The National tribune., 1904-08-04

Decay of the Martial Spirit-odious Con-
script system-c Collapse of the Confederate
mmissary-Everybody Losing Heart in
the cause-Shermans Awful Blow-The
End Visible to All Thinking Men.
The time has now come when it is no
longer possible to consider the Army of
the Potomac apart from that colossal COM
bination of force that, pressing from all
sides on the structure of the Confederacy,
finally bore it to the ground.
That this army cannot rightly be viewed
independently of the cooperative forces
throughout the general theater of war, is
made apparent by the single fact that
during the Winter months succeeding the
close of the campaign of 1864. so far from
its being any longer desirable object to
capture Petersburg and Richmond
Grants efforts were mainly directed to re-
straining the Confederates from volun
tarily giving up to him those strongholds
that. having been for four years the prize
SO eagerly coveted, were now the possession
most of all to be Stunned. How this was
and must have been so, will become mani
fest from a brief glance at the relations
which the gigantic vigOr of Sherman had
established between his own army and the
opposing forces in Virginia.
The communications on which Lee
army depended, not only for the mainte-
nance OF its interior lines with the remain
ing forces of the Confederacy in the
Southwest, but for its supplies of food and
ammunition, ran through the CarOinas
and the seaboard States and radiated over
the great productive territory of the cen
Gal zone.
sHERMAN'S OPERATIONS.
BY the capture of Atlanta, gained in the
Midsummer of 1864, Sherman grasped one
of the main ganglia of the Southern rail-
road system. This was loss terrible in
deed to the Confederates, and narrowing
the sphere of their activity and their means
of INSTRUMENTATION, yet not SO deadly
but that they might still, by the judicious
use of such force as they had, oppose a
mcnacing front and greatly prOlong the
war
But whatever opportunity was then af
forded the Confederates Of thus acting.
was thrown away, with that species of
madness with which the gods are said to
inspire those whom they would destroy,
when Hood, at this time in command OF
the Confederate Army of the West, quit
ting his proper defensive, was directed to
make his ill-judged and disastrous aggres-
sive movement into Tennessee. What
would have been a thorn in the side of an
inferior man was to Sherman an opportu-
nifty, and with one of those inspirations
such as are possible only to military minds
of the first order. he determined to offer q
counter 10 Hoods initiative by laying hold
of and advancing along those interior
lines voluntarily abandoned TO him by his
antagonist. Shermans march assumes the
aspect of great swinging movement, the
pivot of which was the army before
Petersburg. But it was a swinging move
ment described on radius of half a con-
fIp@nf-Ona those colossal
whereof there are few examples in military
history. and which fill up the measure Of
the imagination with the shapes of all that
is vast and grandiose in war.
From Atlanta Sherman advanced de-
strOying the Southern railroads. foundries,
mills, workshops, and warehouses, to Sa-
vannah on the Sea. That city was reached
the 21st of December, after a march of
above 300 miles. in four -and-twenty days.
1t was now open to Gen. Grant to unite
Petersburg either by water or by an ad-
vance of Sherman through the seaboard
States. The latter course was determined
on as the more decisive in its character
and its execution begun on the 1st of Feb
ruary, 1865, when Sherman crossed the
Savannah into South Carolina.
When Hoods crushing defeat by
Thomas before Nashville had made an
end of the campaign that Mr.. Davis had
projected as the means of throwing Sher-
man back out of Georgia. in a Moscow
retreat" and when it was seen that Sher
man. heading his columns northward to-
wards Virginia, approached like an ire
sistible fate. sweeping a wide swathe of
desOlatIon through the center of the South
the Richmond authorities, awaking to a
sense of their fatal folly and goaded by
the clamOrS Of an alarmed and frenzied
people, sought a measure of amelioration
for the shattered fortunes of the C0nfed-
eracy by the reappointment of Gen. Johns
ton TO the command of the forces oppos-
Ing Sherman.
JOHNSTON WAS HELPLESS BEFORE sHER-
MAN.
But it was already too late. Johnston
did all he could and all he did was Judi
ciOus: but he could only stay for time a
result seen TO be inevitable. Withdrawing
the garrisons of the seab0ard cities. and
uniting thereto the corps lately under
Beauregard and the remnants of Hoods
army. which with much address he sue
ceeded in bringing to junction with the
troops confronting Sherman, he prepared
to oppose such resistance as was posi-
ble to the onward march of his formidable
antagonist. Johnston had on paper q nu-
merOus army: but. in effect. il was not.
all told, above 10000 strong: while the
troops We're in such condition of morale
as may be ina gined of men who had al
ready been driven through two States into
the forests Of North Carolina In this
state of facts il was vain for Johnston TO
attempt an aggressive policy. unless indeed
he should find an opportunity of striking
q blow at a detached fragment. But his
antagonist carried too much art into his
dispositions of his columns of march ia
present such an opening. and the one
stroke at Bentonville Ia partial and unim-
pOrtant success), was all the offensive es-
sayed by Johnston.
The Confederate commander was
moreover. in trying dilemma in order
to keep open the Danvile line, by which
a junction Of the forces Of Lee and John
stOn might be made. it was necessary for
him to constantly refuse his left and ma
nuver by his right. But this was to un-
cover the path by which Sherman might
advance to unite with Grant. As this re.
suit, however. could not Tong be prevented
Johnston chose the former course and fell
back in the direction of Raleigh. which
was jrdicious measure, since junction
Df the two Confederate armies was now
The F,yerning desideratum. Pressing for
ward his advance, Sherman, the 23d of
March, reached Goldsborough. n c..
.vhere he united with the Federal columns
nat had moved out from Nswbern and