Hardee paid attention only to Macon’s immediate needs, ignoring the first significant opportunity to upset Sherman’s plans. Thanks to the poor roads and unceasing rain, the Union Right Wing was stretched out for nearly 30 miles, with its head at Clinton while its wagon-heavy tail was greatly delayed getting across the Ocmulgee River.

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One unanticipated consequence of the Union feint toward Macon was to concentrate the various Confederate military assets more effectively than it had been ordered when the Federal supply columns were so attenuated. A strike against the Right Wing’s supply train could wreak havoc with Sherman’s tight timetables.

But the command-and-control systems failed to kick in. Beauregard and Taylor were out of touch, and Hardee viewed his task as limited to Macon’s present danger. Wheeler had his hands full scouting the Federal advance and meeting emergencies. All the remaining high-ranking individuals in town were state officers obsessed with protecting Macon. No one was thinking beyond the immediate horizon.

Isolated in Macon, lacking telegraphic connection north or east, Hardee soon reckoned that the city was no longer menaced by Sherman’s forces and reasoned that Augusta must be the Yankees’ true objective. Without any contrary information from Wheeler, Hardee wrongly assumed that the Federal line of march was well to the northeast, leaving the railroad clear from Gordon to the coast.

It would be quickest for Macon’s now superfluous militia to tramp east the 20 or so miles to Gordon, where the men could catch trains to Augusta. Orders to that effect were issued to the various units around the city. Taking his own cue, Hardee packed up, and on the evening of November 21 headed for the coast.

The immediate consequence of Hardee’s decision was the needless Battle of Griswoldville, on November 22. A division’s worth of the militia that he had ordered east collided there with a brigade-sized Union rear guard. The citizen-soldiers were thrown back with serious losses. Even as that combat was unfolding, Taylor arrived at Macon. The experienced field commander at once instructed Macon’s defenders to stand down, but orders to recall the troops from Griswoldville arrived too late to avert the tragedy.

That same day Jefferson Davis sent more of his military brain trust to help by temporarily assigning General Braxton Bragg (then overseeing affairs in North Carolina) to Augusta to “employ all available force against the enemy now advancing into Southeastern Georgia.” Preventing Sherman from capturing Augusta’s irreplaceable powder works was Davis’ top priority.

An effort to better focus the state’s military response to Sherman’s advance became mired in political controversy. Declaring that Governor Joseph Brown was “disabled” by being cut off in Macon (where he had fled before the fall of Milledgeville), Augusta-based Ambrose R. Wright, second-in-command of state forces as president of the Georgia Senate, activated a clause in the law empowering him to intervene. He took control of the militia east of the Oconee River and ordered it to Macon.

Governor Brown’s partisans viewed Wright’s action as a blatant subversion of gubernatorial authority. The resulting clamor prompted Wright to request Brown’s approval of his action, which the governor promptly refused. Wright’s action only compounded the confusion.

One of the Georgia legislature’s final acts that session was to authorize a general mobilization of Georgia civilians against the invaders. While Governor Brown expected thousands to turn out, he hadn’t counted on the inability of the state’s bureaucracy to manage such an enterprise. By the time the machinery finally began to turn, Sherman’s March to the Sea was a matter for the history books.

The one Confederate action that actually stopped Sherman went virtually unnoticed at this time. Near where the Central of Georgia Railroad bridged the Oconee River, a Rebel force of some 700 men held Sherman’s entire Right Wing at bay for nearly three days. This action was undertaken entirely on the initiative of officers on the scene, who reported to Savannah, where Hardee was headed from Macon. Wheeler, on a self-appointed mission to protect Augusta, passed behind the defenders without lending any significant aid, leaving the little force very much on its own.

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