southeast of Kingston, known as Gillem’s Bridge, and to Schofield two pontoon bridges to be laid at the site of Milam’s Bridge, which had been burned. There were fords near all these crossings which were also to be utilized as far as practicable. [Footnote: Sherman’s general plan was given to his subordinates in person, but he repeated it to Halleck, Official Records vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 274. Thomas’s order is given, _Id._, p. 289, and accompanying sketch, p. 290. Gillem’s Bridge in the Atlas is called Free Bridge, plate lviii. Schofield’s place for pontoon bridges is fixed by his dispatch to Sherman, _Id._, p. 284, my own dispatch, _Id._, p. 298, and my official report, _Id._, pt. ii. p. 680. The line of march and place of crossing as given in the Atlas are incorrect.] We marched from Cartersville on the Euharlee road by the way of the hamlet of Etowah Cliffs, till we reached the direct road from Cassville to Milam’s Bridge, when we found the way blocked by Hooker’s corps, which had possession of the pontoons which Schofield’s engineer had placed. Hooker, however, was not responsible for this, as he had been ordered to change his line of march by a dispatch from Thomas’s headquarters written without stopping to inquire how such a change might conflict with Schofield’s right of way and with Sherman’s plans. Halted thus about noon, we were not able to resume the march till next day, as Hooker had ordered his supply trains to follow his column. [Footnote: _Id._, pt. iv. pp. 283, 291. Schofield to Sherman and reply, _Id._, pp. 296, 297. When I wrote “Atlanta,” I supposed Hooker acted without orders.] The incident only emphasizes the way in which we learned by experience the importance of strict system in such movements, and the mischiefs almost sure to follow when there is any departure from a plan of march once arranged. There was, of course, no intention to make an interference, and the difficulty rarely, if ever, occurred in the subsequent parts of the campaign.
In preparation for the movement to turn Johnston’s new position at Allatoona we were ordered to provide for twenty days’ absence from direct railway communication. Within that time Sherman expected to regain the railway again and establish supply depots near the camps. Meanwhile Kingston was made the base, and was garrisoned with a brigade. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 272, 274, 278.] The returning veterans were coming back by regiments and were fully supplying the losses of the campaign with men of the very best quality and full of enthusiasm. Nine regiments joined the Twenty-third Corps or were _en route_ during the brief halt at the Etowah. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 291.] The ration was the full supply of fresh beef from the herds driven with the army, varied by bacon two days in the week, a pound of bread, flour, or corn-meal per man each day, and the small rations of coffee, sugar and salt. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 272.] Vegetables and forage were to some extent gathered from the country. The coffee was always issued roasted, but in the whole berry, and was uniformly first-rate in quality. The soldiers carried at the belt a tin quart-pail, in which the coffee was crushed as well as boiled. The pail was set upon a flat stone like a cobbler’s lapstone, and the coffee berries were broken by using the butt of the bayonet as a pestle. At break of day every camp was musical with the clangor of these primitive coffee-mills. The coffee was fed to the mill a few berries at a time, and the veterans had the skill of gourmands in getting just the degree of fineness in crushing which would give the best strength and flavor. The cheering beverage was the comfort and luxury of camp life, and we habitually spoke of halting to make coffee, as in the French army they speak of their _soupe_.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN: NEW HOPE CHURCH AND THE KENNESAW LINES
Sherman’s plan for June–Movements of 24th May–Johnston’s position at Dallas and New Hope Church–We concentrate to attack–Pickett’s Mill–Dallas–Flanking movements–Method developed by the character of the country–Closer personal relations to Sherman–Turning Johnston’s right–Cross-roads at Burnt Church–A tangled forest–Fighting in a thunderstorm–Sudden freshet–Bivouac in a thicket–Johnston retires to a new line–Formidable character of the old one–Sherman extends to the railroad on our left–Blair’s corps joins the army–General Hovey’s retirement–The principles involved–Politics and promotions.
Sherman’s general plan of campaign for the month of June was to move his army in several columns upon Dallas, and then along the ridge between the Etowah and Chattahooche rivers on Marietta. As Johnston was at Allatoona and his cavalry was active all along the south bank of the Etowah, our left flank was not only covered by Stoneman’s cavalry, but Schofield was purposely held back a day’s march so as to cover the rear as well as the flank, which was exposed to a possible attack from Johnston as we marched south and opened a space between us and the river, uncovering the supply trains which filled the roads over which the troops had passed.
After crossing the river at Milam’s bridge on May 24th, we turned eastward through Stilesborough, to and across Richland Creek, reaching the road on the upland which runs from Cassville to Marietta by way of Rowland’s Ferry. Stoneman, who had crossed the Etowah with his division of horse at Shellman’s Ford on the 22d, and covered the laying of the pontoon bridges at Milam’s, went back to look after a raid by the Confederate cavalry at Cass Station, and was not able to return to his position south of the river until the evening of the 24th, when he scouted the road toward Allatoona. Having the advance, my division marched southward on the Marietta road to Sligh’s Mill, where the road forks, the right-hand branch turning southwest, along the ridge, to Huntsville, better known in the neighborhood as Burnt Hickory. This place was about half-way on the direct road from Kingston to Dallas, and was the rendezvous for the Cumberland Army for the night. We camped at Sligh’s Mill, being joined by Hascall’s division of our corps. Hovey’s division and the corps trains took the road from Stilesborough up Raccoon Creek, some miles west of us and covered by our march. The Army of the Tennessee reached VanWert, some miles west of Burnt Hickory, on the Rome and Dallas road.
We lay at Sligh’s Mill during the 25th, till five P.M., [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 311.] giving time for McPherson to approach Dallas, and for Thomas to continue his movement of the centre upon the same place. We were then to march to Burnt Hickory and follow Thomas to Dallas. But the enemy was also active and modified our program. His cavalry had reported our concentration in front of Kingston, and the laying of our pontoons at Milam’s bridge on the 23d. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 737.] They had also made a reconnoissance to Cass Station, and found nothing there but the wagons of the Twenty-third Corps, of which a number were captured and destroyed. Satisfied that Sherman was marching southward in force, Johnston immediately put his army in motion. Hardee’s Corps, being his left, marched to Dallas and took position south of the town, covering the main road to Atlanta and extending its line northeast toward New Hope Church. Hood was assigned to the right at the church, and Polk had the interval in the centre, upon the main road they had travelled from Allatoona. The line was along the ridge dividing the headwaters of Pumpkin Vine Creek, which flows northward into the Etowah, from the sources of the Sweetwater and Powder-spring creeks which empty into the Chattahoochee at the south.
The movement was begun on the 24th, and in the forenoon of the 25th the Confederate troops were taking the positions assigned them, covered by their cavalry. A captured dispatch gave Sherman useful information, and he directed that instead of marching straight to Dallas, Hooker should test the appearance of hostile force toward New Hope Church, turning off on the Marietta road at Owen’s Mill. This brought on the fierce combat at New Hope Church, where Hood’s Corps held its line against Hooker’s very vigorous attack. The fighting began about four o’clock in the afternoon and lasted till darkness put an end to it. All the other troops of the grand army were hurried forward. McPherson continued his march to Dallas, Thomas hastened the Fourth Corps to Hooker’s support, holding part of the Fourteenth as a general reserve, and Schofield was directed to hasten the march of the Twenty-third Corps by way of Burnt Hickory.
My division marched from Sligh’s Mill at five o’clock, and on reaching Burnt Hickory took the road Hooker had travelled to Owen’s Mill, accompanied by Hascall’s division, Hovey’s being left near Burnt Hickory to protect the trains. A thunderstorm with pouring rain came on soon after we started and lasted through the night. On reaching the road behind Hooker, we found it filled with his wagons, and the storm, the darkness, and the obstructed road produced a combination of miseries which made the march slow and fatiguing to the last degree. We plodded on till midnight, but had not yet reached Pumpkin Vine Creek, when we halted for a little rest, and to get further orders from Schofield, who had before nightfall gone on to communicate with Sherman. Word came that he was disabled by an accident when on his way back to us, and I was directed to lead the two divisions forward and report to Sherman. After a halt of an hour the men fell into ranks again, and pressing the toilsome march, reached the field at daybreak. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 303, 311, 320. The official Atlas is again inaccurate in making our line of advance from Sligh’s Mill follow the Marietta road instead of that to Burnt Hickory (Huntsville).]
By Sherman’s orders we joined the Fourth Corps (Howard’s), extending its line to the left, and the whole swung forward through a terribly tangled forest till we passed Brown’s saw-mill and reached the open valley which was the continuation of that in front of Hooker, and took our extreme left over the Dallas and Allatoona road. We had met with a strong skirmishing resistance, for Johnston was manifestly unwilling to give up the control of the road we had crossed. Having thus partly turned the Confederate position on our left, Sherman hoped that McPherson might complete their dislodgment by a similar flanking movement through Dallas on our right. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 321, 322.] The distances, however, were greater than we estimated, and though McPherson kept with him Davis’s division of Palmer’s Corps (greatly to Palmer’s disgust), [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 316, 324.] he was still unable to connect his line with Hooker’s, and occupied an isolated, salient position in front of Dallas which would be perilous if Johnston were able to concentrate upon him.
The enemy’s line was along one of the smaller branches of Pumpkin Vine Creek, and Sherman ordered for the 27th that McPherson should press toward the left down the little valley, whilst Howard, with one division of his own corps withdrawn from the line and one division of Palmer’s which had been in reserve, should push out beyond our left and turn the enemy’s right near Pickett’s Mill. A brigade of the Twenty-third Corps moved in the interval to cover Howard’s flank and keep connection with the intrenched line. The almost impenetrable character of the forest made the movement slow, and it was late in the afternoon when Howard reached the enemy’s position. He found they too had been busy in extending their lines, though pretty sharply recurved, to the eastward. The fierce combat did not succeed in carrying the Confederate position, but it gained good ground near the mill, better covering all the roads toward the railway. The left wing of the Twenty-third Corps swung forward to Howard’s position, and all intrenched strongly upon it.
On May 28th McPherson was ordered to prepare for moving to the extreme left, continuing the extension of our line toward the railroad. Suspecting this, the Confederates made a fierce attack upon the position in front of Dallas, but were repulsed with heavy loss. At McPherson’s request his movement was delayed a little, lest it should seem to be forced by Johnston’s attack. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 339, 340.]
Sherman had been very unwilling to give up the hope of putting Johnston’s army to rout in a decisive engagement, and to accept, instead, the patient flanking movements by which he should force upon his adversary the dilemma of abandoning more and more of Georgia, or of himself making attacks upon intrenched lines. In writing to Halleck after the battle of Resaca, he had said that although the campaign was progressing favorably, he knew that his army “must have one or more bloody battles such as have characterized Grant’s terrific struggles.” [Footnote: _Id._, p. 219.] But the affairs at New Hope Church and Pickett’s Mill show that the country was so impracticable that it was not possible to deliver an attack by his whole army at once, and so to give real unity to a great battle. He was therefore brought, perforce, to accept the systematic advance by flanking movements, and to avoid assaults upon intrenched positions on the forest-covered hills. He knew that this policy would bring a time when the enemy could no longer afford to retreat and must resort to aggressive tactics, even at the risk of destruction to his army. It was a curious repetition of the ancient colloquy,–“If thou art a great general, come down and fight me.–If thou art a great general, make me come down and fight thee.” It may be readily admitted that in such a country as Central Europe other methods would have been feasible and preferable; but in the tangled wildernesses of Virginia and Georgia the matter was brought to the test by leaders who had courage and will equal to any, and the result was a system which may be confidently said to be the natural evolution of warfare in such environment. Johnston knew that his retreat, though slow, was giving dissatisfaction to President Davis at Richmond, but he saw also that to assault Sherman’s lines meant final and irretrievable disaster, and he continued his patient and steady defence. Our progress around his right warned him that the New Hope Church position must soon be abandoned, and a new one was already selected, closer to Marietta, with Kennesaw, Pine and Lost mountains, for its strongholds.
The two or three days during which General Schofield had been disabled had brought me into closer personal relations with Sherman than I had enjoyed before, and was the beginning of an intimate friendship which lasted as long as he lived. I had the opportunity of learning more of his characteristics and his methods, and saw how sound his judgment was, and how cool a prudence there was behind his apparent impulsiveness. The untiring activity of his mind turned every problem over and over until he had viewed it from every point and considered the probable consequences of each mode of solving it. At bottom of all lay the indomitable courage and will which were only stimulated by obstacles, and which stuck to the inexorable purpose of keeping the initiative and making each day bring him nearer to a successful end of the campaign.
By the 1st of June McPherson had brought the Army of the Tennessee into close connection with the centre, where Palmer’s Corps of the Cumberland Army had its three divisions reunited (except one brigade), relieving us and enabling Thomas to draw out Hooker’s Corps as a reserve. The orders for the 2d were that we were to pass to the left beyond Howard’s Corps, and push out upon the Burnt Hickory and Marietta road, turning the enemy’s flank and reaching, if possible, the cross-roads where it intersected a second road leading from New Hope Church to Ackworth, a little in rear of the enemy’s lines. The object was to cover more completely the connections with the railroad south of the Etowah, and to gain positions which would take in reverse portions of the Confederate lines. Hooker’s Corps was ordered to support this movement on our extreme left. The cavalry were ordered to make a combined effort to reach Allatoona Pass on the railroad, and to hold it till Blair’s (Seventeenth) Corps, coming from Alabama by way of Rome, could arrive and occupy it in force. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 348, 349, 362, 366, 367.]
Stoneman with the cavalry of the Army of the Ohio entered Allatoona on June 1st, and reported the gorge a place he could hold against a superior force. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 379.] General Johnston was so well persuaded that his position was no longer tenable that he issued the same day a confidential order directing a withdrawal, but recalled it late in the day in view of the changes evidently going on at our extreme right, and so remained a few days longer. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 753.] On the morning of the 2d, the preliminary changes in the line being completed, Schofield marched with the Twenty-third Corps to the left until he reached the Burnt Hickory and Marietta road, near the Cross Roads Church, or Burnt Church, [Footnote: _Id_., p. 396.] then turning to the east and guiding his left on the road he pushed forward through an almost impenetrable forest where it was impossible to see two rods. There was great difficulty in keeping the movement of the invisible skirmish line in accord with the line of battle, which we directed by compass, like a ship at sea. In the advance, my adjutant-general, Captain Saunders, was mortally wounded by my side, as we were riding, unconscious of our danger, through an opening out of our skirmishers in a momentary loss of direction. There were extensive thickets of the loblolly pine occasionally met, where these scrub trees were so thick and their branches so interlaced that neither man nor horse could force a way through them, and the movement would be delayed till these densest places were turned by marching around them. The connection would then be made again, the direction of the skirmishers rectified, and the advance resumed. The regiments advanced by the right of companies in columns of fours at deploying distance, but not even the men of a company could see those on right or left, so dense was the tangle.
We passed over the divide separating Pumpkin Vine Creek, and its branches from Allatoona Creek, and the sharp skirmishing began as we approached the latter. The afternoon was well advanced when we reached the creek, and a heavy thunderstorm broke as our line forded the stream and pushed up the hill on the other side. We now drew the artillery fire from an intrenched line on the crest which we could not see, and for a time the mingled roar of the thunder and of the enemy’s cannon was such that it was hard to tell the one from the other. My advanced line closed in as near the intrenchments as possible, whilst the second remained on the hither side of the creek. At my request Hascall’s division swung still farther out to the left to develop the line of the enemy’s works, and Schofield asked Butterfield’s division of Hooker’s Corps to advance on the extreme flank. He found that Hascall developed the full extent of the Confederate line, and thought it a good opportunity to take the position in reverse. Butterfield, however, declined to do more than move up to Hascall’s support in rear, and night fell before Schofield could accomplish anything decisive. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 386. In this instance the question of relative rank by date of commission was slightly involved. Butterfield claimed to rank Schofield and declined to do more than is stated. Schofield’s Report, _Id_., pt. ii. p. 512; Schofield’s Forty-six Years in the Army, p. 130.]
The downpour of rain had been such that the creek, which was insignificant when we first came to it, became unfordable before sunset, and gave me no little concern for the first line of my division, which was over it. It was ordered to cover itself with such abatis as could be speedily made and to intrench, whilst we improvised footbridges for crossing to its support if it should be attacked. I announced that my headquarters for the night would be immediately in rear of the centre of my second line; but when the pressure of duty was off and I was at liberty to go to the position I had named, I found that it was one of the densest parts of a pine thicket, and I could not even get back of the troops in line till a path was cut for me by a detachment of men with axes. They cleared a narrow way for a few rods, and then widened it out into a circular space at the foot of the trunk of a great tree so that there was room for a camp-fire, and for two or three of us to bivouac, but most of the staff remained at a more approachable place a little in rear. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 396.] We regarded it so important that the notice given to subordinates of our whereabouts at night should not be misleading, that we stuck to the place that had been named, in spite of the inconvenience and discomfort. The fall of rain is amusingly illustrated by the fact that in the height of the storm my knee-boots filled with the water running off me, and I emptied them as I sat in the saddle by lifting first one leg and then the other up in front of me till the water ran out of the boot-top in a stream. I had been a little ailing for a day or two, and my sleep was not as sound as it usually was even in close contact with the hostile lines. In the wakeful hours the loss of my friend and able staff officer, Captain Saunders, filled me with mournful thoughts; for though the daily work under fire had exposed all the little circle at headquarters to casualties, our good fortune hitherto had bred a sort of confidence in immunity, and the sudden fall of him who had been the centre of the staff group and a personal favorite with all was a heavy blow to us when we had time to think of it.
Next morning Schofield arranged with General Thomas to relieve Hovey’s division of our corps which had been on our right, and marching this division beyond Hascall’s on our extreme left, the whole line went forward. The Confederate intrenchment in my immediate front was completely outflanked, and was found to be a detached position which the enemy abandoned when threatened by Hascall’s advance, and my men at once occupied it. The movement was continued until Hovey’s division was upon the interior Dallas and Ackworth road near Allatoona church, whilst my division and Hascall’s held the cross roads which had been covered by the fortifications we had captured. Hooker’s Corps passed beyond Hovey, covering the flank to the eastward. Sherman now hastened the extension of the line toward the railroad by passing the whole army behind us, till by the 6th we became the extreme right flank of the army. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. ii. p. 681; _Id._, pt. iv. p. 407.] Johnston had abandoned his position on the night of the 4th, falling back on the new line he had selected with his left resting on Lost Mountain and his right upon Brush Mountain, the next eminence north of Kennesaw. [Footnote: _Id._, pt. iv. pp. 408, 758.]
The abandonment of the New Hope line gave us the opportunity to examine it, which, of course, we did with great interest. It was about six miles long, of the most formidable character of field fortifications. The entry in my diary says of them that we found them “very strong, both for artillery and infantry, with abatis carefully sharpened and staked down. They have never before shown so much industry and finished their defensive works with so much care.” When it is remembered that these lines could only be approached through forests which hid everything till we were right upon them, it will easily be believed that we congratulated ourselves that the enemy was manoeuvred out of them and was being crowded back till he must soon assume the aggressive and assault our works.
Sherman’s new positions placed McPherson’s army on Proctor’s Creek, a branch of the Allatoona in front of Ackworth on the railroad, Thomas’s army between Mt. Olivet Church and Golgotha, covering the principal roads from Cassville and Kingston to Marietta and Lost Mountain, whilst Schofield was placed in echelon on the right flank, covering the hospitals and trains until the base could be transferred to the railway. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 423, 428, 430.] My own division was left for some days in the position we had carried on the 3d, about a mile separated from the rest of the line. A pontoon bridge was laid at the Etowah railway crossing till the great bridge could be constructed, and General Blair, who was on the 6th at Kingston, with two divisions of the Seventeenth Corps, was ordered to march to Ackworth by this direct road. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 424.] Blair’s command was the only important reinforcement received by Sherman during the campaign, and just about made up for the losses by battle and by sickness up to the time of its arrival. A more open belt of country lay along the western side of the line from Kennesaw to Lost Mountain, and Sherman hurried the readjustment of his forces in the hope of a decisive engagement with Johnston by the 9th of June or soon afterward.
A change now occurred in the organization of our corps which afterward became a matter of so much historical notoriety that it may be worth while to give the particulars with accuracy. General Hovey tendered his resignation as a division commander, and asked a leave of absence to await the action of the President upon it. The reasons assigned by him were his dissatisfaction and unwillingness to serve longer with his division, which he claimed should be increased by five regiments of Indiana cavalry, recruited at the same time and in connection with his infantry regiments, and, as he asserted, with some assurance that they should be one organization under him. He also intimated that he had reason to expect promotion which had not been given him.
I have already mentioned some dissatisfaction on General Schofield’s part with him at the beginning of the campaign, [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 214.] but the middle of the campaign seemed so inconvenient a time to make a change that Schofield sought earnestly to smooth the matter over, and tried to obtain for Hovey other troops to increase the size of his division. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 439.] Sherman had no infantry which was not a regular part of other divisions, and could not increase Hovey’s command in that way. He said that he could not tolerate the anomaly of combining five cavalry regiments with infantry in a division of foot, and that, in fact, the regiments were along the railroad, protecting our communications and could not be spared. He invited Hovey to a personal conference, and urged him to withdraw his resignation, to take time at least for reflection, and not insist upon changes in the midst of a campaign and in the presence of the enemy. The appeal was unsuccessful, and Sherman telegraphed to the War Department that Hovey was discontented because he was not made a major-general, and that, though he esteemed him as a man, he should recommend the acceptance of the resignation. On the paper itself he endorsed a full statement of the circumstances and his recommendation that General Hovey be allowed to resign. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 433, 439, 443, 448.]
The official censure of General Sherman having been thus spread upon the records of the War Department, and that department having made a tender of resignation in the presence of the enemy a cause for summary dismissal of inferior officers, the surprise of the army may be imagined when, on July 25th, Sherman was notified from Washington that Hovey and Osterhaus had been promoted to be major-generals,–the first by brevet, the other to the full grade. To Sherman himself the thing was exceedingly galling, for not only was his action in Hovey’s case reversed, and that which he condemned made the occasion for reward, but he had, only the day before, in asking to have Howard transferred to the command of the Army of the Tennessee, made vacant by McPherson’s death, added a special request on the general subject of promotions. “After we have taken Atlanta,” he had said, “I will name officers who merit promotion. In the mean time I request that the President will not give increased rank to any officer who has gone on leave from sickness, or cause other than wounds in battle.” [Footnote: _Id_., pt. v. p. 241.] This language had manifest reference to the cases in hand, and was, no doubt, based on rumors of what was about to happen: but it was too late, for a dispatch from Colonel Hardie, Inspector-General, was already on the way to him, announcing the promotions by order of the War Department.
Sherman’s indignation boiled over in his reply, which said: “I wish to put on record this, my emphatic opinion, that it is an act of injustice to officers who stand by their posts in the day of danger to neglect them and advance such as Hovey and Osterhaus, who left us in the midst of bullets to go to the rear in search of personal advancement. If the rear be the post of honor, then we had better all change front on Washington.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 247.] The vigor of this protest carried it to Mr. Lincoln’s personal attention, and he answered it, admitting that it was well taken, but urging reasons for his action which show only too well that they were more political than military. A Presidential campaign had just begun, and with all his great qualities, Mr. Lincoln was susceptible to reasons of political policy in the use of appointments to office. He referred to the recommendations for promotion that Grant and Sherman had given these officers in a former campaign, and to “committals” which had been drawn from him which he “could neither honorably nor safely disregard.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 259.] In the case of Osterhaus the President added that his promise had been given “on what he thought was high merit and somewhat on his nationality.” In short, Indiana and Missouri were doubtful States, and the German vote was important. But what idea of military promotions was that which, in such a war and in the midst of such a campaign, advanced officers to the highest grade upon personal importunity, not only without consultation with their commanding general in the field but in spite of his protest; which does not seem even to have asked the question what was going on in Georgia and what would be the effect of such action upon the army there! If there had been unlimited power of promotion, the case might have been less mischievous; but Congress had limited the number of officers, so that vacancies were now filled, and, for the Atlanta campaign and Sherman’s army in Georgia, these two were the only promotions that could be given, and of those whom Sherman recommended for the grade of major-general for service in that campaign when Atlanta was taken, not one then received it. When these things are remembered, Sherman’s indignation will be seen to be righteous, and his protest a memorable effort in favor of good military administration. In replying to the President he apologized for the freedom of his language and assured Mr. Lincoln of his confidence in the conscientiousness of his general course, but he did not soften or blink the facts. “You can see,” said he, “how ambitious aspirants for military fame regard these things. They come to me and point them out as evidence that I am wrong in encouraging them to a silent, patient discharge of duty. I assure you that every general of my army has spoken of it, and referred to it as evidence that promotion results from importunity and not from actual service. I have refrained from recommending any thus far in the campaign, as I think we should reach some stage in the game before stopping to balance accounts or to write history.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 271.]
Some promotions to the rank of brigadier were made in the Potomac Army at this time, and Grant was notified that there were three or four other vacancies in that grade. This led him to say he would like to have them given to such men as Sherman might recommend. He added: “No one can tell so well as one immediately in command the disposition that should be made of the material on hand. Osterhaus has proved himself a good soldier, but if he is not in the field I regret his promotion.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 260.] As it had been Grant’s former recommendation which had been the strongest ostensible ground of the promotion, this remark of his is important as pointing out the true principle in such matters. Recommendations of such a sort are always on the implied condition that the claim shall not be forfeited by subsequent conduct, and Grant said in substance that the circumstances had altered the cases and relieved him (and the administration too) of any obligation.
