ral Sherman, which was adopted with
success; and that heretofore referred to as having never been tried,
to detach two or more corps to make a lodgment on the railroad at
or below East Point, and then compel the enemy to come out of
Atlanta and endeavor to regain control of his only line of supply,
or abandon that city altogether. General Sherman thought it too
hazardous to detach two corps, though he was willing for me to
undertake it with one. In fact, this feeling marked General
Sherman's action throughout the campaign. He had no hesitation in
detaching a small force, the loss of which would still leave him
greatly superior in numbers to the enemy, or a very large force
under his own command, leaving the enemy to the care of the smaller
part, as in his march to Savannah. General Thomas, on the contrary,
thought the movement proposed by General Sherman "extra hazardous,"
as Sherman says in his "Memoirs" (Vol. II, page 106). I did not
regard either of them as very hazardous, and upon consideration
rather preferred General Sherman's, because I thought it could not
fail to be decisive of the capture of Atlanta, while the other
might fail if not executed with promptness and vigor, and this,
experience had warned us, we could not be quite sure of.

JOHNSTON'S UNTRIED PLAN OF RESISTANCE

Some time after the war, that very able commander General Joseph
E. Johnston told me that in his judgment Sherman's operations in
Hood's rear ought not to have caused the evacuation of Atlanta;
that he (Johnston), when in command, had anticipated such a movement,
and had prepared, or intended to prepare, to oppose it by constructing
artillery redoubts at all suitable points in the rear of Atlanta,
as well as in front, which redoubts could be very speedily connected
by infantry intrenchments whenever necessary; that he aimed to keep
on longer than Sherman's army could subsist on the contents of
their wagons and haversacks; and that Sherman could not possibly
hold all the railroads leading into Atlanta _at the same time_, nor
destroy any one of them so thoroughly that it could not be repaired
in time to replenish Johnston's supplies in Atlanta.

Here is presented a question well worthy of the candid study of
military critics. Whatever may be the final judgment upon that
question, it seems perfectly clear that Johnston's plan of defense
ought at least to have been tried by his successor. If Hood