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gained, the success might have been jeopardied by the failure to have prepared in season proper and adequate debouches through the Ninth Corps' lines for troops, and especially for field artillery, as ordered by Major-General Meade.

While the repulse was a great disappointment to the army, yet it did not occasion the least shade of despondency in the army or throughout the North. During the following summer and autumn months the siege was pressed forward. Not a day of idleness was allowed in the trenches. The restless activity and indomitable perseverance of Grant kept them constantly employed in attempts to cut the enemy's line of communication and diversions upon the north side of the James to threaten Richmond.

On the 12th of August a strong expedition was sent out from Deep Bottom, and with reckless courage stormed the Confederate entrenchments and obtained a strong position within six miles of Richmond. This attack was intended as a feint, to cover a movement of the Union forces in another attempt to obtain possession of the Weldon Railroad.

On the morning of the 18th General Gregg, with his cavalry division, succeeded in striking the railroad six miles south of Petersburg, and succeeded in tearing up the road, pushing his advance within three miles of the city, where he entrenched his forces. The cavalry were strongly reinforced by Warren and his corps, and though Lee made desperate and furious attacks day after day to regain the road, he was repulsed with great slaughter, and the Union forces refused to relinquish their hold.

The loss of the road would prove a terrible calamity to Lee, not only cutting off his most important line of supplies and recruits, but it foreboded the destruction of his entire army. Concentrating an immense force, gathered from all

points of his encampment, Lee massed them in heavy columns, concealed by the forest, and on the morning of the 20th rushed upon the Union lines, leaping over breastworks, engaging in a hand to hand fight with the desperation of a "lost cause." The carnage was fearful, the Federals fighting as desperately against overpowering numbers. Though their losses were nearly five thousand they held their position, which was now made perfectly secure, and they had permanently cut off from the Confederates their line of supplies.

Subsequent operations were pushed to the left from time to time, not without constant and desperate struggle, yet always resulting in the gradual advancement of the Union lines, and on the 5th of February they had reached Hatcher's Run, which was brought into our lines only after a severe struggle. At this point the Boydton plank road crosses; after the capture of the Weldon Road this had become very valuable and necessary to the enemy in the transportation of supplies from the Weldon Road at a point several miles below the Union lines. The Confederate defences at Hatcher's Run also covered the Southside Railroad two miles further west. Thus days and weeks of constant and uninterrupted warfare passed in the several departments of the army without any very decisive results, though in each movement Lee was losing and Grant was gaining.

On the 4th of September the joyful tidings that Sherman had captured Atlanta was announced to the army before Petersburg. A salute of a hundred shotted guns was discharged upon the doomed city, which was defiantly answered by fire from every Rebel gun. On the 25th of December Sherman had achieved his triumphant march to

the sea, which is more particularly noticed in the following chapter.

Grant and his army around the Rebel capital was now in winter quarters. His operations were principally of a defensive character. His lines were strengthened, his army recruited, men were furloughed, and the festivities of the camp revived. Sitting in his little wooden hut at City Point, the Union commander was perfecting plans and making preparations for the spring campaign, which was destined to be the death blow to the Confederacy. Already the gloom of despondency had settled upon the South, and the early overthrow of the "Slaveholders' Rebellion" was foreseen. The hero of Vicksburg and Chattanooga had now a firm hand upon the throat of the Rebellion, and notwithstanding its death throes and writhings, he would not relinquish his hold until the monster was strangled.

SAN FRANCISCO,

CAL

CHAPTER XV.

SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA.

General Grant's plan of operations at the time of his assuming command of the armies of the United States embraced the co-operation, as has been previously stated, of all of the Union forces. The principal co-operating force, and the second army in point of numbers, was the force gathered at Chattanooga, under Major-General W. T. Sherman. This force numbered nearly one hundred thousand men, with two hundred and fifty-four guns. Opposed to him was a large army, fully sixty thousand men, under General Joseph E. Johnston, encamped in and about Dalton, Georgia.

[graphic]

General Sherman commenced his advance movement on May 6th, and by the

10th of July, after a

most brilliant series of

WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN,

manoeuvers and fierce fighting at Buzzard's Roost, Snake Gap, Resaca, Cassville, Dallas, Kenesaw, Pine Hill, and

Lost Mountain, he had forced his antagonist to fall back beyond the Chattahoochie, and within eight miles of Atlanta. Here Johnston was relieved and General J. B. Hood assumed the command, inaugurating his taking command by a desperate attack on Sherman on the afternoon of the 20th. The blow was gallantly received and returned with equal force, and the assailants were driven back within their entrenchments with heavy loss.

On the 22d another attack, led by General Hardee, was made upon the Army of the Tennessee, with McPherson at its head-a furious battle ensued, in which McPherson was killed; for a time the attack of the Confederates threatened the entire wing of the army. Sherman, fully comprehending the importance of checking the advance of the rebels, reinforced this wing and ordered Logan, who had assumed command of McPherson's Division, to charge the enemy at any cost, which was gallantly accomplished, the Confederates giving way and retiring to their entrench

ments.

Sherman, the following day, commenced a flank movement to his right, capturing the Montgomery and Macon Railroad, compelling Hood, a few days after, to retire from Atlanta. The city being at once occupied by General Slocum, of the Twentieth Corps, Sherman now gave his army a short rest, and set himself to work refitting it, and preparing for his "march to the sea."

While Sherman was thus occupied, General Hood had broken up his encampment at Florence and Tuscumbia, and abandoned the South which Sherman was now about to invade, by marching northward, he hoped to be able to cut Sherman's lines of communication and compel him to return to Chattanooga. Sherman, amazed at Hood's folly

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