To complete the discussion, it must be noted that there were three brigadiers from Indiana in the Twenty-third Corps at this time, and Hovey was not only the junior of the three but had been the least actively employed in the campaign. Manson had been stricken down in the battle of Resaca whilst heroically leading his men to the capture of the rebel position, and never fully recovered from the injury. [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 221.] Hascall distinguished himself at every step of the campaign. Both left the service at last without any further recognition. It was common fame in the army that they were not favored by Governor O. P. Morton, the dominant political influence in their State. Hovey’s further service was not in the field, but as commandant of the District of Indiana. Osterhaus returned to the Fifteenth Corps and served creditably in Sherman’s remaining campaigns. Hovey’s division was broken up, one brigade being added to Hascall’s division and the other to mine. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 448.]
CHAPTER XXXIX
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN: MARIETTA LINES–CROSSING THE CHATTAHOOCHEE
Continuous rains in June–Allatoona made a field depot on the railway and fortified–Johnston in the Marietta lines–That from Pine Mountain to Lost Mountain abandoned–Swinging our right flank–Affair at Kolb’s farm–Preparing for a general attack–Battle of Kennesaw–The tactical problem–Work of my division–Topography about Cheney’s–Our advance on the 27th–Nickajack valley reached–The army moves behind us–Johnston retreats to the Chattahoochee–Twenty-third Corps at Smyrna Camp-ground–Crossing the Chattahoochee at Soap Creek–At Roswell–Johnston again retreats–Correspondence with Davis–Mission of B. H. Hill–Visit of Bragg to Johnston–Johnston’s unfortunate reticence–He is relieved and Hood placed in command–Significance of the change to the Confederacy and to us.
In the month of June we had more than three weeks of pouring rains, making a quagmire of the whole country. The “dirt roads,” which were the only ones, were soon destroyed by the heavy army wagons, and even the place where they had been could not be distinguished in the waste of mud and ruts which spread far and wide. Sherman found the intrenchments Johnston had left “an immense line of works,” and congratulated himself that they had been turned with less loss to himself than he had inflicted on the enemy. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 408.] The first reconnoissances found that Johnston had retreated so far that, from the commander downward, we all harbored the hope that he had retreated beyond the Chattahoochee. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 427.] To prepare for our next step, the railway crossing of the Etowah must be completed and our depot of supplies advanced to Allatoona. The gorge there was almost as defensible on the south as on the north, and Sherman set Captain Poe, his engineer, to work laying out fortifications to cover its southern mouth and thus prepare for holding it by a small garrison as a secondary base if we should have to leave it again to make a wide turning movement. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 428.]
[Illustration: Vicinity of Marietta, June 20,–July 4, 1864.]
We were not long in learning that Johnston was not over the Chattahoochee, but had only fallen back to a shorter and more formidable line about Marietta, covering the railway where it passed through the defiles of Kennesaw Mountain, extending his left centre to the isolated knob of Pine Mountain, and thence recurving his flank by way of Gilgal (Hard-Shell Church in local nomenclature) toward Lost Mountain, which was held by his cavalry.
At the first appearance of a retreat by the Confederates beyond the Chattahoochee, Sherman’s mind naturally turned to the plans of campaign which should follow his approach to Atlanta as they had been indicated by General Grant at the beginning of operations in the spring, and he inquired of Halleck whether the intended movement of the fleet under Farragut and part of the southwestern army under Canby against Mobile had been ordered. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 418.] Halleck answered that it had been suggested to Canby, but that Grant had, just then, all he could attend to on the Chickahominy. The fierce battles in Virginia had culminated on June 3d, in the terrible struggle at Cold Harbor, where the assault had been so costly as almost to produce dismay throughout the country, and in all our armies to enforce the lesson of caution in attacking such works as the enemy was now habitually constructing. The feeling was hinted at by Sherman in his dispatch to Washington on the 5th, when he said that although he should probably have to fight Johnston at Kennesaw, he would not “run head on to his fortifications.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 408.]
Amid the discouragements incident to the incessant rains the army gained positions closely enveloping Johnston’s lines, and we who constituted the right flank, pushing out from hill to hill and from brook to brook, gradually outflanked the enemy and forced him to swing back his left. On the 14th he let go of Pine Mountain, where General Polk was killed and General Johnston himself had a narrow escape from our artillery fire while they were reconnoitring our positions from its summit. On the 16th we were close upon the Gilgal and Lost Mountain line, and the enemy again withdrew that flank beyond Mud Creek, which with Noyes’s Creek [Footnote: Noyes’s Creek was pronounced Noses Creek by the negroes and the people of the neighborhood, and the name took that form in our reports at the time. It was afterward corrected in the Official Records.] and Olley’s are the tributaries of the Sweetwater (before mentioned) which flows southward into the Chattahoochee. Sherman was on the lookout for weak places in his adversary’s line where he might break through and change into a rout the war of positions which was too much like siege operations to suit him. He said to Halleck that Johnston had declined the assault which must have followed our so close contact, “and abandoned Lost Mountain and some six miles of as good field-works as I ever saw.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 498.] Still keeping the right shoulder forward, we crowded in upon the new line, and in the night of the 18th the enemy retreated from the intrenchments behind Mud Creek to those of Noyes’s Creek, whilst at the same time he drew back his extreme right behind Noonday Creek, compacting his lines with the purpose of transferring a corps to his left, where we now began to threaten his communications.
Again there was a momentary belief that Marietta was abandoned, but again it was premature, for the apex of the angle was stoutly held at the rocky crest of Kennesaw. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 519.] There was nothing for it but to continue the swing of the right flank. In his instructions to Thomas, Sherman said, “Until Schofield develops the flank we should move with due caution; but the moment it is found or we are satisfied the enemy has lengthened his line beyond his ability to defend, we must strike quick and with great energy.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 509.]
The waters were up in all the streams, and Noyes’s was wholly unfordable. Following the Sandtown road southward, my division was stopped by the creek, and the enemy’s artillery and dismounted cavalry held a good position on the other side, having removed the flooring of the bridge. In a brilliant little affair by a part of Cameron’s brigade, the bridge was carried, and the whole division was soon across and intrenched at the crest on the south side, covering the intersection of the Sandtown road with that from Marietta to Powder Springs Church. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviiii. pt. iv. pp. 534, 540.] On the morning of June 22d, the rest of Schofield’s corps crossed the creek and took the Marietta road, whilst Hooker’s corps swung forward from the right of the Cumberland Army to keep pace with Schofield. My own division at the same time marched southward on the Sandtown road to Cheney’s farm, near the crossing of Olley’s Creek, the next in the series of parallel valleys trending to the southwest. Cheney’s was also at the crossing of the lower road from Marietta to Powder Springs village, which forked near Kolb’s farm, the northern branch being that on which Schofield was advancing with Hascall’s division. But Hood’s corps was also upon this road, having marched in the night from the extreme right of Johnston’s army to extend the left and meet our aggressive movement. This brought on the bloody affair of Kolb’s (or Culp’s) farm, Hood making a fierce attack on Schofield’s left and Hooker’s right, which was repulsed. [Footnote: Atlanta, p. 108, etc.] The enemy had to content himself with extending southward the line confronting ours, till it passed over the ridge behind Noyes’s creek and covered the valley of Olley’s. Schofield had called me with three brigades to Hascall’s support, leaving one (Reilly’s) at the Cheney farm. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 558, 559, 566-569.]
Hood’s attack had checked the flanking movement from which Sherman had hoped good results. Johnston had also been able to stretch out his right so that the works in front of McPherson seemed to be held in force enough to make an assault unpromising. On the reports of subordinates as to their uneasiness at the stretching of their lines, Thomas suggested to Sherman that the lines be contracted and strengthened. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 581.] At the same time reports were received that Confederate cavalry had crossed the Etowah in our rear, and had begun to make use of torpedoes to derail and destroy trains on the railway. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 579.] Yet Garrard’s cavalry on our left reported the enemy’s horse superior in numbers, and were unable to make such progress there as Sherman had expected. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 542, 555.] It began to look like a dead-lock, and that, of all things, was what Sherman could not endure. With grim humor he wrote to Thomas, “I suppose the enemy with his smaller force intends to surround us!” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 582.] The only alternative seemed to be to find the places where that smaller force was most attenuated and break through by main strength. He notified his subordinates that this must be done on the 27th. [Footnote: _Ibid_. and p. 588.] As a preliminary, he ordered demonstrations to be kept up on both flanks to draw the enemy away from the centre. His formal order, issued on the 24th, directed General Thomas to select a point of attack near his centre. McPherson was directed to make a feint with his cavalry and one division of infantry on the left, but to make his real attack at a point south and west of Kennesaw. Schofield was likewise to make a demonstration on the extreme right, in front of my division, but to attack a point as near as practicable to the Powder Springs road, which was the scene of the affair of the 22d. [Footnote: _Ibid_.] The tactical details were all left to the subordinate army commanders.
On the 25th Sherman visited our positions in person, and accompanied the active reconnoissances which we were making. The result he stated in an evening dispatch to Thomas, saying, “I found that the enemy had strengthened his works across the Powder Springs road very much, having made embrasures for three complete batteries, all bearing on that road. Line extends as far as can be seen to the right, mostly in timber and partly in open ground. The enemy is also on his [Schofield’s] right flank on the other side of Olley’s Creek.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 589.] The outcome of this was a modification of Schofield’s orders, so that instead of attacking seriously in force, he should make strong demonstrations to attract the enemy to our wing of the army as much as possible, and thus assist Thomas and McPherson in their attacks near the centre.
It was with reluctance that Sherman was brought to the determination to make a front assault. His preference and his earlier purpose had been to make an equal force to Johnston’s keep the Confederates in their works whilst the remainder of his own army should move from our right and attack beyond Johnston’s left flank. He had thought the opportunity was come when we had secured the crossing of Noyes’s Creek, and he indicated the morning of the 22d for an advance on the Powder Springs and Marietta road which we then commanded. In his dispatch to Thomas on the 21st, he said, “I feel much disposed to push your right, supported by Schofield and Stoneman’s cavalry, whilst McPherson engages attention to his front, but keeps ready to march by his right to reinforce you.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 546.]
The founderous condition of the whole region had made every movement slow, and in the same note to Thomas, Sherman had summed it up in the two words: “Roads terrific.” Yet on the morning of the 22d the way to Marietta by the Powder Springs road was only contested by cavalry, though Johnston’s ever-watchful eye had seen the danger and by his order Hood was marching his corps from the other flank of the army to meet Sherman’s extension by our right. In going to examine McPherson’s lines himself, Sherman had added to his dispatch, “If anything happens, act promptly with your own troops and advise me and your neighbor, Schofield, who has standing orders to conform to you.” [Footnote: _Ibid_.] The situation was, in fact, exactly what he had been hoping for. The flank of the enemy was exposed, and we had the opportunity to use the broad road leading to Marietta to turn it. Could Hooker, supported by Hascall’s division of our corps, have reached Zion’s Church before Hood, or at the same time with him, it seems almost certain that the position gained would have compelled Johnston to abandon Kennesaw and Marietta at once, and fall back to the line of the Nickajack if not beyond the Chattahoochee. In that case the battle of Kennesaw would not have been fought.
In the evening of the 22d, when Sherman received Hooker’s answer to a question sent him during the progress of the combat in the afternoon, and found the latter laboring under the conviction that the whole of Johnston’s army was in his immediate front, he was naturally annoyed at so exaggerated a view of the situation. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 558.] Thomas received similar reports from Hooker and a call for reinforcements, and though he said he “thought at the time he was stampeded,” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 559.] he sent to him a division from Howard’s corps. The truth was that one brigade of Hooker’s corps and one of Schofield’s were the only ones that had suffered at all severely, the total list of less than 300 casualties being about equally divided between them. Hood had been repulsed with a loss of more than 1000. [Footnote: Atlanta, p. 113.] When to these circumstances are added those which have before been mentioned, [Footnote: _Ante_, pp. 258, 259.] we can understand how Sherman began to fear that, in the systematic flanking operations he had been carrying on, his army was losing the energetic aggressive character without which he could not profit decisively by the opportunities which might offer. [Footnote: See Sherman’s personal letters to Halleck of July 9th, Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 91; to Grant of June 18th, _Id_., pt. iv. p. 507; and of July 12th, _Id_., pt. v. p. 123.] Adding still further the difficulty, amounting almost to an impossibility, of supplying the wing of the army most distant from the railroad, and the probability that Johnston’s army was stretched into a line even thinner than his own, it will not seem strange that he concluded it was time to try whether a bold stroke would not break through the Confederate defences and rout his adversary. I am saying this from the standpoint of our own experience in the wooded and sparsely settled region we were operating in. From a European point of view, an aggressive policy of attack would be taken as a matter of course, and the only questions open for debate would be the tactical ones as to the method of making the assault and the points at which to deliver it. [Footnote: For a recent summary of the discussion of “Attack or Defence,” see Letters and Essays of Captain F. N. Maude, R. E. (International Series), p. 70; also his “Cavalry and Infantry” (same series), p. 127, etc.]
The attack was made on the 27th, and failed to carry the enemy’s works, though our troops were able to hold positions close to the ditch and to intrench themselves on a new line there. The casualties in the action were 2164. [Footnote: In Logan’s Corps, 629 (Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. p. 85); in Howard’s, 756 (_Id_., pt. i. p. 205), and in Palmer’s, 779 (_Id_., p. 509).] Some of the best officers who took part in the assault were of the opinion that had the supports been well in hand, so as to have charged quickly over the first line when it was checked and lost its impetus, the works in front of Davis’s division would have been carried. [Footnote: McCook’s Brigade at Kennesaw Mountain, by Major F. B. James of the Fifty-Second Ohio; Ohio Loyal Legion Papers, vol. iv. pp. 269, 270.] It is hardly necessary to say that at the present day an entirely different deployment and organization of the attacking forces would be considered essential, and the preparation by concentrated artillery fire would be much more thorough than was practicable then. The dense forest made the cannonade almost harmless at the points chosen for assault, and the attack was one of infantry against unshaken earthworks. [Footnote: For description of the battle, see “Atlanta,” chap. x.]
In Sherman’s visit to our position on the 25th, he had arranged with Schofield the general plan for our demonstrations on the 26th and 27th. Hascall’s division was to make a feint of attack near the Powder Springs road, whilst mine should force the crossing of Olley’s Creek near Cheney’s, on the Sandtown road, build a temporary bridge over the creek a mile or two above, and make a strong show of a purpose to attack beyond Hascall’s right flank by crossing with a brigade there. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 589, 592.]
The valley of Olley’s Creek was broad and open, and the country beyond my right was more practicable than the tangled wilderness on the northern slope of the watershed. We had got beyond the denser thickets of the loblolly pine, and could better see what we were about. The old Sandtown road south of Cheney’s crossed the creek on a wooden bridge which was commanded by a fortified hill a little beyond where a battery of artillery swept the bridge and its approaches. The stream widened out after passing the bridge and ran between low and marshy banks with bluffs further back. I had placed Reilly’s brigade astride the road at Cheney’s with Myer’s Indiana battery of light twelves, smooth-bore bronze guns. A gap of more than a mile lay between Reilly and the other three brigades of the division after I had marched to Hascall’s support on the 22d. The lower branch of the Powder Springs road was parallel to the creek and not far from it, and my artillery near the right of the three brigades was on an advancing knoll where the guns not only commanded the valley before them, but Cockerill’s Ohio battery of three-inch rifles swept nearly the whole space to Reilly’s position. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 568.]
To give more effect to our demonstration, Sherman directed that it begin on the 26th, and preparations were made to build a bridge in front of Byrd’s brigade, which was ordered to cross the stream when Reilly’s effort against the lower bridge should begin. Our first information was that the fortified hill in front of Reilly was held by infantry, and as the work was in form a redoubt, its garrison of course on foot, we assumed that it was a detached outwork of the Confederate line. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 597.] Reilly kept up a cannonade of the hill in front of him during the 26th, and made some attempts to get over the stream at the bridge, but did not seriously try to force the passage. A temporary bridge was laid at Byrd’s position, and soon after noon he crossed the creek with little opposition, our artillery thoroughly commanding the further bank. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 599] I personally accompanied Byrd’s movement. The artillery of Hascall’s division as well as my own was turned on the enemy’s works when they came out into the open. The hills along this part of Olley’s Creek were not a continuous ridge, but knobby and somewhat detached; the higher land marking the edge of the plateau about Marietta was further back, and the Confederate line of works followed it. Byrd’s direction of march was nearly parallel to the Sandtown road, and by advancing about a mile and a half he reached the summit of a rough wooded hill about six hundred yards from the main ridge, with open ground intervening. He was here from half a mile to a mile east of the Sandtown road, and from the fortified hill in front of Reilly, which was on the continuation of the same ridge, though with ravines interrupting it. The position was a very threatening one, and if any demonstration could draw the enemy in that direction, this seemed likely to do it. I directed Byrd to intrench on the crest, drawing back the flanks of the brigade so as to be ready for attack from any direction. Our movement had been sharply resisted by the enemy, but so far as we could see, only by dismounted cavalry. Sherman had said that he did not care to have Reilly force the passage of the creek that afternoon, for a strong threatening of the fortified hill would be more likely to draw the enemy that way than actually capturing it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 597.] On my reporting to General Schofield in the evening the position of Byrd’s brigade with the favorable look of the country beyond, it was arranged that Byrd’s bridge should be made stronger for permanent use, and that Cameron’s brigade should follow him at daylight in the morning. With my whole division except Barter’s brigade, which was left to cover Hascall’s right flank, I was to test what further progress could be made on the Sandtown road. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 598-600.]
