PLANNING THE CAMPAIGN.

3

the invention, non combatants of both sexes have enteredthe lists and claimed to have given expression to thethought of such a movement before Sherman had capturedAtlanta . General Badeau, the historian of Grant’s cam-paigns, must be held responsible for a good deal of thismisapprehension, which he seems to have shared himself;for he treats Grant’s earlier indications of Mobile as an ob-jective point, as if these contained the essential parts of thecampaign as actually conducted. For the matter of that,we have seen, in a former volume, that Sherman gave a suffi-ciently clear outline of the movement in his letter to theGeneral-in-Chief before the campaign of Atlanta had openedin the spring. In that, not only the march to the coastwas foreshadowed, but the subsequent campaign throughthe Carolinas, which was to make, as he said, “ shortwork ” of what was left of the Confederate Government andcause.

Whoever will reflect a little, will see, however, that noteven in this fuller anticipation of the outward form of themovement are found the essential features which gave toSherman’s decision and plan in October their peculiar mili-tary character. Unless the campaign just closed had beenan aimless thing, w r e must suppose that both Grant andSherman had reflected upon what should be done whenAtlanta fell. Every intelligent person in the country, in orout of the army, must have seen that the successful marchof a great army from Chattanooga southward, meant notonly the capture of Atlanta , but more. The problems ofwar are not matters of occult science, and while it washoped that in some decisive engagement Johnston’s armymight be routed before it reached the Chattahoochee, ittook no genius to see that if its retreat to Atlanta shouldleave it with a still formidable organization, further opera-