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It was an election year, and Lincoln urgently needed victories. In March, he appointed U.S. Grant as General-in-Chief.

Grant immediately ended the system of prisoner-exchange, knowing that the Confederates would run out of men first. Then he ordered Sherman to destroy the Army of Tennessee, while he himself attended to Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia.

Neither campaign appeared to be succeeding, and Lincoln believed he would be voted out in November.

When Sherman failed to destroy the Army of Tennessee, he decided to destroy the rich farmland of Georgia instead, helping to starve the Confederate troops in the field. When Georgian soldiers in Lee's army heard about this, they deserted in large numbers.

Just at this time, the port of Mobile was liberated, and Phil Sheridan laid waste to the Shenandoah Valley, driving out the Confederates in a dramatic pursuit.

By the end of the year, Lincoln had been re-elected, and after that the Confederates had no hope of winning. They only held on in a vain effort to prove that they were not the sort of people to give up easily.

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12y ago

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