The rapidity with which the badly broken railroad was repaired seemed miraculous. We had hardly left Dalton before trains with ammunition and other supplies arrived. While our skirmishing was going on at Calhoun, the locomotive whistle sounded in Resaca. The telegraphers were nearly as rapid: the lines were in order to Adairsville on the morning of the 18th. While we were breaking up the State arsenal at Adairsville, caring for the wounded and bringing in Confederate prisoners, word was telegraphed from Resaca that bacon, hard-bread, and coffee were already there at our service.
REPRODUCED FROM THE “MEMOIRS OF GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN” (NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & CO.). BY PERMISSION OF AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER.
MAJOR-GENERAL JACOB D. COX. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
Johnston, by his speedy night-work, passed on through Kingston, and formed an admirable line of battle in the vicinity of Cassville, with his back to the Etowah River, protecting the selected crossing.
This was his final halt north of that river, so difficult with its mountain banks. Johnston remained here to obstruct and dispute our way one day only, for Schofield and Hooker had penetrated the forests eastward of him so far that Hood, still on Johnston’s right, insisted that the Yankees were already beyond him and in force.
Upon this report, about which there has since been much controversy, Johnston ordered a prompt withdrawal. The morning of the 21st of May, bright and clear, showed us a country picturesque in its natural features, with farm and woodland as quiet and peaceful as if there had been no war. So Sherman, taking up his headquarters at Kingston, a little hamlet on the railway, gave his armies three days’ rest.4
A glance at the map shows the Etowah flowing nearly west thirty miles from Allatoona to Rome. Sherman’s headquarters at Kingston were midway. While the armies were resting, the right (Davis’s division) at Rome, the left (Schofield and Hooker) near Cartersville, and the remainder at Kingston, the railroad and telegraph lines were repaired to Kingston; baggage, temporarily abandoned, came back to officers and men; necessary supplies, at the hands of smiling quartermasters and commissaries, now found us. The dead were buried, the sick and wounded were made more comfortable, and everybody got his mail and wrote letters. Meanwhile Sherman and his army commanders were endeavoring to find the location of their enemy.
Johnston was holding the region south of the Etowah, including the pass of Allatoona, and extended his army along the ridge of Allatoona Creek toward the south-west. He was picketing a parallel ridge in front of his line, along another creek, the Pumpkin Vine. This is substantially where we found this able and careful commander; but he pushed a little to the left and forward as we came on, till Hardee was at Dallas and Hood at New Hope Church. Our march was resumed on the morning of the 24th of May, Thomas crossing on his own pontoons south of Kingston; Hooker, contrary to the plan, went in advance of Schofield’s column over a bridge at Milam’s, east of Kingston; Davis, being at Rome, went straightforward from that place, and McPherson did the same from his position, laying his bridges so as to take the road to Van Wert. Stoneman’s cavalry covered the left; Garrard’s division was near McPherson and Davis, while McCook’s cleared the front for the center. The whole country between the Etowah and the Chattahoochee presented a desolate appearance, with few openings and very few farms, and those small and poor; other parts were covered with trees and dense underbrush, which the skirmishers had great difficulty in penetrating. Off the ordinary “hog-backs” one plunged into deep ravines or ascended abrupt steeps. There was much loose, shifting soil on the hills, and many lagoons and small streams bordered with treacherous quicksands.
Very soon on May 24th the usual skirmishing with the cavalry began, but there was not much delay. Hooker, coming into Thomas’s road the next morning, the 25th, led our column, taking the direct road toward Dallas. It was showery all day, and the weather and bad roads had a disheartening effect on men and animals. To relieve the situation as much as possible Thomas had my corps take advantage of country roads to the right, that would bring us into Dallas by the Van Wert route. McPherson and Davis had already come together at Van Wert. Now, suddenly, Geary’s division found a bridge over Pumpkin Vine Creek on fire, and hostile cavalry behind it. The cavalry soon fled, and the bridge was repaired. Hooker, thinking there was more force in that quarter, pushed up the road toward New Hope Church. He had gone but a short distance before he ran upon one of Hood’s brigades. It was an outpost of Stewart’s division, put there to create delay. Hooker soon dislodged this outpost and moved on, driving back the brigade through the woods, till he came upon the enemy’s main line.
