Wheeler’s departure led Sherman to send out a third cavalry expedition, commanded by Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick. The Northerners reached the railroads below Atlanta and on August 18-20 succeeded in tearing up sections of the track. On the 20th they were driven away. Kilpatrick reported to Sherman that the railroad had been so thoroughly wrecked that it would take at least 10 days to repair it. However, on the following day, the Federals saw trains bringing supplies into the city from the south. Clearly the Northern cavalry was not strong enough to destroy Hood’s lines of supply. New plans would have to be tried if the Unionists were to capture Atlanta. Meanwhile, a curious kind of optimism was developing in the Southern ranks. Many Confederates did not see the hard battles of late July as defeats. Rather they viewed them as successful efforts to halt the progress of flanking columns that had threatened the city’s lines of supply. One officer wrote on August 4 about the battles of Atlanta and Ezra Church: “General Hood watches his flanks closely and has twice whipped the flanking columns.” When Sherman made no new efforts to flank the city and when the Northern cavalry raids were beaten off one after another, many men came to believe that Atlanta had been saved. In mid-August a Texan informed his homefolk that “affairs are brightening here. People and army seem more confident of success.” At about the same time, a Mississippian wrote that “The enemy seems checked in his flanking operations on our left, as he has made no progress in that direction for the last four or five days.” On August 28, an Alabamian wrote his wife that “It required hard fighting to check the enemy here after having pursued us so far.” At the very end of August there came exciting news for the Southerners. Sherman had fallen back! The Northerners were gone from in front of Atlanta! Many thought Wheeler’s cavalry had cut off Sherman’s supplies and that this had forced the Federal commander to lift the siege. Joyous Confederates swarmed out of the city to romp over the abandoned Northern trenches. “The scales have turned in favor of the South,” wrote Capt. Thomas J. Key of Arkansas, “and the Abolitionists are moving to the rear.” [Illustration: CAVALRY OPERATIONS JULY-AUGUST 1864] JONESBOROUGH