At peep of day on the 27th we were astir, anxious to get our part of the day’s work well advanced before the more serious engagement at the centre should begin. Another battery had been sent to Reilly, and he was directed to silence the enemy’s guns and find a way across the creek under cover of his own if he could, but if this failed, to storm the bridge.
Cameron was over Byrd’s bridge at four o’clock, and was ordered upon reaching the ridge in rear of Byrd to push boldly along it toward the fortified hill the other side of the Sandtown road in front of Reilly. Byrd’s orders were to hold his position with the main body of his brigade, but to throw out detachments and skirmishers in all directions to watch the enemy and to get information of the country. Leaving Cameron as soon as he was well on his way, I rode to Reilly in front of the Cheney farm, and found that at five his dispositions for forcing the passage of the stream were well under way. He had determined to try it some distance below the bridge, at a place where, though the banks were swampy, the creek was fordable, and the hills behind gave good opportunity to use the artillery and put the men across under shelter. My chief of artillery, Major Wells, was with him, selecting places for the batteries and getting them in position. Soon after six I was with Cameron again, and before eight was back at Reilly’s position, urging each to all the speed which the strong skirmishing opposition would permit. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 619.] As it was necessary to pass from one position to the other by way of the roads at the rear, it made hard riding for one who wished to be as much as possible with the active heads of columns.
Soon after eight o’clock part of Reilly’s brigade got over the swamp and creek under cover of the artillery, uncovering the bridge at the road where the rest crossed; Cameron’s was now coming into close co-operation from the east, and a dashing charge by both carried the hill. [Footnote: _Id._, pt. ii. pp. 683, 703, 720.] It was now half-past eight, and the cannonade which preceded the attacks at the centre was opening heavily behind us. [Footnote: _Id._, pt. i. pp. 199, 632.] The captured position was a commanding one, and the view from it covered the whole region from Kennesaw to Lost Mountain. Cameron was left there whilst Reilly followed the retreating enemy with orders to advance as far as he could toward the Marietta and Sandtown road, which was supposed to come into the old Cassville and Sandtown road a mile or two ahead. We now knew from prisoners that the force opposed to us was the division of Confederate cavalry under Jackson, and that they were not closely supported by infantry.
The hill had been held by Ross’s brigade, which retreated to another eminence half a mile further down the road. Reilly again advanced, supported by Cameron. Ross was again dislodged and retreated upon the rest of the division at the junction of the roads above mentioned. [Footnote: _Id._, pt. iv. pp. 799-801.] As we advanced it became evident that the principal ridge on which Johnston’s army was broke down into separate hills as it came forward toward the forks of the main roads, and it seemed feasible to hold some of these in such a way as to make mutually supporting positions from Byrd to Reilly, covering a front of two miles and commanding the lower part of the Nickajack valley, in which the Marietta road ran. Reilly was put in one of these positions with his right across the road on which we had come, two miles south of Cheney’s; Cameron was ordered forward upon high ground near Reilly’s left, and Byrd was directed to straighten out his line on his right and reach as far as he could toward Cameron. All were ordered to intrench as rapidly and thoroughly as possible, for it was plain that we now commanded a short road to the railway in Johnston’s rear, and that he must drive us out or abandon the Kennesaw line he had clung to so stubbornly.
I had sent my aide, Mr. Coughlan, with the orders to Byrd, and when the line was extended and skirmishers partly covered the front, he came back to me by a direct course from Byrd to Cameron and Reilly, with the daring and intelligence which made him a model staff officer, and reported that a continuous ridge connected the brigades so that pickets could be well placed in the interval to give warning of any hostile attempt to pass between. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 620, 621. Lieutenant Coughlan was afterward killed in the heroic performance of duty at the battle of Franklin. See “Franklin,” p. 114.] A small hill a few hundred yards in front of the main line better commanded the Marietta road, and upon this I directed Reilly to build a lunette for an advanced guard of a regiment and a battery.
The whole affair was one of the minor class in war, but it had a special interest, in our ignorance of the topography of the country, because it revealed a way to Johnston’s line of communications, which could not be seen and was not suspected when Sherman made the reconnoissance with us on the 25th, and saw the Confederate lines crossing the Powder Springs road and stretching away far beyond our right. In my field dispatch to General Schofield I said: “The possession of the end of the ridge, if we can hold it, I am now sure will prevent the enemy from extending his line along it, since it would be necessarily flanked and enfiladed by our positions. The only objection is the extension relatively to the strength of my command and the distance from supports. Upon carefully re-examining the ground my conviction is strengthened that it is exceedingly desirable to hold all we have gained, and if Hascall’s place could possibly be filled by troops drawn from other parts of the line, it would give all the force needed to make a _point-d’appui_ which would be safe and exceedingly available for future movements in this direction if they become necessary. I only suggest this by way of indicating the impression made on my own mind by the position.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 621.]
Reilly was three miles distant from Barter’s brigade, which covered the right of the continuous line of the army intrenchments, and it was certainly risking something to extend the brigades of a single division so far, but it would have been a great disappointment to us to have been called back. General Schofield instantly saw the advantage, and in answering my dispatch, said, “I do not think the importance of the position you have gained can be over-estimated, especially in view of the failure elsewhere and probable future movements.” [Footnote: _Ibid_. See map, p. 255.] He ordered Stoneman’s cavalry to aid me in holding the ground and in picketing the intervals, and reported to General Sherman the details of the operation. The latter determined to make use of the advantage gained, and said, “If we had our supplies well up, I would move at once by the right flank, but I suppose we must cover our railroad a few days.” [Footnote: Dispatch to McPherson, _Id._, p. 622.] We were left, therefore, for a little while in our exposed position, whilst the whole army made strenuous efforts to get forward supplies enough for a few days’ separation from the railway. The weather had begun to favor us. The day of the affair at the Kolb farm (22d) had been the first fair day of the month, and the continuous clear skies and hot suns rapidly dried the roads. Sherman sent Captain Poe to make an engineer’s examination of our position and reconnoissance in front. The report confirmed his purpose of making us the pivot in a swinging movement of the whole army. On the 29th Generals Thomas and Howard accompanied General Schofield and myself in a similar inspection, to help fix the details of the movement for the Army of the Cumberland. Crittenden’s brigade of dismounted cavalry reported to me for temporary duty as infantry with my division. On the 1st of July Hascall’s division was relieved by the extension of Hooker’s corps, and Schofield with his whole corps in hand advanced a mile upon the Marietta road toward Ruff’s Mill. Johnston’s failure to attack was proof that he was preparing for retreat, and Sherman pressed the movement of his own army.
On the 2d Johnston knew that McPherson’s army was marching to interpose between him and the Chattahoochee, and issued his orders for the evacuation of the Marietta lines in the night, and the occupation of the position beyond the Nickajack. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 860.] But Thomas and McPherson both followed so vigorously that the Confederate general saw that he could not cover the crossings of the river which Stoneman’s cavalry was already reaching on our right, and in the night of the 4th he again retired, this time to intrenchments with both flanks resting on the river and covering the railway bridge with two or three of the principal ferries. With his usual prudence, Johnston had prepared both these lines with the aid of the Georgia militia under General Gustavus W. Smith, who, being himself an engineer, was admirably fitted to co-operate with the plans of the staff.