The sound of cannon speedily drew Sherman to the point of danger. He immediately ordered the necessary changes. Williams’s division, having passed on, faced about and came back. Butterfield’s hastened up. The two divisions, each forming in parallel lines, promptly assaulted Hood’s position. Again and again Hooker’s brave men went forward through the forest only to run upon log-barricades thoroughly manned and protected by well-posted artillery. During these charges occurred a thunder-storm, the heaviest shower of the day. I turned to the left by the first opportune road, and deployed Newton’s division to the right of Hooker by 6 P.M. The remainder of my command came up over roads deep with mud and obstructed by wagons. In the morning all the troops were at hand. On that terrible night the nearest house to the field was filled with the wounded. Torch-lights and candles lighted up dimly the incoming stretchers and the surgeons’ tables and instruments. The very woods seemed to moan and groan with the voices of sufferers not yet brought in.
McPherson, with Davis for his left, took position at Dallas, having Logan on his right, and Garrard’s cavalry still beyond. There must have been a gap of three miles between McPherson and us. Schofield was badly injured by the fall of his horse in that black forest while finding his way during the night to Sherman’s bivouac, so that for a few days Cox took his command. Cox, with his Twenty-third Corps, and Palmer with the Fourteenth, swung in beyond me, as my men were moving up carefully into their usual positions in line of battle. Now the enemy kept strengthening his trench-barricades, which were so covered by thickets that at first we could scarcely detect them. As he did, so did we. No regiment was long in front of Johnston’s army without having virtually as good a breastwork as an engineer could plan. There was a ditch before the embankment and a strong log revetment behind it, and a heavy “top-log” to shelter the heads of the men. I have known a regiment to shelter itself completely against musketry and artillery with axes and shovels, in less than an hour after it reached its position.
CONFEDERATE INTRENCHMENTS NEAR NEW HOPE CHURCH. FROM A WAR-TIME PHOTOGRAPH.
It would only weary the reader’s patience to follow up the struggle step by step from New Hope Church to the Chattahoochee. Still, these were the hardest times which the army experienced. It rained continuously for seventeen days; the roads, becoming as broad as the fields, were a series of quagmires. And, indeed, it was difficult to bring enough supplies forward from Kingston to meet the needs of the army. Sherman began to pass his armies to the left. First, I was sent with two divisions to attempt to strike Johnston’s right. I marched thither Wood’s division, supported by R. W. Johnson’s, and connected with the army by Cox on my right. At Pickett’s Mill, believing I had reached the extreme of the Confederate line, at 6 P.M. of the 27th I ordered the assault. Wood encountered just such obstructions as Hooker had found at New Hope Church, and was similarly repulsed, suffering much loss. R. W. Johnson’s division was hindered by a side-thrust from the hostile cavalry, so that we did not get the full benefit of his forward push. We believed that otherwise we should have lodged at least a brigade beyond Hindman’s Confederate division. But we did what was most important: we worked our men all that weary night in fortifying. The Confederate commander was ready at daylight to take the offensive against us at Pickett’s Mill, but he did not do so, because he found our position and works too strong to warrant the attempt. With a foot bruised by the fragment of a shell, I sat
that night among the wounded in the midst of a forest glade, while Major Howard of my staff led regiments and brigades into the new position chosen for them. General R. W. Johnson had been wounded, Captain Stinson of my staff had been shot through the lungs, and a large number lay there, on a sideling slope by a faint camp-fire, with broken limbs or disfigured faces.
The next day, the 28th, McPherson made an effort to withdraw from Dallas, so as to pass beyond my left; but as Hardee at the first move quickly assailed him with great fury, he prudently advised further delay. This battle was the reverse of mine at Pickett’s Mill. The enemy attacked mainly in columns of deployed regiments along the front of Dodge’s and Logan’s corps, and was repulsed with a dreadful loss, which Logan estimated at two thousand. Now, necessity pressing him in every direction, Sherman, mixing divisions somewhat along the line, gradually bore his armies to the left. The 1st of June put Stoneman into Allatoona, and on the 3d Schofield’s infantry was across the railroad near Ackworth, having had a severe and successful combat en route.
