Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

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[613] found adequate to the display of ten thousand men, and reflect how small a Confederate force, put between Sherman and the sea, might have disputed his march, exacted a bloody toll at every defile, and brought him to grief and disaster. But there was no such force. The general story of the march is that the Confederates had no partisan fighting as in days past; that their levies of regular troops did not make their appearance in season for a concentration of strength at any one point; that Hardee, having a command of not more than ten thousand men, remained to cover Savannah; that the clans of militia and small detachments of Wheeler's cavalry were utterly unable to cope with the enemy, and were rather calculated to provoke his enterprise than to impede his march; and that the consequence was that the sum of opposition to Sherman's march was little more than a series of small skirmishes, without result on either side.

On the 2d December Sherman's army pivoted upon Millen, swung slowly round from its eastern course, and swept down in six parallel columns, by as many different roads, towards Savannah. About ten mites from the city his left wing struck the Charleston Railroad, and encountered some Confederate skirmishers, which indicated for the first time the presence of Hardee's army. Sherman's right wing was now thrown forward; his army closed gradually and steadily in upon Savannah; and on the 10th December it lay in line of battle, confronting the outer works about five miles distant from the city. His first task was to open communication with Dahlgren's fleet, which lay in Ossabaw Sound, and he therefore determined to capture Fort McAllister, at the mouth of the Ogeechee, which enters the ocean but a few miles south of the Savannah.

Fort McAllister was a large enclosure, with wide parapets, a deep ditch and thickly-planted palisades. There were twenty-one guns, large and small, in the fort, all mounted en barbette. It had resisted two or three bombardments of the enemy's iron-clads; and it appears that Gen. Hardee had overlooked the possibility of a land attack, and had neglected to strengthen the garrison. Anyhow the Confederate commander was not up to the quick decision of Sherman, who, instead of building entrenchments and rifle-pits, resolved to take the fort by assault. A whole division was ordered for the work, on the evening of the 30th December. The fort was commanded by Major Anderson; and its garrison, at the time of attack, was less than two hundred men. The fact that its guns were mounted en barbette exposed the gunners to the deadly aim of sharpshooters; and as the division of the enemy's troops commanded by Gen. Hazen advanced to the assault, it was found that the artillery of the fort did but little execution upon them. The Federals went easily over the parapet; but the little Confederate garrison, although desperately outnumbered, fought to the last. Many of these devoted men disdained quarter, and were bayoneted at their posts. Capt. Clinch, who commanded