This closed the most memorable year of the war, with the price of living at the South running up to eight hundred and nine hundred dollars per day, and currency depreciating so rapidly that one's salary had to be advanced every morning in order to keep pace with the price of mule-steaks.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LAST YEAR OF THE DISAGREEABLE WAR.
General Grant was now in command of all the Union troops, and in 1864-5 the plan of operation was to prevent the junction of the Confederates, General Grant seeking to interest the army in Virginia under General Lee, and General Sherman the army of General Joseph E.
Johnston in Georgia.
Sherman started at once, and came upon Johnston located on almost impregnable hills all the way to Atlanta. The battles of Dalton, Resaca, Dallas, Lost Mountain, and Kenesaw Mountain preceded Johnston's retreat to the intrenchments of Atlanta, July 10, Sherman having been on the move since early in May, 1864.
Jefferson Davis, disgusted with Johnston, placed Hood in command, who made three heroic attacks upon the Union troops, but was repulsed.
Sherman now gathered fifteen days' rations from the neighbors, and, throwing his forces across Hood's line of supplies, compelled him to evacuate the city.
The historian says that Sherman was entirely supplied from Nashville via railroad during this trip, but the author knows of his own personal knowledge that there were times when he got his fresh provisions along the road.