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1864] Shermans march on Atlanta. 521 every precaution of equipment and supply, and rigidly reduced to a minimum their baggage and impedimenta. His memoirs explain his purpose to convert all parts of his army "into a mobile machine willing and able to start at a minute's notice, and to subsist on the scantiest food." To reach the city of Atlanta, his first objective, he had both to protect the single line of railroad behind him that brought his daily supply of food from Nashville to Chattanooga, and to seize the line before him through the forty-mile belt of the Alleghany Mountains, in which, immediately in front of him at Dalton, lay the Confederate army, now commanded by General Johnston, 50,000 strong. The march was promptly begun on May 5, the day following that on which Grant started from the Wilderness toward Richmond. Sherman had the advantage of double numbers ; Johnston the advantage of a defensive campaign, in which however he could only execute a highly skilful retreat from impregnable mountain defences, prepared with great foresight and carried out by the almost unlimited supply of slave labour with which military authority and enthusiastic local sentiment furnished him. Sherman's progress, therefore, was a succession of strong frontal demon- strations combined with flank movements to threaten the Confederate rear. Under this continued pressure Johnston retreated from Dalton to Resaca, from Resaca to Marietta, from Marietta to the Chattahoochee river, and thence to the defences of Atlanta. Continued reconnaissances and heavy skirmishes attended the Confederate retirement and Unionist advance, and frequently grew into serious battles. Sherman says that during the month of May, across nearly 100 miles of as difficult country as was ever fought over by civilised armies, the fighting was continuous, almost daily, among trees and bushes, on ground where one could rarely see a hundred yards ahead. Once only he tried the costly experiment of a direct attack. On June 27 occurred the assault on Kenesaw Mountain, north of Marietta, in which Sherman's attempt to break through the Confederate front was repulsed with a loss of 2500. While Johnston's defensive retreat excited the professional admira- tion of his antagonist, it gave rise to deep disappointment and severe displeasure on the part of the Confederate government. On July 18, as Sherman was approaching Atlanta, the command of the Confederate army was taken from Johnston and given to one of his corps-com- manders, J. B. Hood, who had severely criticised his superior's strategy. Resolved on an immediate change of policy, Hood at once took the offensive, and by vigorous attacks on the 20th and the 22nd, attempted to break through Sherman's lines. The effort however resulted in a complete repulse ; and the new Confederate commander suffered another serious disaster in a sortie planned and ordered by him on July 28. For several weeks more the besieged and besieging armies watched and felt each other with unrelaxing vigilance. On August 12 Sherman