Again a few days had to be given to repairs of the railroad and a readjustment of the depots and means of supply, whilst careful reconnoissances of the river were made both above and below the Confederate position. Schofield’s corps was placed in reserve near the railway, at Smyrna Camp ground, and on the 8th my division was assigned the duty of making a crossing of the Chattahoochee, and laying pontoon bridges at Isham’s ford and ferry at the mouth of Soap Creek, [Footnote: In the official Atlas, pl. lx., two creeks are named Rottenwood. The upper one of these with paper-mills upon it is Soap Creek. The ford was sometimes called Cavalry Ford in the Confederate dispatches. For particulars of the movements at this period of the campaign, see “Atlanta,” chap. xi.] about nine miles above the railway crossing of the river. Johnston does not seem to have been well served by his cavalry on this occasion, for the crossing was gained and two bridges laid with only trifling opposition, and my division was over and strongly intrenched before any concentration of the enemy was made in my front. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. pp. 85, 89, 93.] This, of course, decided Johnston to abandon the northern bank of the river, and he selected a strong position behind Peach-tree Creek as the next line of defence for Atlanta, burning the railway bridge and other bridges behind him.
Several days were occupied by Sherman in moving McPherson’s command to Roswell, twenty miles above the railway, and building a trestle-bridge there, in accumulating supplies and organizing transportation for another considerable absence from the railroad. By the 17th the army was over the Chattahoochee, McPherson on the left, Schoneld next, and Thomas from the centre to the right. A general wheel of the whole toward the right was ordered, to find and drive back the enemy upon Atlanta.
Meanwhile the relations between General Johnston and the Confederate government had reached a crisis. He had regularly reported the actual movements of his army, but had carefully avoided any indication of his intentions or of his hopes or fears. When, on the 5th of July, he retreated to the position at the Chattahoochee crossing, his dispatch briefly announced that “In consequence of the enemy’s advance toward the river below our left, we this morning took this position, which is slightly intrenched.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 865.] Mr. Davis replied on the 7th, expressing grave apprehensions at the situation, pointing out the dangers of the position, and saying that other places had been stripped to reinforce him, that further increase was impossible, and that they now depended on his success. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 867.] By an unfortunate blunder of a subordinate, the dispatch was not sent in cipher as was intended, and Johnston knew that the contents with its implied criticism was known to the telegraphers along the line and was practically public property. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 871] this was not soothing to the general’s feelings, even when explained. His answer said that he had been forced back by siege operations, and had no opportunity for battle except by attacking intrenchments. He suggested that the enemy’s purpose to capture Atlanta might be foiled by sending part of the 16,000 cavalry believed to be in Alabama and Mississippi to break up the railroads behind Sherman and force him to retreat. Davis replied with the intimation that Johnston must know that no such force was available in the West, and that it would be much more to the purpose to use the cavalry he had for that task of pressing importance. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 875] He sent also by letter fuller details of the stress under which General S.D. Lee was in the Department of Mississippi, showing that the hands of that officer were more than full. [Footnote: The letter, however, did not reach Johnston till after he had been relieved of command.] On the 10th Johnston had forwarded a laconic dispatch, saying, “On the night of the 8th the enemy crossed at Isham’s Cavalry Ford; intrenched. In consequence we crossed at and below the railroad, and are now about two miles from the river, guarding the crossings.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 873.] On the 11th he telegraphed, recommending the immediate distribution elsewhere of the prisoners at Andersonville. [Footnote: _Id_., p.876]
It cannot be denied that there was a certain justification for Mr. Davis’s conclusion that the circumstances foreboded the yielding of Atlanta without the desperate struggle which the importance of the position demanded. Had Johnston expressed any hopefulness, or said, what was the fact, that he was himself coming to the determnation to try the effect of a bold attack whilst Sherman’s army was in motion, he would probably have been left in command. But the personal estrangement had gone so far that he confined himself rigidly to the briefest report of events, leaving the Richmond government to guess what was next to happen. His attitude was in effect a challenge to the Confederate President to trust the Confederate cause in Georgia to him absolutely, or to take the responsibility of removing him. The Hon. B. H. Hill, who was in Richmond, at Johnston’s request, to learn if it was possible to reinforce him, telegraphed him on the 14th, “You must do the work with your present force. For God’s sake, do it.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 879.] Governor Brown offered to furnish 5000 “old men and boys” for the local defence of Atlanta in the emergency, in addition to the similar number of the militia reserves already in the field. These were ‘promptly accepted by Mr. Davis and the order was issued to arm them. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 878, and vol. lii. pt. ii. pp. 691-695, 704. The correspondence between Mr. Hill and Mr. Seddon, Secretary of War, is especially instructive as to the issue between Johnston and Davis.]
Before acting further the Confederate President sent out General Bragg to Atlanta to examine on the spot and report upon the condition of affairs. Bragg arrived on the 13th and reported that an entire evacuation of Atlanta seemed to be indicated by what he saw. The army was sadly depleted, he said, and reported 10,000 less than the return of June 10th. He could find but little encouraging. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 878.] On the following two days he visited Johnston twice and was “received courteously and kindly.” “He has not sought my advice,” Bragg added, “and it was not volunteered. I cannot learn that he has any more plan for the future than he has had in the past. It is expected that he will await the enemy on a line some three miles from here, and the impression prevails that he is now more inclined to fight. The enemy is very cautious, and intrenches immediately on taking a new position. His force, like our own, is greatly reduced by the hard campaign. His infantry now very little over 60,000. The morale of our army is still reported good.” [Footnote: _Id._, p. 881.]
The receipt of this dispatch with Johnston’s of the 16th seems to have decided President Davis to make a change in the command of the army, and on the 17th Hood was appointed to the temporary rank of general in the Provisional Army and ordered to relieve Johnston. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 885, 887, 889.] Hood shrank from the responsibility in the crisis which then existed, and suggested delay till the fate of Atlanta should be decided; but Mr. Davis replied, “A change of commanders, under existing circumstances, was regarded as so objectionable that I only accepted it as the alternative of continuing in a policy which had proved so disastrous. Reluctance to make the change induced me to send a telegram of inquiry to the commanding general on the 16th instant. His reply but confirmed previous apprehensions. There can be but one question which you and I can entertain: that is, what will best promote the public good; and to each of you I confidently look for the sacrifice of every personal consideration in conflict with that object.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 888.]
Johnston magnanimously assisted Hood in completing the movements of the army during the 18th to the Peachtree Creek position and explained to him his plans. These were, first, to attack Sherman’s army when divided in crossing that difficult stream, and, if successful, to press the advantage to decisive results. If unsuccessful, to hold the Peachtree lines till Governor Brown’s militia were assembled;[Footnote: Johnston says ten thousand of these were promised him instead of five. Narrative, p. 348.] then, holding Atlanta with these, to draw the army back through the town and march out with the three corps against one of Sherman’s flanks, with the confidence that even if his attack did not succeed, with Atlanta so strongly fortified he could hold it forever. [Footnote: Narrative, p. 350.]
In reading his more elaborate statement of the plans of which the above is an outline, one cannot help thinking how unfortunate for him it was that he did not give them to Mr. Davis as fully as he gave them to Hood! In answer to the pressing inquiry of the 16th for “your plan of operations so specifically as will enable me to anticipate events,” he had replied, “As the enemy has double our number, we must be on the defensive. My plan of operations must therefore depend upon that of the enemy. It is mainly to watch for an opportunity to fight to advantage. We are trying to put Atlanta in condition to be held for a day or two by the Georgia militia, that army movements may be freer and wider.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 883.] A good understanding with his government was so essential, just then, that the most reticent of commanders would have been wise in sending in cipher the whole page in which he tells the specific details of his purposes and their alternates as he gave them to Hood. Had he done so, it is quite safe to say that he would not have been removed; but reading, in the light of the whole season’s correspondence, the dispatch he actually sent, we cannot say that Mr. Davis was unreasonable in finding it confirm his previous apprehension. Had the general fully and frankly opened to Bragg the same purposes, the latter could not have sent the hopeless message which clinched the President’s decision.
Johnston said in his final message to Davis that the enemy had advanced more rapidly and penetrated deeper into Virginia than into Georgia; and that confident language by a military commander is not usually regarded as evidence of competency. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 888.] There was much force in both points, but they do not touch the heart of the matter. Between Lee and his government there was always a frank and cordial comparison of views and perfect understanding; so that even in disaster it was seen that he had done the best he could and was actively planning to repair a mischief. On the other hand, they got from Johnston little but a diarist’s briefest chronicle of events with no word of hopeful purpose or plan. It was not necessary that he should use “confident language,” but words were certainly called for which expressed intelligent comprehension of the situation and fertility in purposed action according to probable contingencies. His advice to Hood showed that he only needed to be equally frank with the Richmond authorities. [Footnote: Mr. Davis has discussed his relations to Johnston in chapter xlviii. of his “Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,” vol. ii. pp. 547, etc.; but the most succinct statement of his views is found in a paper prepared for the Confederate Congress, but withheld. See his letter to Colonel Phelan, Meridian, Miss., O. R, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 1303-1311.]
