. The twelve decisive battles of the war; a history of the eastern and western campaigns, in relation to the actions that decided their issue . ehad came for this manner of procedure. The North, fatigued 3;S4 Tin: TvrELVE decisive battles of the war. ■with three years of seemingly fruitless warfare in Virginia,chagrined at tlie constant advances followed hy constant re-treats, demanded a captain who, without too chary a regardfor human life, should fjo on: and the people were perfectlywilling that he should use the resources lavishly, providedonly he produced results. If the time had come, the
. The twelve decisive battles of the war; a history of the eastern and western campaigns, in relation to the actions that decided their issue . ehad came for this manner of procedure. The North, fatigued 3;S4 Tin: TvrELVE decisive battles of the war. ■with three years of seemingly fruitless warfare in Virginia,chagrined at tlie constant advances followed hy constant re-treats, demanded a captain who, without too chary a regardfor human life, should fjo on: and the people were perfectlywilling that he should use the resources lavishly, providedonly he produced results. If the time had come, the battleof the Wilderness showed that the man also had come. It is not my purpose here to follow ont that wondrousscries of operations that make np the overland cam[)aign —those up-piled terraces of struggle at Spottsylvania and theNorth Anna and Cold Harbor—those Titanic combats thatmade the country between the Rapidan and the James onevast red Aceldama. Let*the mighty wrestle in the Wilder-ness stand as the type and exemplar of all the rest, asthat which announced alike to friend and foe that hencefor-ward it was Mar to the X ATLANTA. 385 X. ATLANTA. I. PRELUDE TO ATLANTA. Surveying from his lofty mountain fastness at Chattanoogathe broad subjacent country to the far-off Mississippi, Sher-man, to -whom Grant, on his removal to Virginia, had delegat-ed the command of all that vast theatre, saw that the war inthe West was already nigh its end. The basin of the Missis-sippi was substantially overrun, the soil of Kentucky, Ten-nessee, and Missouri fast and forever in Union keeping, whilein Mississippi and Alabama on the hither slope of the val-ley, and Arkansas and Louisiana on the other, such positionswere held as to make military operations there on a grandscale waste of time and troops. A profitless blaze of victorymight indeed be easily kindled in many quarters ; but to thedistant south-west, there were no strategic points imconqueredwhich might not better claim
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectunitedstateshistoryc
