Chapter 13:
- Affairs at Nashville Criticised from Savannah.
No sooner had our army reached Savannah than a sickening anxiety set in about headquarters to hear from Nashville. An army of sixty thousand men had marched away from its enemy, leaving him moving toward the North, to be taken care of with what General Sherman calls the ‘somewhat broken forces’ at the disposal of Thomas. Exultation over the ‘great march’ was fast dying away at headquarters. The all-important question there was: Will Hood evade or defeat Thomas, and invade Kentucky and the North? Writing the day after he entered Savannah to General Webster, at Nashville, Sherman said in a letter, referred to in the Memoirs, but not given:
‘I have also from the War Department a copy of General Thomas' dispatch, giving an account of the attack on Hood on the 15th, which was successful, but not complete. I await further accounts with anxiety, as Thomas' complete success is necessary to vindicate my plans for this campaign, and I have no doubt that my calculation that Thomas had in hand (including A. J. Smith's troops) a force large enough to whip Hood in a fair fight was correct.’There was no peace at headquarters till this doubt was fully resolved, and the painful suspense removed by the news of final and complete victory at Nashville. This victory was full deliverance for General Sherman from the verdict he had recorded as the march began, when he wrote: ‘Should we fail, this march would be adjudged the wild adventure of a crazy fool.’ Had Hood defeated Thomas, or reached the
