ide, and being, by
great skill on Sherman's part, compelled to evacuate Atlanta on September
2.

By this time there had occurred the last and most brilliant exploit of
old Admiral Farragut, who on August 5 in a naval engagement of
extraordinarily varied incident, had possessed himself of the harbour of
Mobile, with its forts, though the town remained as a stronghold in
Confederate hands and prevented a junction with Sherman which would have
quite cut the Confederacy in two.

Nearer Washington, too, a memorable campaign was in process. For three
weeks after Early's unwelcome visit, military mismanagement prevailed
near Washington. Early was able to turn on his pursuers, and a further
raid, this time into Pennsylvania, took place. Grant was too far off to
exercise control except through a sufficiently able subordinate, which
Hunter was not. Halleck, as in a former crisis, did not help matters.
Lincoln, though at this time he issued a large new call for recruits, was
unwilling any longer to give military orders. Just now his political
anxieties had reached their height. His judgment was never firmer, but
friends thought his strength was breaking under the strain. On this and
on all grounds he was certainly wise to decline direct interference in
military affairs. On August 1 Grant ordered General Philip H. Sheridan
to the Shenandoah on temporary duty, expressing a wish that he should be
put "in command of all the troops in the field, with instructions to put
himself south of the enemy or follow him to the death." Lincoln
telegraphed to Grant, quoting this despatch and adding, "This I think is
exactly right; but please look over the despatches you may have received
from here even since you made that order and see if there is any idea in
the head of any one here of putting our army south of the enemy or
following him to the death in any direction. I repeat to you it will
neither be done nor attempted unless you watch it every day and hour and
force it." Grant now came to Hunter's army and gently placed Sheridan in
that general's place. The operations of that autumn, which established
Sheridan's fame and culminated in his final defeat of Early at Cedar
Creek on October 19, made him master of all the lower part of the valley.
Before he retired into winter quarters he had so laid waste the resources
of that unfortunate district that Richmond could no longer draw supplies
from it, nor could it again support a Souther