in succession, battles being fought at five different points,Dalton, Resaca, Dallas, Lost Mountain, and Kenesaw Mountain.

After each battle Sherman made a flanking march, and Johnston hastened to a new fortified post to meet him. It was in its way a repetition of the Grant and Lee campaign. Sherman had but a single railroad to bring his supplies and had to weaken his army to defend it. Johnston was shrewdly waiting until his opponent had thus become weak enough to be safely attacked in the open field.

Johnston Replaced by Hood.-This slow and sure policy of the able Confederate strategist was defeated by the impatience of the Confederate government. President Davis, listening to complaints, and himself dissatisfied, removed Johnston at this critical juncture, and replaced him by General Hood, one of the hardest fighters in the Confederate army.

Capture of Atlanta.-As it proved, caution was just then a safer policy than hard fighting. Hood sustained his reputation by making three desperate attacks upon the Union army. He was repulsed with great slaughter. Then Sherman adopted his flanking policy again. Taking in his wagons fifteen days' rations, he skirted Atlanta and placed his whole army on Hood's line of supplies. Hood was obliged to evacuate the city, and on September 2, 1864, Sherman took possession of Atlanta, the most important workshop and arsenal of the Confederacy.

Results of the Campaign.-This campaign, which had lasted for four months, and had been marked by ten battles and numerous smaller engagements, had been attended by a loss of thirty thousand men to the Union and still more to the Confederate army. The result was very serious to the Confederacy. Atlanta and its neighboring towns con

tained the principal mills, foundries, and manufactories from which the Confederate armies obtained their supplies of powder, cannon, clothing, wagons, and other necessaries. All these were now destroyed, and the Confederacy received an almost fatal blow.

Hood Invades Tennessee.-A desperate effort was now made to draw Sherman from Atlanta. Hood, with his army of forty thousand men, suddenly left his line of defence and marched into Tennessee, hoping by cutting off Sherman's line of communication and supply to force him to retreat from Georgia and transfer the area of the war again into Tennessee.

He was mistaken. Sherman had no thought of abandoning the ground he had won. On the contrary, he had it in view to march through Georgia to the sea, leaving the armies in Tennessee to take care of themselves. Georgia, the granary of the Confederacy, would afford him abundant supplies. The destruction of produce as he passed would enormously deplete the Confederate stock of food. The march of Hood from his front, therefore, was precisely what he desired.'

Hood in Tennessee.-General Thomas was in command at Nashville. Toward this city Hood swept onward with his veteran army. Schofield opposed him at Franklin. Here a severe battle took place, in which Hood lost five generals and over six thousand men. Schofield then drew back to Nashville, and Hood advanced to its vicinity and laid siege to the city.

The Battle of Nashville.-For two weeks Thomas lay behind his works, while Hood pressed the siege. The inac

1 "If Hood will go there, I will give him rations to go with," said Sherman. The removal of Hood's army left the way clear for the movement which he contemplated, but which would have been impossible with a powerful army in his front.

tivity of the Union general gave great dissatisfaction to the authorities at Washington. Grant ordered him to move, and had started to take command in his place, when Thomas, who had only delayed until fully prepared, fell upon Hood with all his force. For two days the battle continued, December 15 and 16. rout. He lost more than fifteen thousand men, and the

remainder of his army was utterly disorganized and scattered. It never came together again. The soldiers made their way home. The army was

It ended in Hood's utter

at an end.

The war in the West was of minor importance

after this signal victory.

The Exhaustion of the South.-The South was now nearly exhausted. The heavy losses in battle and the dispersal of Hood's army had greatly decreased its fighting capacity, while clothes, food, and munitions of war were growing perilously scarce. The blockade on the coast was so close that little could be brought in from abroad. The

capture of Atlanta had cut off one important source of supply. Another was soon to be lost.

Sherman's March through Georgia. - Disregarding Hood's northward march, Sherman left Atlanta about the middle of November, and, cutting loose from all communications, started with his army of sixty thousand veterans

on a long march across the State of Georgia. For a month he and his army were lost to sight. They were out of the reach of telegraphs and railroads, living on the country as they passed, and Christmas was at hand before the anxious North heard of them again.1

1 Three scouts, who left the Union army just before it reached Savannah, brought the first news of Sherman's safety. They hid in the rice swamps by day and made their way down the river at night. Passing Fort McAllister unseen, they were picked up by the blockading

The army, divided into four columns, with cavalry and skirmishers in front, had moved through three hundred miles of fertile territory, destroying railroads and supplies throughout a belt sixty miles wide. In late December they appeared before Savannah, having performed one of the most remarkable feats in modern military history, and ruined one of the principal sources of the enemy's military supplies. On the 21st, Savannah was captured and the famous march came to an end. Sherman's army wintered in Georgia and South Carolina, still destroying supplies wherever found.

The Red River Expedition.-Early in 1864 a land and naval expedition, under General Banks, was sent up the Red River, with the hope of conquering that region. It proved a disastrous failure, Banks being completely defeated and losing five thousand men and large supplies. Meanwhile, taking advantage of the absence of troops, General Forrest advanced through Tennessee and Kentucky and attacked Paducah. He was repulsed by the gun-boats, but took Fort Pillow, and gave no quarter to its colored garrison. Altogether the Red River expedition was a costly and seemingly a needless effort, since the region invaded, being cut off from the rest of the Confederacy, could safely have been left untouched. It must have yielded of itself on the close of the war in the East.

The War on the Coast.-While these events were taking place on land, the fleet was not idle. The blockade had been made so complete that few blockade-runners now reached Confederate ports. During the war over fifteen

gun-boats, which sent north the welcome news. After taking Savannah, Sherman wrote to Lincoln that he presented it to him as a Christmas gift, “with one hundred and fifty guns and twenty-five thousand bales of cotton."