manoeuvers prolong the contest until the
National Government might abandon it. Grant's letters at that time
confirm this view of the military situation.

Some writers have attempted to explain and justify Sherman's action
in taking with him so large an army, while leaving Thomas one so
much smaller, on the ground that he might meet in his march to the
sea such opposition as possibly to require so large a force to
overcome it. But to any one familiar with the facts, and to no
one more than to Sherman, his army of 60,000 men was evidently all
out of proportion to any possible resistance it could meet in
Georgia. But when he should start northward from Savannah the case
would become vastly different. At any point in the Carolinas he
might possibly meet the whole of Lee's army. That is to say,
Sherman's ulterior plan could not be prudently undertaken at all
without an army as large as that with which he actually marched to
the sea, namely, 60,000 men. Indeed, as the records show, Sherman
considered a long time before he decided that he could spare the
Twenty-third Corps to go back and help Thomas. If any question
can possibly exist as to what was the essential part of Sherman's
plan in marching to Savannah, what other possible military reason
can be given for that march except to make the subsequent march to
Virginia with so large an army? Why change his base to Savannah?
What was he to operate against after he got there?

Nothing could have been clearer to any military mind in the fall
of 1864, than that if either Lee's or Hood's army could be captured
or destroyed, the surrender of the other must necessarily follow
very quickly, and the rebellion be ended. No man could have been
more earnest than Sherman in his laudable desire to make the capture
of his own adversary the beginning of the end. Sherman's well-
known character leaves this beyond question. It is not possible
that he could have preferred a manifestation of the power of the
nation by destroying Southern property rather than by destroying
a Southern army.

SHERMAN'S PURPOSE IN MARCHING TO THE SEA

But there was one objection--absolutely overruling, apparently, in
Sherman's mind--to any further attempt by Sherman himself, with
the main body of his army then in Georgia, to prosecute the primary
military object of his campaign--the destruction or capture of
Hood's army. To have done so would have conceded a tempo