CH. XXIII.] ENORMOUS LOSS IN GRANT'S CAMPAIGN

447

he determined to move his army south of the James, and June 12 took up his march, the advance corps reaching the river on the next night.

The loss of Grant from May 4 to June 12 in the campaign from the Rapidan to the James was 54,929,1 a number nearly equal to Lee's whole army at the commencement of the Union advance; that of the Confederates is not known, but it was certainly very much less. Nor do the bare figures tell the whole story. Of this enormous loss the flower of the Army of the Potomac contributed a disproportionate share. Fighting against such odds of position and strategy, the highspirited and capable officers were in the thick of danger, and of the rank and file the veterans were always at the front: they were the forlorn hope. The bounty-jumpers and mercenaries skulked to the rear. The morale of the soldiers was much lower than on the day when, in high spirits, they had crossed the Rapidan. The confidence in Grant of many officers and of most of the men had been shaken.

In the judgment of many military critics, Grant had not been equal to his opportunities, had not made the best use of his advantages, and had secured no gain commensurate with his loss. Yet the friends of McClellan who maintain that because McClellan reached the same ground near Richmond with comparatively little sacrifice of life, his campaign had the greater merit, miss the main point of the situation, that the incessant hammering of Lee's army was a necessary concomitant of success. They attach to the capture of the Confederate capital the subjugation of the South, ignoring that Grant was supremely right in making Lee's army his first objective and Richmond only his second. His strategy was superior to McClellan's in that he grasped the aim of the war, and resolutely and grimly stuck to his purpose in spite of defeats and losses which would have dismayed any but the stoutest soul; and criticism of him is not sound unless it

1 Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 182. The loss in Butler's Army of the James was 6215.

proves, as perhaps it does, that there might have been the same persistent fighting of the Army of Northern Virginia without so great a slaughter of Northern soldiers. The case is certainly stronger for Grant if we compare his work even thus far with the operations of Pope, Burnside, and Hooker. As for Meade, his name is so gratefully associated with the magnificent victory of Gettysburg that our judgment leans in his favor, and would fain rate at the highest his achievements; but it is difficult to see aught that he did afterwards in independent command towards bringing the war to a close. If the narrative be anticipated, and the comparison be made of Grant's total losses to the day on which he received the surrender of Lee's army, with the combined losses of the rest of the commanders of the Army of the Potomac, the result arrived at is that his aggregate was less than theirs,1 and his was the great achievement. The military literature of the South directly and by implication breathes a constant tribute to the effectiveness of his plan and his execution of it. It must not, however, be forgotten that McClellan and Meade had weakened in some measure the power of resistance of the Army of Northern Virginia.2

Sherman, whose headquarters had been at Chattanooga, began his advance on May 6. He was at the head of three armies: the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Ohio, commanded, respectively, by Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield, and aggregating 99,000 men. Joseph E. Johnston was at

1 See J. W. Kirkley's computation, Army and Navy Journal, March 20, 1897; also, McClure's Magazine, May, 1898, p. 34.

2 My authorities for this account are the correspondence and reports in O. R., vol. xxxvi. parts i., ii., iii.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii.; Humphreys, The Virginia Campaign of 1864-65; Life of Lee, Long; do. Fitzhugh Lee; Taylor's Lee; Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. ii.; Horace Porter, Campaigning with Gen. Grant, Century Magazine, 1896-97; Charles A. Dana's Reminiscences, McClure's Magazine, May, 1898; Century War Book, vol. iv.; Life of Hancock, Walker; W. F. Smith, From Chattanooga to Petersburg; Butler's Book; Recollections of a Private Soldier, Wilkeson; Swinton, Army of the Potomac; George Cary Eggleston's Recollections of a Rebel.

CH. XXIII.]

SHERMAN'S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN

440

Dalton, Georgia, strongly intrenched with a force of 53,000.1 The campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta, which now commenced, is remarkable for the vigor and pertinacity of the attack, the skill and obstinacy of the defence. Two giants met. The greater numbers of Sherman corresponded merely to the nature of his work. In the invasion of an enemy's country, with a constantly lengthening line of supply and a resulting diminution of force by detachments to protect it, an army twice as great as the resistant was necessary to accomplish the object of the campaign, which was the destruction or surrender of the opposing host. Johnston had not as able lieutenants as Sherman, and did not win from them as great a measure of devotion, nor had he in other respects a personnel equal to that of the Union commander, whose army, moreover, had derived confidence for the future from its victory at Chattanooga. But, taking everything into consideration, the conditions of the contest were nearly even. Sherman's work became easier, as will be seen, when he had as antagonist a commander of inferior parts. On the other hand, it cannot be maintained with show of reason that Johnston could have been driven constantly and steadily southward, from position to position, by a general who did not possess a high order of ability. The more one studies this inch-by-inch struggle, the better will one realize that in the direction and supply of each of these brute forces there was a master mind, with the best of professional training, with the profit of three years of warfare. The strife between the two was characterized by honor, as has been that of all noble spirits since Homer's time, who have fought to the end. Either would have regarded the killing of the other as a happy fortune of war, though, indeed, he might have apostrophized his dead body as did Mark Antony that of Brutus; yet twenty-seven years

1 Maj. E. C. Dawes, Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 281. This number is variously given. I have preferred to follow Dawes, who has studied the subject with care. I think the same manner of computation which makes Sherman's force 98,797, will ascribe to Johnston 52,992.

2 Julius Cæsar, act v. scene 5.