William Boynton, Sherman's Historical Raid

[163] cavalry to give Kilpatrick fresh horses. In short, every thing wanted in the shape of organized men, equipment, horses, and batteries, was taken from Thomas to fit out Sherman. Two small but organized and well-disciplined corps, numbering together twenty-two thousand men, were given Thomas. For the rest he had orders for two divisions of veteran troops to come from Missouri; he had bridge-guards distributed over four railroads, and small garrisons in a dozen towns. In Nashville he had quartermasters' employes to man the forts; and to meet Hood's twelve thousand well-equipped and enthusiastic cavalry he had seven thousand and General J. H. Wilson's dismounted men. To further strengthen him, some twenty new one-year regiments were arriving to replace veteran troops, whose terms had expired.

Hood's army, fully concentrated, confronted Thomas. The concentration of Thomas' army had only begun. A. J. Smith's veterans were still in Missouri. To meet Hood he had less than half Hood's force. To fall back slowly while he gathered his army from the immense territory over which the fragments which were finally to compose it were scattered, was, of course, his only chance of success. How well this object was accomplished, all the world knows. How Schofield gathered the troops in hand, reached Franklin and defeated Hood, will not be forgotten. The very day he fought there, Smith's veterans began to arrive at Nashville, and the next night Schofield and Smith had made the concentration complete at the latter place. Then came storms and sleet when Thomas would not risk his army, the threats to remove him, the order removing him, the clearing up of the storm, the melting of the ice which had prevented man or horse from moving, the great battle and his decisive victory. And Sherman, with the bulk of the organized army which Hood had so often checked upon the Atlanta campaign, had marched down to the sea, the roads before him, wherever he might choose, being, as he expressed it in a dispatch to Grant, ‘all open, with no serious enemy to oppose at present.’