William A. Crafts, Life of Ulysses S. Grant: His Boyhood, Campaigns, and Services, Military and Civil.

[116] hard fighting had driven Johnston into that place to be deprived of his command. By strategy he had forced Hood, Johnston's successor, out of Atlanta, and captured the town. Then sending Thomas with sufficient force back to Nashville to punish the rashness of Hood, he had cut loose from his base, and made his great march from Atlanta to the sea; and, under orders from Grant, was on his more difficult but no less successful march through the Carolinas, where Johnston, restored to command by the despair of the rebel leaders, was vainly preparing to resist him. Spring opened, and the auspicious moment for which Grant had anxiously waited was at hand. It was not suffered to pass. The army was in excellent condition and spirits, and with characteristic promptness and energy the Lieutenant General commenced his final and most brilliant campaign.

It is not necessary to go at all into the details of that memorable campaign, the splendid achievements and glorious results of which are fresh in the reader's mind. In conception, plan, and execution, it was Grant's — the result of no council of war, of no important suggestions from other officers or the government. His strategy had brought Sherman's grand army from Savannah into North Carolina almost within reach, and had moved another large force under Hancock up the Valley of the Shenandoah and towards Lynchburg, while the army of the James threatened Richmond on the south-east, and the army of the Potomac, south of Petersburg, and between Lee and Johnston, only waited for his orders to commence the battle, or series of battles, which should overthrow the hard-pressed