only about fifty thousand men were thus directly obtained. But volunteering was greatly quickened by the measure, and the employment of substitutes soon filled the ranks of the army. Such, however, were the terrible losses by battle and disease and the expiration of enlistments that in October the President issued another call for three hundred thousand men. At the same time it was provided that any delinquency in meeting the demand would be supplied by a draft in the following January. By these active measures the columns of the Union army were made more powerful than ever. In the armies of the South, on the other hand, there were already symptoms of exhaustion, and the most rigorous conscription was necessary to fill the thinned but still courageous ranks of the Confederacy. It was on the 20th of June in this year that West Virginia, separated from the Old Dominion, was organized and admitted as the thirty-fourth State of the Union.

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CHAPTER LXVI.

THE CLOSING CONFLICTS.

S in the previous year, the military movements of 1864 began in the West. In the beginning of February General Sherman left Vicksburg with the purpose of destroying the railroad connections of Eastern Mississippi. Marching toward Alabama, he reached Meridian on the 15th of the month. Here, where the railroad from Mobile to Corinth intersects the line from Vicksburg to Montgomery, the tracks were torn up for a distance of a hundred and fifty miles. Bridges were burned, locomotives and cars destroyed, vast quantities of cotton and corn given to the flames. At Meridian General Sherman expected the arrival of a strong force of Federal cavalry which had been sent out from Memphis, under command of General Smith. The latter advanced into Mississippi, but was met, a hundred miles north of Meridian, by the cavalry of Forrest, and driven back to Memphis. Disappointed of the expected junction of his forces, General Sherman retraced his course to Vicksburg. Forrest continued his raid northward, entered Tennessee, and on the 24th of March captured Union City. Pressing on, he reached Paducah, Kentucky, made an assault on Fort Anderson, in the suburbs of the town, but was repulsed with a loss of three hundred men. Turning back into Tennessee, he came upon Fort Pillow, on the Mississippi, seventy miles above Memphis. The place was defended by five hundred and sixty

soldiers, about half of whom were negroes. Forrest, having gained the outer defences, demanded a surrender, but was refused. He then ordered an assault, and carried the fort by storm.

To the spring of 1864 belongs the story of THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION, conducted by General Banks. The object had in view was the capture of Shreveport, the seat of the Confederate government of Louisiana. A strong land-force was to march up Red River, supported by a fleet of gunboats, under command of Admiral Porter. The army was composed of three divisions: the first, from Vicksburg, numbering ten thousand, commanded by General Smith; the second, from New Orleans, led by General Banks in person; the third, from Little Rock, under command of General Steele. In the beginning of March Smith's division moved forward to Red River, and was joined by Porter with the fleet. On the 14th of the same month the advance reached Fort de Russy, which was taken by assault. The Confederates retreated up the river to Alexandria, and on the 16th that city was occupied by the Federals. Three days afterward Natchitoches was captured; but here the road turned from the river, and further co-operation between the gunboats and the army was impossible. The flotilla proceeded up stream toward Shreveport, and the land-forces whirled off in a circuit to the left.

On the 8th of April, when the advanced brigades were approaching the town of Mansfield, they were suddenly attacked by the Confederates in full force and advantageously posted. After a short and bloody engagement, the Federals were completely routed. The victors made a vigorous pursuit as far as Pleasant Hill, where they were met on the next day by the main body of the Union army. The battle was renewed with great spirit, and the Federals were barely saved from ruin by the hard fighting of the division of General Smith, who covered the retreat to the river. Nearly three thousand men, twenty pieces of artillery and the supply-trains of the Federal army were lost in these disastrous battles. With great difficulty the flotilla descended the river from the direction of Shreveport; for the Confederates had now planted batteries on the banks. When the Federals had retreated as far as Alexandria, they were again brought to a standstill; the river had fallen to so low a stage that the gunboats could not pass the rapids. The squadron was finally saved from its peril by the skill of Colonel Bailey of Wisconsin, who constructed a dam across the river, raising the water so that the vessels could be floated over. The whole expedition returned as rapidly as possible to the Mississippi. General Steele had, in the mean time, made an advance from Little Rock to aid in the reduction of Shreveport; but learning of the Federal defeats, he withdrew after several severe engagements. To the

national government the Red River expedition was a source of much shame and mortification. General Banks was relieved of his command, and General Canby was appointed to succeed him.

