements of
your army may be made entirely independent of any desire to retain
Johnston's forces where they are. He does not think Lee will bring any
additional troops to Richmond, on account of the difficulty of feeding
them.
Behind these words lay the story of the campaign in Virginia. There
Grant had engaged Lee in a series of titantic battles, seeking to
deliver a knockout blow. Each time Lee had held his own, inflicting
ghastly casualties on the Federals, who usually did the attacking. Only
by means of flanking moves had Grant been able to force Lee back to the
defenses of Richmond. But there he had been stopped. Worse, in the
fighting his army lost over 60,000 men and with them its offensive
capability: the survivors simply were unwilling to charge the
Confederate trenches, fearful of another slaughter such as the one on
June 3 at Cold Harbor where 7,000 Federals were mowed down in less than
ten minutes in a vain effort to pierce Lee's thin line. Grant realized
this, and though he would keep trying, he also realized that it was
unlikely that he would defeat Lee or take Richmond in the near
future.
That is why he had Halleck send the message to Sherman that he did.
In effect, he told Sherman that it was up to him to achieve in Georgia
what he, Grant, had failed to accomplish in Virginia—a war-winning
victory or a victory that would cause the Northern people to believe
that the war was being won. This meant that Sherman, not Grant,
henceforth had the star role in the strategic drama of 1864.
Even as Sherman moved to the center of the military stage, Johnston
was about to be removed from it. Jefferson Davis was dismayed by
Johnston's failure to try to defeat Sherman in an all-out battle,
alarmed by his incessant retreats, and unconvinced by that general's
explanation for both, namely that he was too heavily outnumbered either
to attack Sherman successfully or to block his flanking moves. Moreover,
to urgings from Davis's chief of staff, General Braxton Bragg, that
Wheeler's cavalry be used to cut Sherman's supply line, Johnston
answered that he needed it to protect his flanks and that therefore
cavalry from elsewhere—in particular Nathan Bedford Forrest's in
Mississippi—should be sent to perform this mission. Were that done,
Johnston contended, Sherman would be compelled to retreat and the Army
of Tennessee could go over to the offensive.
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ATLANTA AREA
From Kennesaw Johnston withdrew to a fortified line covering the
railroad on the northwest bank of the Chattahoochee. Knowing that a
direct attack on this position merely would repeat the Kennesaw
slaughter, Sherman outflanked it by sending detachments across the
Chattahoochee at Isham's Ford and Roswell. Johnston, who had expected
Sherman to attempt to turn his left rather than right flank, thereupon
retreated on the night of July 9 to the other side of the Chattahoochee
and within a few miles of Atlanta. Sherman, wishing to rest and resupply
his troops before entering into what he believed would be the final
phase of the campaign, made no attempt to follow with his full force
until July 17. On that very same day Confederate President Jefferson
Davis, having decided that Johnston could not be trusted to make a
determined effort to hold Atlanta, replaced him as commander with
Hood.
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Whether he realized it or not, Johnston in effect was saying that he
could not stop Sherman through his own efforts. To Davis, this was
intolerable. For if Sherman was not stopped—that is, if Atlanta was
not held—then all that had been achieved by Lee stopping Grant and
holding Richmond would be wasted and the Confederate strategy of winning
by not losing foiled.
There were three things Davis could have done. The first was to send
Forrest, as Johnston insisted, against Sherman's supply line. The
problem with that was that Forrest was needed to defend Mississippi
against Union incursions that Sherman had ordered for the precise
purpose of keeping him pinned there. For him to go into Tennessee or
Georgia would be to abandon both Mississippi and Alabama, and that in
turn would deprive the Army of Tennessee of its main source of supplies.
Forrest, therefore, had to stay where he was.
Davis's second option was to remove Johnston from command. He very
much wanted to do so. But militarily and politically it would be a risky
step. Besides, with whom could he replace him? Hence he perforce
followed the third course open to him, namely to hope that Johnston
ultimately would fight and defeat Sherman, or at the very least prevent
him from taking Atlanta.
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PONTOON BOATS WERE USED TO FERRY TROOPS AND EQUIPMENT ACROSS THE MANY
RIVERS AND CREEKS. (LC)
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This hope all but disappeared when Johnston retreated across the
Chattahoochee to the very outskirts of Atlanta. As soon as he learned of
it Davis sent Braxton Bragg to Atlanta to ascertain what plans, if any,
Johnston had for defending the city and whether it would be best to
replace him with Hardee or Hood. Bragg arrived in Atlanta by train on
July 13 and spent two days conferring with Johnston and his generals,
especially Hood, from whom he obtained a memorandum criticizing
Johnston's conduct of the campaign and claiming that he was the sole top
commander in the Army of Tennessee to have favored an offensive policy.
On July 15 Bragg telegraphed Davis that he could not learn that Johnston
"has any more plan for the future than he has had in the past," and that
to replace him with Hardee "would perpetuate the past and present policy
of retreat" that Hardee "has advised and now sustains."
Bragg's statement about Johnston was true. His assertion concerning
Hardee was a lie motivated by a personal grudge against him going back
to the time when Bragg commanded the Army of Tennessee. Perhaps Davis,
on reading it, suspected that it was false, for he had a letter from
Hardee complaining about Johnston's passivity. In any event he decided
to give Johnston one last chance. On the morning of July 16 he
telegraphed him: I wish to hear from you as to present situation, and
your plan of operations so specifically as to enable me to anticipate
events." That evening Johnston answered:
As the enemy has double our number, we must be on the defense. My
plan of operations must, therefore, depend on that of the enemy. It is
mainly to watch for an opportunity to fight to advantage. We are trying
to put Atlanta in condition to be held for a day or two by the Georgia
militia, that army movements may be freer and wider.
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UNION TROOPS CAMPED NEAR MARIETTA. (LC)
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THIS HARPER'S WEEKLY ILLUSTRATION DEPICTS HOWARD'S CORPS CROSSING
THE CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER BY PONTOON BRIDGE.
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When, on the morning of July 17, Davis read these words he hesitated
no longer. Johnston, it was obvious, could not be depended on to make a
determined, all-out effort to hold Atlanta. As for Hardee, even if what
Bragg had said about him was untrue, the fact remained that back in
December he had declined the permanent command of the Army of Tennessee,
an indication of a fear of responsibility that could be fatal given the
present circumstances of that army. Thus Johnston's replacement had to
be Hood: only he could be trusted to fight, and to fight hard, for
Atlanta. That afternoon the Confederate War Department transmitted
telegrams to Johnston and Hood notifying the former that he was relieved
of command and the latter that he now commanded, with the temporary rank
of full general, the Army of Tennessee.
As these telegrams made their way from Richmond to Atlanta, Sherman's
army crossed the Chattahoochee with McPherson and Schofield heading for
Decatur, east of Atlanta, and Thomas moving directly on the city from
the north. Sherman thought it probable that Johnston would give battle,
but he also deemed it possible he would again retreat. Either way,
Sherman was confident that soon Atlanta would be his.
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