comparable
ruse, and the Union army entered, with returning faith in its leader,
upon the last phase of its great task--the ruin of Lee.

Meanwhile General Sherman, with a force of 80,000, had been driving
Joseph E. Johnston, with 50,000 men, from Dalton in northern Georgia
toward Atlanta. From May 4 until July 18 the two armies maneuvered and
fought--each seeking without success to surprise the other. On the 17th
of July Sherman crossed the Chattahoochee some twenty miles north of
Atlanta. Georgia and the cotton belt of the lower South were in a panic.
Davis, never quite satisfied with Johnston's operations, yielded to the
clamors of Senators and Representatives, as well as military men, and
removed the general. John B. Hood, the new commander, began at once a
series of battles around the doomed city, losing in every encounter.
Atlanta fell on September 2. Sherman was left in quiet possession of
northern Georgia, while the Confederate army marched toward Nashville in
the hope of forcing a retreat and perhaps of regaining Tennessee. With
Grant at Petersburg, whose fall would compel the evacuation of Richmond,
and Sherman the master of Georgia, for such was the meaning of Hood's
movements, the days of the Confederacy seemed to be numbered.

Before these military successes had been gained, the leaders of the
Union cause were compelled to nominate a candidate for the Presidency.
Sumner, Greeley, William Cullen Bryant, and many other men of great
influence opposed Lincoln's renomination. A convention of radical
Republicans met at Cleveland during the last days of May. It nominated
John C. Fremont for President. But the regular Republican Convention met
a week later in Baltimore, formally disavowed its name, and assumed that
of the National Union party. Its chairman was Robert J. Breckinridge, a
Kentucky preacher and Unionist. Lincoln was renominated without
opposition, and, as a bid to the border States, Andrew Johnson, Union
Democrat of Tennessee, was nominated for Vice-President. However, the
reverses of Grant in Virginia weakened the position of the
Administration, and before the 1st of August trusted advisers of the
Government telegraphed "The apathy of the public mind is fearful." The
price of gold ranged during the summer from 200 to 285, and United
States securities sold at less than half their face value. The President
was compelled to order a draft of 500,000 men in July; the country met
the order with a groan. Co