The 68th was not involved in the Battle of Nashville that December, in which Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's Confederate army was nearly destroyed, but Salm-Salm did get permission to join the battle himself while the 68th stayed at their patrol stations. After Thomas's victory at Nashville, the 68th was ordered to prepare to pursue what remained of Hood's army. They redeployed to Decatur, Alabama, where Salm-Salm rejoined the regiment. They skirmished with Hood's rear guard, but the rainy weather aided the Confederates' escape. Salm-Salm led the regiment in the minor engagements following in January and February 1865 at Elrod's Tan Yard, Hog Jaw Valley, and Johnson's Crook. As Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's Army of the Tennessee advanced farther into Georgia, the 68th did as well, making Atlanta their headquarters in March 1865. They continued to serve in northern Georgia through the spring and summer of 1865, and were stationed there when news came that the major Confederate armies had surrendered to Grant and Sherman. While there, they were ordered to facilitate the transition from a slave-based economy to a sharecropper system by encouraging plantation owners and their former slaves to sign farming contracts.