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In place of the 15,000 veterans whose terms had expired, Thomas received 12,000 newly enlisted recruits. General A. J. Smith’s veteran corps had been ordered from Missouri, and a great parade has been made of this fact by those whose interest it was to show that Thomas had been left with a competent force. But the fact that it did not arrive at Nashville till after the battle of Franklin, and that Thomas was waiting for it as well as to remount the cavalry, was not so loudly proclaimed.

However, when Sherman was ready to start for the sea, with Hood’s veteran army concentrated behind him, and Thomas, with the above mentioned elements of an army scattered over a territory as large as France, had been assigned to take care of Hood, General Sherman telegraphed Halleck: “I therefore feel no uneasiness as to Tennessee, and have ordered Thomas to assume the offensive in the direction of Selma, Ala.” And General Grant, after receiving some inflated figures of a great force left with Thomas, telegraphed Sherman: “With the force you have left with Thomas, he must be able to take care of Hood and destroy him.” Later, when the anxiety at City Point referred to in the opening of this paper had become intense, the margin of force with which General Thomas was really operating was found to be so small that General Grant suggested that he should “arm and put in the trenches your quartermaster employees, citizens, etc.,” and again, a few hours later, he was suggesting what he could do “with your citizen employees armed.”

CONCENTRATING IN FRONT OF HOOD

It was under such circumstances and conditions which, after all, are but faintly shadowed forth by the facts here stated, that General Thomas began to concentrate his conglomerate forces in Hood’s front, and begin under fire the work of organizing and refitting an army. With superhuman effort, and such loyal assistance and energy from officers and soldiers as were not elsewhere exhibited during the war, because not previously required, General Thomas set about the task of preparing the means of overthrowing Hood. Deliberate action and the extreme of prudence were essentials of the situation. The objective of Hood’s campaign, under suggestions from President Davis, was the Ohio River. There was no reserve force in sight or within summoning distance, or immediately available anywhere in case of reverses. Thomas could not afford to take the slightest risks so long as his own position was not imperilled. It was not alone the immediate interests confided to his keeping and defense which hinged upon his success or failure, but both Grant and Sherman and possibly the Union itself were to stand or fall with such success or failure. Had Hood succeeded, as at the first he might have succeeded without fault of Thomas, or even fair ground for reflection upon him, what would have been said of Sherman for marching off to the sea, leaving the central West without sufficient protection, or of General Grant for having allowed him to go?

And because the deliberate, prudent, imperturbable, and always successful Thomas appreciated the situation, and determined to be ready to annihilate his enemy before he struck, he was hastily declared to be slow by those he was preparing to save.

All of General Thomas’s troubles at Nashville arose from his adhering, in the face of threatened removal, to plans of action which made General Wilson’s cavalry an essential factor in the attack on Hood for which he was energetically preparing. He was looking not only to attack, but to crushing pursuit. In view of the great preponderance of the enemy’s cavalry, which was then double his own, and led by Forrest, one of the ablest cavalry generals on either side, effective pursuit without a strong mounted force would be impossible.

The correspondence with Grant – which grew until an order was issued for General Thomas’s relief by General Schofield, and, when this was held in abeyance, until a second order for superseding him with General Logan – began with an order from Grant not to “let Forrest get off without punishment.” As Forrest’s mounted force was double Wilson’s, this was easier to write than to execute. General Thomas therefore explained the situation fully, showing that the cavalry of Hatch and Grierson, which were all the reinforcements he had to depend upon at first, had been turned in at Memphis; that half his own cavalry had been dismounted to equip Kilpatrick’s column for Sherman; that his dismounted force, which he had sent to Louisville for horses and arms, was detained there waiting for both, and that as he was greatly outnumbered both in infantry and cavalry he would be compelled to act on the defensive. But he added, in closing: “The moment I can get my cavalry, I will march against Hood, and if Forrest can be reached he shall be punished.”

The day after General Schofield’s brilliant and effective battle at Franklin, Thomas made known to Halleck his confidence that Hood could not cross the Cumberland, and therefore thought it best to wait until Wilson could equip his cavalry, as he then felt certain he could whip Hood. Next, the President, through Secretary Stanton, stirred General Grant up by a telegram stating that Mr. Lincoln felt “solicitous about the disposition of Thomas to lay in fortifications for an indefinite period, ‘until Wilson gets equipments.’”

THE PANIC AT WASHINGTON

In spite of the plainest statements of the situation, of the great disparity of forces, of the dictates of prudence to remain on the defensive until he could strike an effective blow, which he expected to deliver in a few days, Thomas was prodded and nagged from City Point and Washington as no officer in command of an army had been before, and treated day by day as if he needed tutelage. In the last dispatch of the series of clear explanations, – which under other circumstances than the seething of that inside panic which a full appreciation of the complications that Sherman’s march to the sea had caused would doubtless have been accepted, – General Thomas was peremptorily ordered to “attack Hood at once without waiting for a remount of your cavalry. There is great danger in delay resulting in a campaign back to the Ohio.” This was sent in reply to a telegram of Thomas showing that there was the greatest activity in getting the cavalry ready, and he hoped to have it remounted “in three days from this time.” To this Thomas replied that he would make all dispositions and attack according to orders, adding, “though I believe it will be hazardous with the small force of cavalry now at my service.” Orders to prepare for attack were immediately sent out, and dispositions for the attack began. Meantime a sleet storm came on which covered the country with a glaze of ice over which neither horses, men, nor artillery could move even on level ground, to say nothing of assaulting an enemy intrenched on the hills. The same day Halleck telegraphed: “If you wait till General Wilson mounts all his cavalry you will wait till doomsday, for the waste equals the supply.” And General Grant telegraphed orders relieving Thomas. The latter telegraphed Halleck that he was conscious of having done everything possible to prepare the troops to attack, and if he was removed he would submit without a murmur.

The order of relief was suspended. The sleet storm continued. All of General Thomas’s officers agreed that it was impracticable to attack. Some of them even found it impossible to ride to headquarters because of the ice, and in the midst of it came an order from Grant: “I am in hopes of receiving a dispatch from you to-day announcing you have moved. Delay no longer for weather or reinforcements.”

Thomas replied:

“I will obey the order as promptly as possible, however much I regret it, as the attack will have to be made under every disadvantage. The whole country is covered with a perfect sheet of ice and sleet, and it is with difficulty the troops are able to move about on level ground.”

To Halleck, Thomas replied:

“I have the troops ready to make the attack on the enemy as soon as the sleet which now covers the ground has melted sufficiently to enable the men to march, as the whole country is now covered with a sheet of ice so hard and slippery that it is utterly impossible for troops to ascend the slopes, or even move upon level ground in anything like order. Under these circumstances I believe an attack at this time would only result in a useless sacrifice of life.”

The reply to this, unquestionably born of the panic to which allusion has been made, was an order sending General Logan to relieve Thomas. Grant himself then started from City Point for Nashville to assume general command. But the ice having melted, he was met at Washington by the news of Thomas’s victory.

The delay that Thomas had insisted upon, in the face of orders twice given for his relief, gave him the cavalry force he required for the decisive blow he intended to strike.

While the official inside at City Point and Washington bordered on panic, everything at Nashville was being pressed forward with activity and vigilance, and at the same time with deliberation, prudence, and the utmost imperturbability. At length, and at the first moment possible consistent with a reasonable expectation of success, the attack began.