Closing In On The Confederacy:

In May, while Grant and Lee battled it out in the Wilderness, General Sherman's army of 90,000 advanced from Chattanooga on to Atlanta . General Joseph E. Johnston's army was the only Confederate army to oppose him with 60,000 troops. Johnston did not intend to fight unless the chances of victory were good. Praying that Lincoln would lose the November elections in the North, the Confederacy stalled for time. The Atlanta Campaign developed into more of a chess game than a battle. Each time Sherman moved forward, Johnston moved backwards. The two armies fought each other frequently in small battles, the most significant being at Kennasaw Mountain, on June 27th. This resulted in a Union defeat.

When Sherman reached the outskirts of the city of Atlanta, President Davis of the Confederacy thought that Johnston was over-cautious, so he was replaced by General John B. Hood. Hood immediately attacked the Union units but was beaten back by superior numbers, so he set up defences in the city. Sherman came up with a good plan and seized Atlanta's only operating railroad to cut the supply line. Hood was forced to evacuate on September 1, and Sherman occupied the city the next day. This victory assisted Lincoln's re-election.

Nashville:

Sherman's victory was not as successful as it first seemed. Hood adopted some clever tactics and began guerrilla attacks on Union railroads and communication lines. Sherman thought it would be crazy to chase Hood all over the countryside, so he sent Thomas back to Tennessee to take command of the thirty thousand troops serving under General John M. Schofield. Thomas' orders were to keep Hood out of the state, while, with his remaining men, Sherman decided to march across Georgia to the city of Savannah, next to the Atlantic Ocean.

Hood cleverly planned to invade Tennessee. He hoped that Sherman would follow him as he was confident of defeating Sherman in the mountains. Then he intended to either invade Kentucky or cross over into Virginia and join up with General Lee. However clever the plan, it was too ambitious for the size his army.

Franklin:

Hood might have had some success if he had advanced into Tennessee straight away, but instead he attacked Schofield's force at Franklin Tennessee on November 30. Hood was an aggressive commander, and he complained that the army had retreated so much under Johnston, that it had "....forgotten how to attack!". (P492) Though his Generals were determined to show him that he was mistaken, in the ensuing six frontal charges, the Confederates lost over six thousand men. In addition, eleven generals lost their lives.

Nashville:

After his defeat at Franklin, Hood had no chance of completing his plan . So he built up defences south of Nashville and waited for the inevitable Union attack. In Nashville itself, Thomas gathered a force of sixty thousand, and on December 15, he attacked Hood in the Battle of Nashville. The Confederate lines crumbled like dirt as Thomas won one of the most decisive Union victories in the war. On their long march to Virginia, the remaining Confederate soldiers sang a bitter song:

You may talk about your Beauregard

And sing of General Lee,

But the gallant Hood from Texas

Played hell in Tennessee.