Being now far beyond Johnston’s right, and having seized and secured the Allatoona Creek from its mouth to Ackworth, Sherman was ready, from Allatoona as a new base, to push forward and strike a new and heavy blow, when, to his chagrin, in the night of the 4th of June Johnston abandoned his works and fell back to a new line. This line ran from Brush Mountain to Lost Mountain, with “Pine Top” standing out in a salient near the middle. He also held an outpost in front of Gilgal Church abreast of Pine Top. Slowly, with skirmishes and small combats, for the most part in dense woods, we continuously advanced. On my front we seized the skirmish-holes of the enemy, made epaulements for batteries there, and little by little extended our deep ditches or log-barricades close up to Johnston’s. As we settled down to steady work again, McPherson was near Brush Mountain, having pushed down the railroad. F. P. Blair’s corps (the Seventeenth) from Huntsville, Alabama, had now joined him, making up for our losses, which were already, from all causes, upward of nine thousand. This accession gave heart to us all. Thomas was next, advancing and bearing away toward Pine Top, and Schofield coming up against the salient angle near Gilgal Church. To tell the work of these two opposing hosts in their new position is a similar story to the last. There was gallant fighting here and there all along the lines. Here it was that my batteries, opening fire under the direct instruction of Sherman, drove back the enemy from the exposed intrenchments on Pine Top. It was at this time that General Polk was killed. McPherson, by overlapping Hood, skirmished heavily, and captured the 40th Alabama regiment entire. Schofield, brushing away the cavalry, penetrated between Lost Mountain and Gilgal Church, put his artillery on a prominent knoll, and, with rapid discharges, took Hardee in reverse.
UNION EARTH-WORKS IN FRONT OF BIG AND LITTLE KENESAW. FROM A WAR-TIME PHOTOGRAPH.
That night, the 16th of June, Johnston again went back to a new line, already prepared, just behind Mud Creek. Our troops, being on the alert, followed at once with great rapidity. Just where the old lines joined the new (for Johnston’s right wing was unchanged), I saw a feat the like of which never elsewhere fell under my observation. Baird’s division, in a comparatively open field, put forth a heavy skirmish-line, which continued such a rapid fire of rifles as to keep down a corresponding hostile line behind its well-constructed trenches, while the picks and shovels behind the skirmishers fairly flew, till a good set of works was made four hundred yards distant from the enemy’s and parallel to it. One of my brigades (Harker’s), by a rush, did also a brave and unusual thing in capturing an intrenched and well-defended line of the enemy’s works and taking their defenders captive. Again, another (Kirby’s brigade), having lost Bald Hill in a skirmish, retook it by a gallant charge in line, under a hot fire of artillery and infantry, and intrenched and kept it.
Hood, who had been massed opposite McPherson, made a forced nightmarch, and suddenly appeared on the other flank fronting Schofield and Hooker. With his known method of charging and firing, he delivered there a desperate attack on the 22d of June. After a hard battle he was repulsed with heavy loss. This was the “Battle of Culp’s Farm.” Here it was that Hooker received a reproof from Sherman for an exaggerated dispatch, which inferentially, but wrongly, blamed Schofield.5 Hooker was ever after incensed at Sherman.
Again, by the gradual pressure against Johnston’s right and left, Sherman forced him to a new contraction of his lines. This time it was the famous Kenesaw position that he assumed. With his right still at Brush Mountain, he extended a light force over the crest of the Kenesaws, and placed a heavier one along the southern slope, reaching far beyond the Dallas and Marietta road. He drew back his left and fortified. The whole line was stronger in artificial contrivances and natural features than the cemetery at Gettysburg. The complete works, the slashings in front, and the difficulties of the slope toward us under a full sweep of cross-fire made the position almost impregnable.
