Hardee
declared the responsibility was more than he could assume.
Under the urgent necessity of driving the Union army back from its
position at Chattanooga and heartsick with eternal wrangling of the
opposition, Davis reluctantly ordered Joseph E. Johnston personally to
assume command of the Army of Tennessee--and the fatal deed was done.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE RAIDERS
In February, 1864, both North and South were straining every nerve for
the last act of the grand drama of blood and tears. The Presidential
election would be held in November to choose a successor to Abraham
Lincoln. At this moment Lincoln was the most unpopular, the most
reviled, the most misunderstood and the most abused man who had ever
served as President of the United States. The opposition to him inside
his own party was fierce, malignant, vindictive and would stop short of
nothing to encompass his defeat in their nominating convention. They had
not hesitated even to accuse his wife of treason.
Military success and military success alone could save the
administration at Washington. George B. McClellan, the most popular
general of the Union army, was already slated to oppose Lincoln on a
platform demanding peace.
If the South could hold her own until the first Monday in November, the
opposition to the war in the North would crush the administration and
peace would be had at the price of Southern independence.
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