successor. But Toombs declined to make the race.
His game now was war, not politics. He preferred the field to the
Cabinet. He writes with considerable feeling this letter to his wife:

Whatever fate may befall me, I feel that this is my place,
in the field and with the militia, with the men who own the
country and who are struggling to preserve it for their
children. I am truly thankful to God for the health he has
given me to enable me to perform my part of this work.

He called all the sons of Georgia to come, even to "die together rather
than let the Yankee overrun and conquer Georgia." He concludes a letter
of appeal:

Better be
Where the unconquered Spartans still are free,
In their proud charnel of Thermopylae.

General Toombs' last military service, after the fall of Atlanta, was on
the 20th of December, 1864, when as adjutant and inspector-general he
served in General G. W. Smith's division, Georgia militia, at the siege
of Savannah. General Dick Taylor, in his "Destruction and
Reconstruction," gives a very graphic description of General Toombs'
energy. The Georgia militia had left Macon for Savannah, and to avoid
capture by the resistless column of Sherman's army, then marching to the
sea, was shipped by way of Thomasville. The trains were sometimes slow
in moving, and to General Taylor, who was anxious to mass all forces at
Savannah, the delay was galling. When Toombs came up, he "damned the
dawdling trainmen, and pretty soon infused his own nervous force into
the whole concern. The wheezing engines and freight vans were readily
put in motion, and Governor Brown's 'army' started toward Savannah."
News reached General Taylor about that time that the Federal forces at
Port Royal were coming up to capture Pocotaligo on the Charleston and
Savannah road. This was a dangerous move, as General Taylor was anxious
to hold this line for coast defense. He needed reenforcements to hold
this point, and at once thought of "Joe Brown's Army." The position of
Governor Brown was, however, as General Taylor understood it, that
Georgia troops were to be held to guard Georgia soil. This was one of
the points in his discussion with Mr. Davis. General Taylor consulted
with General Toombs, however, and they arranged to have the Georgia
militia "shunted off at a switch near Savannah and transported quietly
to Carolina." At Pocotaligo these troops had a lively