IN THE FIELD, NEAR
ATLANTA, Geo.,
July 26, 1864.
I got your long letter and one from Minnie last night and
telegraphed you in general terms that we are all well. We have Atlanta close
aboard, as the sailors say, but it is a hard nut to handle. These fellows fight
like Devils and Indians combined, and it calls for all my cunning and strength.
Instead of attacking the forts which are really unassailable I must gradually
destroy the roads which make Atlanta a place worth having. This I have
partially done, two out of three are broken and we are now maneuvering for the
third.
I lost my right bower in McPherson,1 but of
course it is expected, for with all the natural advantages of bushes, cover of
all kinds, we must all be killed. I mean the general officers. McPherson was
riding within his lines behind his wing of the army, but the enemy had got
round the flank and crept up one of those hollows with bushes that concealed
them completely. It has been thus all the way from Chattanooga, and if
Beauregard can induce Davis to adopt the Indian policy of ambuscade which he
urged two years ago, but which Jeff thought rather derogatory to the high
pretenses of his cause to courage and manliness, every officer will be killed,
for the whole country is a forest so that an enemy can waylay every path and
road, and could not be found.
Poor Mac, he was killed dead instantly. I think I shall prefer
Howard' to succeed him. . . .
__________
1 The death of General McPherson, July 22, was a
grievous personal and military loss to Sherman. Not long afterward he wrote to
Mrs. Sherman: "You have fallen into an error about McPherson. He was not
out of his place or exposing himself more than I and every General does daily —
he was to the rear of his line, riding by a road he had passed twice that
morning. The thing was an accident that resulted from the blind character of
the country we are in. Dense woods fill all the ravines and hollows, and what
little cleared ground there is is on the ridge levels, or the alluvion of creek
bottoms. The hills are all chestnut ridges with quartz and granite boulders and
gravel. You can't find an hundred acres of level, clear ground between here and
Chattanooga, and not [a day] passes but what every general officer may be shot
as McPherson was."
SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of
General Sherman, p. 301-3. A full copy of this letter can
be found in the William
T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives
(UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/16
No comments:
Post a Comment