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On the 2d of March, 1864, General Grant was appointed commander-in-chief of all the armies of the United States. The high grade of lieutenant-general was revived by act of Congress, and conferred upon him. No less than seven hundred thousand Union soldiers were now to move at his command. The first month after his appointment was spent in planning the great campaigns of the year. These were two in number. The Army of the Potomac, under command of Meade and the general-in-chief, was to advance upon Richmond, still defended by the Army of Northern Virginia, under Lee. General Sherman, commanding the army at Chattanooga, now numbering a hundred thousand men, was to march against Atlanta, which was defended by the Confederates, under General Johnston. To these two

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SHERMAN'S CAMPAIGN, 1864.

great movements all other military operations were to be subordinate. On the 7th of May General Sherman moved forward from Chattanooga. At Dalton he was confronted by the Confederate army, sixty thousand strong. After some manoeuvring and fighting, he succeeded in turning Johnston's flank, and obliged him to fall back to Resaca. After two hard battles on the 14th and 15th of May, this place was also carried, and the Confederates retreated by way of Calhoun and Kingston to Dallas. Here, on the 28th, Johnston made a second stand, entrenched himself and fought, but was again outnumbered, outflanked, and compelled to fall back to Lost Mountain. From this position he was forced on the 17th of June, after three days of desultory fighting. The next stand of the Confederates was made on the Great and Little Kenesaw Mountains. From this line on the 22d of June the division of General Hood made a fierce attack upon the Union centre, but was repulsed with heavy losses. Five days afterward General Sherman attempted to carry the Great Kenesaw by storm. The assault was made with great audacity, but ended in a dreadful repulse and a loss of three thousand men. Sherman, undis

mayed by his reverse, resumed his former tactics, outflanked his antagonist, and on the 3d of July compelled him to retreat across the Chattahoochee. By the 10th of the month the whole Confederate army had retired within the defences of Atlanta.

This stronghold of the Confederacy was at once besieged. Here were the great machine-shops, foundries, car-works and dépôts of supplies upon the possession of which so much depended. At the very beginning of the siege the cautious and skillful General Johnston was superseded by the rash but daring General J. B. Hood. It was the policy of the latter to fight at whatever hazard. On the 20th, 22d and 28th of July he made three desperate assaults on the Union lines around Atlanta, but was repulsed with dreadful losses in each engagement. It was in the beginning of the second of these battles that the brave General James B. McPherson, the pride of the Union army, was killed while reconnoitring the Confederate lines. In the three conflicts the Confederates lost more men than Johnston had lost in all his masterly retreating and fighting between Chattanooga and Atlanta. For more than a month the siege was pressed with great vigor. At last, by an incautious movement, Hood separated his army; Sherman thrust a column between the two divisions; and the immediate evacuation of Atlanta followed. On the 2d of September the Union army marched into the captured city. Since leaving Chattanooga General Sherman had lost fully thirty thousand men; and the Confederate losses were even greater.

By retiring from Atlanta Hood saved his army. It was now his policy to strike northward into Tennessee, and thus compel Sherman to evacuate Georgia. But the latter had no notion of losing his vantageground; and after following Hood north of the Chattahoochee, he turned back to Atlanta. The Confederate general now swept up through Northern Alabama, crossed the Tennessee at Florence and advanced on Nashville. Meanwhile, General Thomas, with the Army of the Cumberland, had been detached from Sherman's army at Atlanta and sent northward to confront Hood in Tennessee. General Schofield, who commanded the Federal forces in the southern part of the State, fell back before the Confederates and took post at Franklin, eighteen miles south of Nashville. Here, on the 30th of November, he was attacked by Hood's legions, and after a hard-fought battle held them in check till nightfall, when he escaped across the river and retreated within the defences of Nashville. At this place all of General Thomas's forces were rapidly concentrated. A line of entrenchments was drawn around the city on the south. Hood came on, confident of victory, and prepared to begin the siege by blockading the Cumberland; but before the work was fairly begun, General

Thomas, on the 15th of December, moved from his works, fell upon the Confederate army, and routed it with a loss, in killed, wounded and prisoners, of more than

twenty-five thousand men. For many days of freezing weather Hood's shattered columns were pursued, until at last they found refuge in Alabama. The Confederate army was ruined, and the rash general who had led it to destruction was relieved of his command.

On the 14th of November General Sherman burned Atlanta and began his famous MARCH TO THE SEA. His army of veterans numbered sixty thousand men. Believing that Hood's army would be de

stroyed in Tennessee, and knowing that no Confederate force could withstand him in front, he cut his communications with the North, abandoned his base of supplies, and struck out boldly for the sea-coast, more than two hundred and fifty miles away. As had been foreseen, the Confederates could offer no successful resistance. The Union army swept on through Macon and Milledgeville; reached the Ogeechee and crossed in safety; captured Gibson and Waynesborough; and on the 10th of December arrived in the vicinity of Savannah. On the 13th Fort McAllister, below the city, was carried by storm by the division of General Hazen. On the night of the 20th General Hardee, the Confederate commandant, escaped from Savannah with fifteen thousand men and retreated to Charleston. On the following morning the national advance entered, and on the 22d General Sherman made his headquarters in the city. On his march from Atlanta he had lost only five hundred and sixty-seven men. The month of January, 1865, was spent by the Union army at