William Boynton, Sherman's Historical Raid

[275] that Atlanta was evacuated, suddenly and unexpectedly attacked by the enemy upon its left and rear, before it had ceased to exult over the announcement from Sherman that the enemy had abandoned Atlanta, and his order for a vigorous pursuit. While he claims that he originated the March to the Sea, and had it in his ‘mind's eye’ by the 21st of September, the records prove that Grant had planned the campaign through to Mobile in the previous January, notified Halleck of it on the 15th of that month, Thomas on the 19th, and that in February Thomas was arranging the details of the move as far as Atlanta. The records show further, that on the 10th of September Grant suggested a move from Atlanta on Augusta or Savannah, instead of Mobile, since the control of the latter had passed into the hands of the Union forces.

Concerning Savannah, the records reveal an escape of Hardee with ten thousand, from Sherman's sixty thousand, without disclosing even a plausible excuse. Here the Memoirs show Sherman looking back to Nashville, from whence alone, through defeat of Hood, could come a success that should vindicate his March to the Sea, and finding fault with Thomas, who, though crippled in all ways by Sherman, was through superhuman efforts there, saving him from the jeers of the Nation.

In treating of Savannah, he also attacks Mr. Stanton for carelessness in connection with the captured cotton, and transactions relating thereto, while the records show not only that he had absolutely no foundation for his charges, but that in most respects the exact opposite of what he wrote was true. After a magnificent and really wonderful march through the Carolinas, with every warning, as the Memoirs relate, that the enemy was rapidly concentrating in his front, the records show that he neglected all precautions, and marched the two wings of his army, neither moving in close order, so far apart that when the head of the left wing was attacked at 10 o'clock one forenoon, by the whole rebel army, estimated by himself to have been from thirty-seven to forty thousand, the advance