Those stationed in the seaport towns numbered in all another 20,000; so that, if every available soldier had been brought up, Lee could have opposed a total of but 83,000 men against the 284,000 invaders.
In the West the numbers were more equally balanced.

General Sherman, who commanded the army of invasion there, had under his orders 230,000 men, but as more than half this force was required to protect the long lines of communication and to keep down the conquered States, he was able to bring into the field for offensive operations 99,000 men, who were faced by the Confederate army under Johnston of 58,000 men.

Grant's scheme was that, while the armies of the North were, under his own command, to march against Richmond, the Army of the West was to invade Georgia and march upon Atlanta.
His plan of action was simple, and was afterward stated by himself to be as follows: "I determined first to use the greatest number of troops practicable against the main force of the enemy, preventing him from using the same force at different seasons against first one and then another of our armies, and the possibility of repose for refitting and producing necessary supplies for carrying on resistance.

Second, to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until, by mere attrition if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him but submission." This was a terrible programme, and involved an expenditure of life far beyond anything that had taken place.

Grant's plan, in fact, was to fight and to keep on fighting, regardless of his own losses, until at last the Confederate army, whose losses could not be replaced, melted away.