John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, condensed from Nicolay and Hayes' Abraham Lincoln: A History

[410] from his base of supplies, march with the remainder to the sea; living upon the country, and “making the interior of Georgia feel the weight of war.” Grant did not immediately fall in with Sherman's suggestion; and Sherman prudently waited until the Confederate plan of invading Tennessee became further developed. It turned out as he hoped and expected. Having gradually ceased his raids upon the railroad, Hood, by the end of October, moved westward to Tuscumbia on the Tennessee River, where he gathered an army of about thirty-five thousand, to which a cavalry force under Forrest of ten thousand more was soon added.

Under Beauregard's orders to assume the offensive, he began a rapid march northward, and for a time with a promise of cutting off some advanced Union detachments. We need not follow the fortunes of this campaign further than to state that the Confederate invasion of Tennessee ended in disastrous failure. It was severely checked at the battle of Franklin on November 30; and when, in spite of this reverse, Hood pushed forward and set his army down before Nashville, as if for attack or siege, the Union army, concentrated and reinforced to about fifty-five thousand, was ready. A severe storm of rain and sleet held the confronting armies in forced immobility for a week; but on the morning of December 15, 1864, General Thomas moved forward to an attack in which on that and the following day he inflicted so terrible a defeat upon his adversary, that the Confederate army not only retreated in rout and panic, but soon literally went to pieces in disorganization, and disappeared as a military entity from the western conflict.

Long before this, Sherman had started on his famous march to the sea. His explanations to Grant were so convincing, that the general-in-chief, on November 2,