60 e lusive v ictories
staggering casualty fi gures from Grant’s Overland campaign and Sher-
man’s inability to take Atlanta directly, necessitating a siege. Th e siege
came about after Joe Johnston retreated before a frustrated Sherman,
despite Davis’s expressed preference that the former act boldly by
striking the much larger Union army. To the northern public, it
seemed that the Union armies were simply stalled outside of Richmond
and Atlanta, victory nowhere in sight. Had the situation remained
static through the election, Lincoln was convinced he would be
defeated at the polls, resulting in a negotiated peace and southern
independence.
Th en Davis made a command decision that transformed the Atlanta
siege and soon radically altered the political equation in the North. He
replaced Johnston with the impulsive John Bell Hood, who followed
his president’s wishes by launching several foolish assaults against
Sherman, and thereby so depleted the Confederate forces defending
Atlanta that Hood had no choice but to abandon the city. Sherman
marched in, which, coupled with Union victories at Mobile, Alabama,
and in the Shenandoah Valley, abruptly lifted morale across the North
and propelled Lincoln and the Republicans to sweeping victory in the
elections. From that point forward, fi nal Union triumph was merely a
matter of months, with the Confederate collapse complete by spring
1865.
Leading a People’s (and a Party’s) War
Abraham Lincoln appreciated—indeed, he would be reminded
repeatedly—that the war was fought in a partisan context. He made
military strategy and operational decisions with a keen awareness of
their political implications. I have remarked on some of the ways in
which politics framed his actions as a military leader, including his
selection of generals to appeal to certain political constituencies and his
acute sensitivity to the defense of Washington, D.C. More than that,
Lincoln realized he was directing a people’s war. Both the future of the
nation and his own political fate depended on sustaining broad popular
support for the Union war eff ort. Lincoln called upon his rich political
gifts, particularly a rare talent for expressing his goals and principles in
language that evoked a powerful popular response and a sense of timing