For reasons similar to those which influenced Lee to strike twice for Little Round Top, Sherman ordered an assault here with the hope of carrying the southern slope of Kenesaw, or of penetrating Johnston’s long front at some weak point. Schofield, well southward, advanced and crossed Olley’s Creek, and kept up enough fire and effort to hold a large force in his front. McPherson, on the left, did the same, a serious engagement being sustained by Logan’s corps advancing straight against the mountain. Logan lost heavily from the trenches in his front, and from artillery that raked his men as they advanced. Seven regimental commanders fell, killed or wounded. But the dreadful battle, hard to describe, was left to Thomas. He commanded two attacks, one opposite the Confederate General Loring’s6 left, the other in front of Cheatham. Newton’s division led my attack, and Davis that of Palmer. Like Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg, the movement was preceded by a heavy cannonade. Then our skirmishers sprang forward and opened; and quickly the enemy’s skirmish-line was drawn back to their main work. Harker, commanding one brigade, led his column rapidly over the open ground. Wagner did the same on Harker’s left, and Kimball put his brigade in close support. The enemy’s fire was terrific. Our men did not stop till they had gained the edge of the felled trees; a few penetrated, to fall close to the enemy’s parapet; but most sought shelter behind logs and rocks, in rifle-holes, or depressions. Harker, moving with them, cheered on his men; when they were forced to stop, he rallied them again and made a second vigorous effort, in which he fell mortally wounded. Davis’s effort was like Newton’s; he met the same withering fire from rifle-balls and shells. But his men managed to make a shelter, which they kept, close up to the hostile works. Here they staid and intrenched. Among those who fell were brigade commanders Colonel Daniel McCook and Colonel O. F. Harmon. Our losses in this assault were heavy indeed, and our gain was nothing. We realized now, as never before, the futility of direct assaults upon intrenched lines already well prepared and well manned.
Plainly there was now nothing left for Sherman to do but to send his left army (McPherson’s) to follow up the right (Schofield’s) across Olley’s Creek, and force his cavalry to Sandtown and the Chattahoochee far below Johnston’s force. The first sign, namely, McPherson’s starting, and Schofield’s boldness, set the Confederates again in motion. On the morning of the 3d of July Sherman turned his spy-glass to the Kenesaw crest, and saw our pickets “crawling up the hill cautiously.” The strong works were found vacant. Johnston had made new breastworks six miles below, at Smyrna Camp Ground, and another complete set, by the labor of slaves and new levies, where the railway crosses the Chattahoochee. Thomas, taking up the pursuit, followed his enemy through Marietta and beyond. My command skirmished up to the Smyrna works during the 3d. The next day Sherman paid us a Fourth of July visit. He could not at first believe that Johnston would make another stand north of the river. “Howard,” he said to me, “you are mistaken; there is no force in your front; they are laughing at you!” We were in a thinnish grove of tall trees, in front of a farm-house. “Well, General,” I replied, “let us see.”
I called Stanley, whose division held the front. “General, double your skirmishers and press them.” At once it was done. The lines sped forward, capturing the outlying pits of the enemy, and took many prisoners; but a sheet of lead instantly came from the hidden works in the edge of the wood beyond us, and several unseen batteries hurled their shot across our lines, some of them reaching our grove and forcing us to retire. Sherman, as he rode away, said that I had been correct in my report. While we kept the Confederates busy by skirmishing and battery firing, a set of demonstrations to the north and south of us finally resulted in gaining crossings of the river at Roswell, Soap Creek, Powers’s and Paice’s ferries. Schofield effected the first crossing by pushing out from Soap Creek boats loaded with men, crossing quickly, and surprising the Confederate cavalry and cannon in his front. This was done on the 9th of July. As soon as Johnston knew of it, he left his excellent works near the Chattahoochee, burned his bridges, and hastened his retreat to Atlanta. The weather had become good, and there was great animation and manifest joy on our side. It was gratifying to escape from such fastnesses and dismal forests as those which had hampered us for over a month, and we now firmly believed that the end of the campaign was sure.
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