August 30, 1864 Tuesday
Sherman severed one of the last two railroads into Atlanta and marched rapidly toward the Macon line. Atlanta was in dire danger. Hood countered late in the day by sending his own old corps under Cleburne (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Cleburne ) and S.D. Lee’s corps to attack the Federal flank at Jonesborough. Sherman had his three armies separated considerably and they were more than Hood could cover. Fighting broke out near East Point, Flint River Bridge, and Jonesborough.
In the Shenandoah Valley Sheridan shifted more of his troops toward Berryville with the clear intention of threatening Winchester once more. A skirmish erupted near Smithfield, West Virginia. Maj Gen George Crook (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Crook ) replaced the ineffective Maj Gen David Hunter in command of the Federal Department of West Virginia. A skirmish took place near Dardanelle, Arkansas. A four-day Federal expedition operated to Natchez Bayou, Louisiana.
The Democrats meeting in Chicago adopted a platform and placed names in nomination for President. Maj Gen George B. McClellan and Thomas H. Seymour, former governor of Connecticut, were named. Sen L.W. Powell of Kentucky and former President Franklin Pierce withdrew their nominations. The aggressive platform called for fidelity to the Union under the Constitution and complained that the Administration had failed to restore the Union “by the experiment of war,” had disregarded the Constitution, and trodden down public liberty and private rights. It proclaimed that “justice, humanity, liberty and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States.” Thus the Democrats made a strong bid for peace. They also deplored the alleged interference of the military in state elections and announced “That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired.” They charged “administrative usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the constitution,” arbitrary arrests, subversion of civil by military law, test oaths, and interference with the right of people to bear arms in their defense. The convention thus adopted, for the most part, the program of the Peace Democrats and Copperheads, a platform diametrically opposed to that of Lincoln and the Administration, let alone the Radical Republicans.