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1. Evans, Sherman’s Horsemen, xi, xiv; TICW, 1:320, 328. 2. Sherman, Memoirs, 2:15; Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:459; Richard M. McMurry, Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy (Lincoln, Neb., 2000), 35. CHAPTER 14 North of Atlanta A s part of Col. Joseph B. Dorr’s First Brigade (1st Tennessee, 2nd Michigan, and 8th Iowa) of McCook’s division, James Brownlow’s regiment guarded Sherman’s flanks during the march to Atlanta from May to July 1864. In what seemed to be one continuous skirmish, his boys fought at such places as Varnell’s Station, Cassville, Acworth, and Lost Mountain. Meshack Stephens’s 4th Tennessee entered the Atlanta Campaign in mid-July by way of General Rousseau’s Alabama raid from Decatur to Opelika. Later that month both regiments rode in McCook’s ill-fated raid below Atlanta.1 Sherman, Grant’s replacement for heading the Military Division of the Mississippi , led three armies ably commanded by Maj. Gens. George Thomas of the Army of the Cumberland, John M. Schofield of the Army of the Ohio, and James B. McPherson of the Army of the Tennessee. After the fighting in fall 1863, the first two armies had remained at Chattanooga, while Schofield’s army remained at Knoxville. “Uncle Billy,” as his men called him, commanded 100,000 soldiers, including more than 12,000 cavalrymen in four divisions commanded by Brig. Gens. McCook, Kenner Garrard, H. Judson Kilpatrick, and George Stoneman, all directly under Sherman’s command. One division composed of Tennesseans under General Gillem assisted in guarding railroad supply lines in to and out of Nashville. Sherman had reservations about his cavalry commanders, as he did toward all cavalry officers.2 The new Federal commander of the three armies faced Bragg’s replacement , Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and his Army of Tennessee, wintering at Dal- 232 The Atlanta Campaign 3. Sherman, Memoirs, 2:26–30; B. H. Liddell Hart, Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American (New York, 1929), 234–35; B&L, 4:260, 281–83, 289–92. 4. Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:455, 457; Sherman, Memoirs, 2:28; McMurry, Atlanta 1864, 35; James L. McDonough and James P. Jones, War So Terrible: Sherman and Atlanta (New York, 1987), 98. ton, Georgia, since November 1863. By mid-May 1864, bolstered by the arrival of additional troops from Mississippi, Johnston had 67,000 troops in three infantry corps under Lt. Gens. William J. Hardee, John B. Hood, and Leonidas Polk and Wheeler’s cavalry corps of two divisions (together totaling 8,500 troopers). Grant instructed Sherman “to move against Johnston’s army, to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.” As requested, Sherman submitted a brief plan for the initial phase of his campaign . First he would bring forward supplies by maintaining exclusive control over the railroads. Then with cavalry on the flanks, McPherson would march on the right, Thomas in the center directly toward Johnston, and Schofield on the left. Sherman was convinced that “Johnston [would] be compelled to hang on to [the] railroad, [his] only possible avenue of supply.”3 Sherman insisted on “cavalry being massed on [his] flanks and rear.” Beyond this, he expected his cavalry to scout, escort wagon trains, provide couriers , and when directed, demonstrate against the enemy. Early in the campaign he had one division on each flank, one to the back guarding the railroad, and held one in reserve. Otherwise Sherman’s use of cavalry—as well as of infantry and artillery—depended on the terrain, the route of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, and the movement of Johnston’s army. The only raid that he specified early was against the railroad from Montgomery to Atlanta. Later he would turn to other cavalry raids. The general doubted the boldness of cavalry and its officers. Expressing this opinion to Garrard, he wrote: “I do wish to inspire all cavalry with my conviction that caution and prudence should be but a very small element in their characters.”4 Perhaps no one more succinctly described the Atlanta Campaign up to the time that President Davis replaced Johnston with Hood in front of Atlanta than Col. Charles H. Olmstead of the 57th Georgia Infantry. “The same tactics were repeated over and over again,” he wrote. “Johnston would select a line straddling the Western and Atlanta Railroad and fortify it with care.” Sherman, with greater...

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