In beginning a draft of a book on the extraordinary maneuvers and events at Petersburg on June 22, 1864, I compared Grant's progress to Sherman's and assessed Joe Johnston as a poor choice for commander of the Army of Tennessee if the goal was to retain possession of Atlanta.
At least one reader of my circulated comments on Johnston thought I didn't understand what Johnston was up to. What do you think he was up to? A purely Fabian strategy of abandoning Atlanta to preserve the Army of Tennessee?
I'm interested because I recently read Stanley Horn's The Decisive Battle of Nashville and the author (no relation to me) asserts that the Federal government would have run out of money to prosecute the war by the summer of 1865. If that were the case, a Fabian strategy might have been viable. It's still pretty clear that President Davis wanted Atlanta held, but Johnston might have done well to give up the city to preserve his army if the Federal government was going to run out of money in the middle of 1865.
What do you think?
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