the way, Bragg daily bombarding the city from the heights around it, the case looked desperate. It needed a Thomas to hold firm in such a situation. Grant, on his way thither, telegraphed from Nashville, "Hold Chattanooga at all hazards." "We will hold the town until we starve," was the grim reply.

In the story of General Grant we have told what followed and how Thomas aided in the defeat of Bragg. When Grant was called to Virginia in 1864 and Sherman put in command of the division of the Mississippi, Thomas became one of his chief lieutenants and fought with all his old vim in the series of battles that took place in the march from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Then once more he was given a separate command. General Hood, after vainly trying the effect of hard fighting on Sherman's ranks, resorted to strategy. He moved from Atlanta and led his troops to the north, his purpose being to cut the Union lines of communication and force Sherman to retreat. He did not know the man he had to deal with. Sherman sent Thomas with about thirty thousand men to Nashville to deal with Hood and himself prepared for his grand march to the sea.

The story of how Thomas now dealt with Hood shows clearly the kind of man he was. During the battle at Chickamauga, when Steadman reported to him and asked him how the battle was going, “I can't tell," he replied; "the scoundrels are fighting without any system." He was not the man to fight without system. He did nothing without knowing just what he was about. Whatever anyone might think or say, he would not move until he was ready. This was especially demonstrated at Nashville. Stationing himself at that point, he sent Schofield out to impede

Hood's advance, with instructions to fall back on Franklin if hard pressed. Schofield did so, and when Hood attacked him at Franklin, drove him back with a loss of six thousand men. During the night Schofield fell back to Nashville and the same day reinforcements reached Thomas under General A. J. Smith.

66

66

Meanwhile his superiors had been growing impatient. Why did he not strike Hood? Grant, Sherman, and Secretary Stanton were alike anxious for him to act, but he told them all that he was not ready and refused. Grant, out of patience, called him slow." Sherman, in a letter to Grant, spoke of his provoking delay." Stanton wrote to Grant that "this looks like the McClellan and Rosecrans policy of do nothing and let the enemy raid the country." But all their demands were wasted on Thomas, who gave them to understand that he would fight when the proper time came, and not before. An order was soon issued for his removal, but it was not sent, fortunately for Thomas and the country.

On December 15, the time came and all was ready. He issued from his works, struck Hood a terrible blow, rolled up his lines from left to right, and drove him back eight miles, where he took a new position at a point he had previously selected. Thomas's men spent the night in front of this new line and the next day attacked again, carrying Hood's works, driving out his troops, and following them until darkness stopped the pursuit. Hood acknowledged an utter defeat, afterwards saying, "Our line was broken at all points, and, for the first and only time, I beheld a Confederate army abandon the field in confusion."

They were given no opportunity to rally. Thomas followed them with the alertness of a Napoleon and

kept up the pursuit without cessation until the 29th, by which time Hood had crossed the Tennessee at the head of "a disorganized and disheartened rabble of half-armed barefooted men." The army was not alone defeated; it was dispersed and destroyed. It never came together again; the men straggled to their homes; nobody was left to fight in that quarter of the land. Its guns, its stores, eight thousand of its men, four of its generals and more than two hundred and fifty officers remained in Thomas's hands. No one called him slow after that.

Hard fighting in the West was at an end. Some raiding bands were sent out, and one of these captured Jefferson Davis after his flight from Richmond. Thomas remained in command in the Tennessee district till 1867, when he was put in command over Georgia, Florida and Alabama. The rank of lieutenant-general was now offered him, but he declined it, saying that it came too late as a reward for his services during the war, and that since then he had done nothing to deserve it. After May, 1869, he commanded the military division of the Pacific, and died at San Francisco, March 26, 1870.

General Thomas was a man of spotless character, a hater of ostentation, reserved, self-poised, steadfast. He was deliberate in all he did, and believed in carefully maturing his plans before putting them into effect. He was courteous and dignified in manner and his heavy form and slowness of motion fitted well with his character. "No man in the army," says Colonel McClure, "more perfectly completed the circle of soldier and gentleman. He was one of the most lovable characters I have ever known, but it required exhaustive ingenuity to induce him to speak about military matters in which he had taken a prominent part."

GEORGE G. MEADE, THE VICTOR AT

GETTYSBURG

ON three great days, from the 1st to the 3d of July, 1863, the fate of the Confederacy was practically decided. Then, on the field of Gettysburg, the culminating battle of the struggle for the Union was fought and Lee's veteran army was hurled back in defeat. Until then the star of the Confederacy, so far as Virginia was concerned, had been steadily rising. There its decline towards its setting began, and all honor belongs to the man to whom this victory was due, George G. Meade, the commander of the army of the Potomac during that momentous campaign. This was the great event in General Meade's life, the one supreme opportunity to achieve fame. Previously he had played a subordinate part. Afterwards, though in command, he did not add to his brilliant record. Later on he was thrown in the shade by the great figure of Grant. Gettysburg was his one opening for glory and he rose to the level of the occasion.

George Gordon Meade was born at Cadiz, Spain, on the final day of the year 1815. His father was at that time a merchant and the United States consul in that city. The father returned to the United States in 1816, and when his son was of proper age had him entered in the West Point Military Academy, where he graduated in 1835.

From that time forward Meade's career lay in the army. He served for a time in Florida against the

Seminole Indians and was one of those heroes of the Civil War who fought in Mexico, but he was mainly occupied in survey duty and in the construction of lighthouses until the Civil War, doing good work, no doubt, but remaining subordinate. He was promoted captain of engineers in 1856 and did not reach the rank of major in the regular army until 1862, after a year's service in the Civil War.

He held, however, a higher rank in the volunteer army, being made brigadier-general in August, 1861. As such he was under McClellan in the Peninsular campaign and served in the Seven Days' battles, fighting at Gaines's Mill and on July 1 at Malvern Hill, where he was twice struck by bullets and severely wounded. He recovered, however, in time to take part in the hard-fought battle of Antietam, where he commanded a division. He took an active part in the subsequent battles of Fredericksburg under Burnside, and Chancellorsville under Hooker, commanding the Union left in the latter engagement. His division fought well in both battles, but shared in the defeat of the general

army.

General Lee's signal success in these two great battles led to the most ambitious move in his career. Now, as after the second battle of Bull Run, he looked about for a hopeful field of operations in which he might win success during the temporary discouragement and disorganization of the Union army. In both cases Washington was secure against a direct attack. In the first instance he had invaded Maryland in the hope of gaining some marked advantage thereby. In the second he decided on an invasion of Pennsylvania, with the hope that, in the event of his defeating the Union army, the great cities of Philadelphia, Balti