The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-03-10
War History as It is Wrote.


man memorial services in Fremont, O., ex-
President Hayes took occasion to draw a
parallel between the hero of Marching
Through Georgia" and Gen. Lee, in which he
said: Had Lee cut loose from his base of
supplies and proceeded by rapid marches,
Harrisburg and New York and eventually
Washington would have fallen into the
hands Of the confederates, and the scene of
war would have been transferred from Vir-
ginia to the fields of Pennsylvania"
Apparently the critic has wholly over
looked Gen. Lees invasion Of Pennsylvania,
which resulted in the memorable battle of
Gettysburg.
From a confederate standpoint that cam
paig was regarded as a mistake. Still it
was undertaken merely through compliance
with growing desire Of the people that
Lee should assume an aggressive attitude, SO
as to relieve Virginia from the ravages
of invasion for time at least. Without
sufficient supplies and almost devoid of re-
Operative resources, the confederate army
had to contend against foe provided with
unlimited supplies Of men and munitions.
From federal standpoint Gettysburg is
considered the fatal blow that eventually
terminated the strife. Doubtless that dis
aster and the subsequent reverses of John
ston at Atlanta, followed by Hoods inva-
sion of Tennessee, sealed the defeat of the
confederacy. Yet with such an opportu-
nifty as Sherman had Lee and Hood would
have pursued another course and the re-
suit might have been far different.
When impartial history shall in future
tell the true and unbiased story of Sher-
mans memorable 'march to the sea- it will
be entirely bersft of that fantastic halo of
unalloyed glory with which popular politi-
cal prejudices have long delighted to sur
round it But so long as such fables are
needful to furnish pretext for maintain
ing pension grabs the actual truth will not
| be told.
With an army of 10000 we'll equipped
soldiers opposed by force of less than
10 900 poorly provided men Sherman
marched through Georgia" Yet that
small force, surrounded by Shermans
5000 men, and hemmed in by an army Of
10000 OF more that had been sent from
| Port Royal to assist in cutting off the
retreat of the oonfederates, managed to
successfully evacuate Savannah without
serious loss
Clearly the great Grant and Sherman are
entitled to the credit Of discovering that the
confederate forces were becoming decimated
and exhausted, and all they had to do was
to continue hammering away at the remain
ing ranks until they were finally annihilated
by the sheer weight and force of overwhelm-
ing odds, with millions of men and money in
! reserve.
Vanquishing an already exhausted foe
with such manifold odds of advantages was
more an inevitable result than a difficult
undertaking.
In his opinion of the comparative military
genius Of Lee and Sherman, Mr.. Hayes is
altogether in error. While Lee practiced
the tactics of a soldier embarrassed by the
oppressive consciousness of his own limited
resources and the disastrous consequences to
his army and his country that would follow
failure or defeat, with Sherman the loss
of a regiment or whole division only
amounted 20 a few officers and so many
men the less-to be Immediately replaced.
That was all
Since Mr.. Hayes is perforce compelled to
rely chiefly upon the prejudiced utterances
of biased newspapers for his data and
general information concerning the matter
his inaccuracies are somewhat excusable.
They are to be expected.