210

THE MARCH TO THE SEA.

the east. The militia and reserves made but feeble resist-ance, the evacuation of Kichmond and surrender of Leewere soon rumored through the country, and the march toMacon had none of the military significance of the brilliantand instructive campaign against Forrest. In a strategicpoint of view, it was a departure from the sound principleswhich had guided the preceding part of the campaign. Two-thirds of Forrest’s corps was still intact between the Cahawba and Tombigbee Rivers, and Mobile was not yet taken. Histi-ue objectives were west and south, not east and north.But the exhausted Confederacy was collapsing from all sides,its President was fleeing for his life, as he thought, and itwas the fortune of a detachment of Wilson’s command toarrest him in the far southern part of Georgia, near theFlorida line. Mobile soon fell, and Forrest, sore with hiswounds, but more sore with the chagrin of terminating hismilitary career with so great a defeat, gave his parole, dis-banded his hardy troopers, and like most of the good soldiersof the South, taught the people by word and by example tosubmit without reserve to the triumphant National Govern-ment.