other position was of such vital importance to the Confederacy as Augusta, and its fall would have, of necessity, involved the speedy ruin of the cause of the Rebellion, inasmuch as their means of supply and of united action would have been cut off. The route through Augusta to General Sherman's objective point, Petersburg, was more direct, and from 150 to 200 miles shorter, than that through Savannah. By taking the former route, and advancing from Augusta through Columbia, he would not only have divided the Confederacy into two parts, but would have rendered their reunion impossible. He would, at the same time, have ensured the surrender of Lee, and the final fall of the Confederacy itself, some months earlier than they did occur. By passing Augusta, and moving round through Savannah, he permitted Johnston, with what remained of Hood's forces, to reinforce Hardee in front of our army, and to make dispositions which, but for an event hereafter to be designated, rendered the destruction of that army almost, or quite, inevitable. Besides, the capture of Augusta, which was then defended by less than 5,000 men, and the consequent hopeless prostration of the Confederacy, would have delayed the advance upon Savannah but a very few days, had such an advance been determined upon. The neglect to avail himself of this most propitious opportunity, involves, not only a palpable blunder, but a mystery which the present generation will probably be wholly unable to solve, whatever may be true of the disclosures of the future. What the Confederates suffered in regard to provisions and supplies from this march. The common impression is that by this march the Confederacy was not only divided, but so impoverished in provisions as to render a further prosecution of the war impossible. That the march did not divide the Confederacy at all is rendered fully evident by the advance of Johnston with Hood's army through Augusta into Sherman's front in North Carolina. Indeed, until our army arrived at Columbia, railroad communications between Virginia and Mississippi were not essentially disturbed. That what our army devoured, and carried off, during the march did not impoverish the Confederacy, is evident from the abundance which they found on the narrow strip of territory over which that army passed. If so much was found here, what must have remained on the other portions of the fertile territories of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. It is undeniable that the damage done by this march was a matter of trifling concern to the Confederate cause. We must find the effects of this march in other directions than its immediate results. What material and provisions we gained, and the Confederates lost, as the results of this march. During the march itself, almost nothing but provisions were gathered up. In the capture of Savannah, however, the case was different. The results of the march are thus summed up by Mr. Greeley:-"We had lost in that march of 255 miles, which was substantially the conquest of Georgia" (a great mistake, as we have seen), "six weeks' time and 567 men; whereof 63 were killed, 245 wounded, and 159 missing. To offset these, we had taken 1,328 prisoners, and 167 guns. Our ammunition expended was very inconsiderable; while our 65,000 men and 10,000 horses had lived generously off a State wherein our captives in thousands had died of virtual starvation and kindred agonies because (as was alleged) their captors were unable to subsist them. Aside from sheep, fowls, sweet potatoes, and rice, whereof they had found an abundance, 13,000 beeves, 160,000 bushels of corn, and over 5,000 tons of fodder, had been gathered from the country and issued to our men and animals; while 5,000 horses and 4,000 mules had been pressed into the national service. Of cotton, 20,000 bales had been burned, while 25,000 were captured in Savannah." Two or three times that number, with untold amounts of provisions and supplies, would have been found in Augusta, had that place also been captured. The resistance Sherman received from the Confederate forces. While the neglect to capture Augusta must remain as the mystery of the campaign as conducted by General Sherman, the absence of all real resistance to his march from Rome and Kingston to Savannah must remain a mystery equally inscrutable in the campaign as conducted by the Confederates. Hardee's cavalry under Wheeler, outnumbered, it is affirmed, those of Kilpatrick under Sher man. It is a well-ascertained fact that on his march Sherman was confronted by an army 30,000 strong, and that about 10,000 of these were cavalry, while his line of march compelled him to pass two important rivers, the Oconee and the Ogeechee, and on narrow roads, over many smaller streams, and through multitudinous marshes. Yet nowhere was there a serious resistance to his advance. At many points he might obviously have been compelled to concentrate his forces and fight battles at the greatest disadvantage. To all human appearance, his front of, for the most part, upwards of thirty miles in extent, might at different points have been successfully assaulted and broken through, and that with disastrous results to our army. Yet nothing of the kind was even attempted. Our men were permitted to forage and move at will, as if no hostile forces were near. When Fort McAlister was captured, and Hardee was summoned to surrender Savannah, the only reply returned was that the surrender could not be properly made, because the city was not then sufficiently invested. While Sherman was on his way to Hilton Head to concert measures to cut off Hardee's retreat in the direction of Charleston, the latter evacuated Savannah, and left it, with all its forts, guns, munitions, and cotton, to be taken peaceable possession of by our forces. Great generalship did not always characterize the campaigns as conducted by the Confederate any more than by the Union commanders. But one conceivable explanation of the facts before us suggests itself to our mind, namely, after the defeat of Hood, Generals Lee and Johnston, divining Sherman's final purpose, developed the plan of concentrating in North Carolina Hood's and Hardee's forces, with all others that could be collected there, for the purpose of crushing Sherman, when he should have advanced to the vicinity of Goldsboro', and then confronting Grant with a combination of force which he could not overcome. This hypothesis renders all Hardee's conduct fully explicable, he having been instructed to risk nothing, and to do nothing but impede Sherman's advance, until the combination above suggested could be perfected. If this was the plan of the Confederate Generals, and we have very good reasons for the statement that it was their real plan, then, notwithstanding the final result, we must give them credit for strategic talent of a very high order. CHAPTER XXXIII. SHERMAN'S MARCH FROM SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, TO GOLDSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA; THE SUR- We now approach the closing scenes of the eventful tragedy which has thus far occupied our attention,-scenes in respect to which our nation and the world have thus far, and in many important respects, been most essentially misinformed, and in respect to which we will at this late period furnish the needed information. Contrary to all expectation, to the great surprise of our military authorities and the nation at large, the war, by the unexpected surrender of Generals Lee and Johnston, and of the entire Confederate armies throughout the United States, came to a sudden and bloodless termination. The surrender of Generals Lee and Johnston, at the time when it occurred, was as unexpected to them and to the whole Confederacy as it was to the rest of the nation and the world. Two weeks prior to this surrender, these Generals, as we shall see, were in the most sanguine expectation of a great victory-a victory in which, and by which, Sherman would be crushed and captured, Grant be rendered powerless for future aggressive movements, and the whole aspect of the war fundamentally changed. The real cause or causes which brought about this unexpected consummation. What were the causes which so suddenly blighted these hopeful expectations, induced the unexp cted surrender of the two central armies of the Confederacy, and brought the |