In sheer despair Grant and Sherman must do something at last.

As to shelling! Will they learn from history?
Then they will know that they cannot shell an army provided with as powerful artillery as their own out of a position....

The Northerners have, indeed, lost the day solely owing to the want of average ability in their leaders in the field[1225]." On the very day when Russell thus wrote in the _Gazette_ the city of Atlanta had been taken by Sherman.

When the news reached England the _Times_ having declared this impossible, now asserted that it was unimportant, believed that Sherman could not remain in possession and, two days later, turned with vehemence to an analysis of the political struggle as of more vital influence.

The Democrats, it was insisted, would place peace "paramount to union" and were sure to win[1226].
Russell, in the _Gazette_, coolly ignoring its prophecy of three weeks earlier, now spoke as if he had always foreseen the fall of Atlanta: "General Sherman has fully justified his reputation as an able and daring soldier; and the final operations by which he won Atlanta are not the least remarkable of the series which carried him from Chattanooga ...