"With his genial face, his large high head and fine figure, he stood with the noblest. The third, General George H. Thomas, with his nearly seventy thousand aggregate. He was tall and broad, and heavy and handsome, of good judgment and sterling record. These three army commanders were thus assembled, and the hearty Sherman was with them. Of this group, Sherman in his story has said: 'We had nothing like a council of war, but consulted freely and frankly on all matters of interest to them, then in progress or impending.' At farthest the first of May was to end the period of preparation, when the different clans should be gathered and ready for the fray. The leaders of corps and divisions, and the essential consolidations were there fixed upon; and the great problem of safe supply was, at least to themselves, satisfactorily solved. "The meeting broke up, the commanders returned to their places, taking Sherman for awhile to Nashville. No man can tell the amount of hard work that resulted from this interview. The next month was pregnant with the faith and hope of the coming campaign. Behold the loaded trains, following untiringly in sight of each other; but do not stop to count the broken engines by the wayside, or the cars turned topsy turvey. "Behold the duplicate and triplicate bridges, the hosts of mules and horses in motion, the redoubts and blockhouses constructed, or building, the sugar, the coffee, and the hard-bread and other supplies, coming into Chattanooga, and the herds of cattle lowing along the dusty roads leading to the front, all the way from Louisville and Nashville. The soldiers said, 'Tecumseh is a great fellow. He means business.' Thorough and confident preparations are always a source of encouragement and inspiration." The nation was now to see scientific warfare. The campaigns of the Union armies were planned with mathematical accuracy. There were three grand divisions of attack upon the Rebellion. At the east, moving directly against the Rebel capital, was Grant with the Army of the Potomac. West of the Mississippi River was Banks. The great central region was left to Sherman, and his objective point was Atlanta. The Mississippi Valley was fully wrested from Rebel control, and a series of brilliant victories marked the whole line from Vicksburg, on that river, to Chattanooga, among the Appalachian Mountains. Between the river and the mountains the war was practically ended and the Confederacy crushed. But in the rich and populous country between the mountains and the Atlantic coast the insurgents were still strong. There was concentrated all the power that the Richmond Government now possessed. And the people of Georgia and the Carolinas actually believed themselves to be secure from "Yankee invasion," guarded as they were by the powerful armies of Lee and Jackson, and by the mighty natural ramparts of the mountain range.