After the Battle of Allatoona, Major-General Samuel G. French’s Confederate division rejoined General John Bell Hood’s Army of Tennessee stationed around Dallas, Georgia. Despite failing to seize the warehouses at Allatoona, Hood still hoped to wreak enough havoc on the Federal supply line to force Major-General William T. Sherman’s Federals into an open battle. Hood’s Confederates destroyed several miles of track on the Western & Atlantic Railroad between Atlanta and Chattanooga.
Sherman, headquartered on Kennesaw Mountain, still could not determine whether Hood intended to move north toward Chattanooga or south to try taking back Atlanta. He had left the Twentieth Corps under Major-General Henry W. Slocum at Atlanta while moving the rest of his forces north along the Western & Atlantic to hunt Hood down.
On October 7, Federal scouts reported that the Confederates in the Dallas area were gone. Sherman warned Slocum that Hood might have “gone off south” to attack him, but concluded, “I cannot guess his movements as I could those of (former Confederate commander Joseph E.) Johnston, who was a sensible man and only did sensible things.” Sherman learned later that day that Hood was actually moving north.
After a day-long rain delay, the Federals arrived at Allatoona on the 9th. By that time, Hood’s Confederates were crossing the Coosa River and heading west toward Alabama. Hood had abandoned the plan to draw Sherman into a battle, explaining to his superiors at Richmond that the raid on the railroad had been so successful that no battle was needed. Instead, he wrote that if Sherman pursued him, “I shall move on his rear,” and if Sherman went south instead, “I shall move to the Tennessee River via La Fayette and Gadsden.”
Hood described his plan in greater detail to General P.G.T. Beauregard, who met with him at Cave Spring near the Alabama line on the 9th. Beauregard had recently been appointed to head the new Military Division of the West, overseeing both Hood’s army and Lieutenant-General Richard Taylor’s in Louisiana. President Jefferson Davis hoped that Beauregard could offer some much-needed guidance for Hood. However, since he had not yet formally assumed command, this meeting was unofficial.
Hood explained that he planned to continue raiding Sherman’s supply lines, drawing him out of Atlanta and fighting him if the opportunity presented itself. If Sherman refused to come out and fight, Hood would raid the Federal lines indefinitely. Beauregard was not satisfied with this vague plan, but since he was not yet Hood’s superior, he could not reject it.
Beauregard advised that even though he was not “sufficiently well acquainted with the nature of the country,” Hood should not “carry out the first project (i.e., giving Sherman battle)” if Sherman concentrated his forces. Hood agreed, and both commanders resolved not to fight Sherman “unless with positive advantage on our side of numbers and position, or unless the safety of the army required it.”
The next day, Hood began moving his troops northeast toward Rome, on the Etowah River. Sherman responded by sending Federals to Kingston, 15 miles east of Rome. He expected Hood to head west, where Major-General George H. Thomas’s Federals at Chattanooga could deal with him. But Hood instead planned to continue moving northeast to wreck the Western & Atlantic Railroad between Resaca and Dalton.
Sherman wanted nothing to do with chasing down Hood’s Confederates. He wrote to Thomas at Chattanooga, “We have plenty of bread and meat, but forage is scarce. I want to destroy all the road below Chattanooga, including Atlanta, and to make for the sea-coast. We cannot defend this long line of road.” Sherman also wrote to General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant, the overall Federal commander:
“It will be a physical impossibility to protect the roads now that Hood, Forrest, Wheeler, and the whole batch of devils, are turned loose without home or habitation… Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless for us to occupy it; but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people, will cripple their military resources. By attempting to hold the roads, we will lose a thousand men each month, and will gain no result. I can make this march, and make Georgia howl! We have on hand over eight thousand head of cattle and three million rations of bread, but no corn. We can find plenty of forage in the interior of the State…”
Sherman then sent a second message to Grant:
“We cannot now remain on the defensive. With twenty-five thousand infantry and the bold cavalry he has, Hood can constantly break my road. I would infinitely prefer to make a wreck of the road and of the country from Chattanooga to Atlanta, including the latter city; send back all my wounded and unserviceable men, and with my effective army move through Georgia, smashing things to the sea. Hood may turn into Tennessee and Kentucky, but I believe he will be forced to follow me. Instead of being on the defensive, I will be on the offensive. Instead of my guessing at what he means to do, he will have to guess at my plans. The difference in war would be fully twenty-five per cent. I can make Savannah, Charleston, or the month of the Chattahoochee (Appalachicola). Answer quick, as I know we will not have the telegraph long.”
But Grant (and more importantly, President Abraham Lincoln) did not want to approve such a risky plan so close to the presidential election.
While waiting for Grant’s response, Sherman began concentrating his forces at Rome and bolstering the garrison at Resaca, even though he still did not yet know that Hood was targeting both Resaca and Dalton. Grant replied on October 12, “On reflection I think better of your proposition. It will be much better to go South than to be forced to come North. You will no doubt clean the country where you go of railroad tracks and supplies.”
Grant advised that if Sherman went south, he should bring “every wagon, horse, mule and hoof of stock as well as the Negroes,” and take any extra arms and “put them in the hands of the Negro men.” This was not intended to foment a slave uprising, but rather to allow the slaves to defend themselves in the hostile country. Sherman was elated to receive Grant’s approval. But before he could go south, he would have to deal with Hood.
Bibliography
Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command. Open Road Media, Kindle Edition, 2015.
Faust, Patricia L. (Patricia L. Faust ed.), Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.
Nevin, David, Sherman’s March: Atlanta to the Sea. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983.
Sherman, William T., Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, Vol. I. New York: D. Appleton and Co. (Kindle Edition), 1889.