The assignment of Hood to the command was, of course, in the belief that he would take a more energetic and aggressive course. He seems to have been free in his criticisms of his commander, and upon Bragg’s arrival had addressed to him a letter which it is hard to view as anything else than a bid for the command. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 880.] It said Johnston had failed to use several opportunities to strike Sherman decisive blows; that yet the losses of the army were 20,000; that under no circumstances should the enemy be allowed to occupy Atlanta; that if Sherman should establish his line at the Chattahoochee, he must be attacked by crossing that river; that he had so often urged aggressive action that he was regarded as reckless by “the officers high in rank in this army, who are declared to hold directly opposite views.” He concluded by saying that he regarded it a great misfortune that battle was not given to the enemy many miles north of the present position.
When Johnston learned from Hood’s report [Footnote: _Id._, pt. iii. p. 628.](dated February 15, 1865) the nature of the latter’s statements and criticisms, he notified the Richmond government as well as Hood that he should demand that the latter be brought before a court-martial; [Footnote: Id., p. 637.] but it was then April, on the very eve of the collapse of the Confederacy, and the discussion was left for continuance in the private writings of the parties and their friends. Johnston affirmed that in the only instances in the campaign in which it could be said that a favorable opportunity for battle had not been seized, Hood himself had been prominent in protesting against an engagement or had himself failed to carry out the orders given. In his service as commander of the army, Hood became involved in disputes as to fact with Hardee and Cheatham as well as with Johnston, and the result was damaging to his reputation for accuracy and candor. [Footnote: Johnston’s case is stated in his “Narrative,” chapters x. and xi.; Hood’s in his “Advance and Retreat,” chapters v. to ix. In connection with these, Hardee’s Report of April 5, 1865, is of interest (Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. p. 697), and his letter to General Mackall (_Id._, pt. v. p. 987).]
The change of commanders undoubtedly precipitated the ruin of the Confederate cause; yet we must in candor admit that the situation was becoming so portentous that human wisdom might be overtaxed in trying to determine what course to take. Of one thing there is no shadow of doubt. We of the National Army in Georgia regarded the removal of Johnston as equivalent to a victory for us. Three months of sharp work had convinced us that a change from Johnston’s methods to those which Hood was likely to employ, was, in homely phrase, to have our enemy grasp the hot end of the poker. We knew that we should be kept on the alert and must be watchful; but we were confident that a system of aggression and a succession of attacks would soon destroy the Confederate army. Of course Hood did not mean to assault solidly built intrenchments; but we knew that we could make good enough cover whilst he was advancing against a flank, to insure him a bloody repulse. The dense forests made the artillery of little effect in demolishing the works or weakening the _morale_ of the defenders, and it was essentially an infantry attack upon intrenched infantry and artillery at close range.
The action of the Confederate government was a confession that Sherman’s methods had brought about the very result he aimed at. The enemy had been manoeuvred from position to position until he must either give up Atlanta with its important nucleus of railway communications and abandon all northern Georgia and Alabama, or he must assume a desperate aggressive with a probability that this would fatally reduce his army and make the result only the more completely ruinous. This was the meaning of the substitution of Hood for Johnston.
CHAPTER XL
HOOD’S DEFENCE OF ATLANTA–RESULTS OF ITS CAPTURE
Lines of supply by field trains–Canvas pontoons–Why replaced by bridges–Wheeling toward Atlanta–Battle of Peachtree Creek–Battle of Atlanta–Battle of Ezra Church–Aggressive spirit of Confederates exhausted–Sherman turns Atlanta by the south–Pivot position of Twenty-third Corps–Hood’s illusions–Rapidity of our troops in intrenching–Movements of 31st August–Affair at Jonesboro–Atlanta won–_Morale_ of Hood’s army–Exaggerating difference in numbers–Examination of returns–Efforts to bring back absentees–The sweeping conscription–Sherman’s candid estimates–Unwise use of cavalry–Forrest’s work–Confederate estimate of Sherman’s campaign.
In advancing from the Chattahoochee, the arrangements Sherman made for the supply of his army provided separate lines for the trains of the three columns. McPherson’ s wagons would reach him from Marietta by way of Roswell and the bridge which General Dodge built there. Schofield’s had their depot at Smyrna and came by the wooden bridge which we built at the mouth of Soap Creek to replace the pontoons. The latter were of canvas, and whilst unequalled for field use, were unfit for a bridge of any permanence, because the canvas would be destroyed by long continuance in the water. As soon as they could be replaced by a pier or trestle-bridge of timber, they were taken up, cleaned and dried, and then packed on their special wagons for transport. This train was in charge of a permanent detachment of troops who became experts in the handling and care of the material and in laying the bridge. The brigade of dismounted cavalry in my division was left at the river as a guard for the wooden bridge which was kept up till the railway bridge was built and opened for use. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 163.] Thomas’s troops, who were more than half the army, drew their supplies from Vining’s Station byway of bridges at Power’s Ferry (mouth of Rottenwood Creek) and Pace’s Ferry, a mile below.
Grant sent warning of rumors afloat that reinforcements would be sent Johnston from the east, and in advancing from the Chattahoochee by a great wheel to the right, Sherman extended his left so that McPherson should move to the east of Decatur and break the Georgia Railroad there, whilst Garrard with his division of cavalry should continue the destruction toward Stone Mountain and make the gap as wide as possible. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 158.]
This movement made the distance travelled by McPherson and Schofield a long one, and extended their front largely, whilst Thomas was much more compact. But when once the railway should be so broken that Johnston’s direct communication with the east would be interrupted, McPherson and Schofield would both move toward their right, and in closing in upon Atlanta, come into close touch with Thomas. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 167.]
It was whilst this movement was progressing, on the 20th of July, and was near its completion, that Hood made the attack already planned by Johnston, upon Thomas’s columns, crossing Peachtree Creek by several roads converging at Atlanta. It involved the right of Howard’s corps, the whole of Hooker’s, and the left of Palmer’s. It was a fierce and bloody combat, in which the Confederates lost about 6000 men in killed and wounded, whilst the casualty lists of Thomas’s divisions amounted to 2000. Again, on the 22d, the second part of Johnston’s plan was tried, and Hardee’s corps, moving by night through Atlanta and far out to the southward of Decatur, advanced upon the flank of McPherson’s army, whilst Cheatham at the head of Hood’s own corps advanced from the Atlanta lines and continued the attack upon the centre and left of McPherson and upon the right of Schofield. A great battle raged along five miles of front and rear, but at evening the worsted Confederates retired within the fortifications of the city, a terrible list of 10,000 casualties showing the cost of the aggressive tactics. The losses on the National side were 3500, heavy enough, in truth, but with very different results on the relative strength of the armies and their _morale_. But the end was not yet. On the 28th McPherson’s army, now under the command of Howard, was marching from the left wing to the right, to extend our lines southward on the west side of Atlanta, when once more Hood struck fiercely at the moving flank at Ezra Church, but again found that breastworks grew as if by magic as soon as Howard’s men were deployed in position, and again the gray columns were beaten back with a list of 5000 added to the killed and disabled. Howard had less than 600 casualties in the action. It was only a week since Johnston had been relieved, and matters had come to such a pass in his army that the men stolidly refused to continue the assaults. From our skirmish line their officers were seen to advance to the front with waving swords calling upon the troops to follow them, but the men remained motionless and silent, refusing to budge. [Footnote: For details of these engagements, see “Atlanta,” chaps, xii.-xiv.]
During the first half of August Sherman extended his lines southward, until my own division, which was the right flank of the infantry lines, was advanced nearly a mile southeast of the crossing of the Campbelltown and East Point roads on high ground covering the headwaters of the Utoy and Camp creeks. We were here somewhat detached and encamped accordingly in a boldly curved line ready for action on the flanks as well as front. It was now the 18th of August and Sherman devoted the next week to the accumulation of supplies, the removal of sick and wounded to the rear, getting rid of impedimenta, and general preparation for a fortnight’s separation from his base. My position had been selected with reference to this plan, as a pivot upon which the whole of the army except the Twentieth Corps should swing across the railways south of Atlanta.
[Illustration: Map of the Atlanta, GA area, showing the Federal and Confederate lines.]
The movement began on the 25th, and we stood fast till the 28th, when we began our flank movement on the inner curve of the march of the army, taking very short steps, however, as we must keep between the army trains and the enemy. On the 30th Schofield moved our corps from Red Oak Station, on the West Point Railroad, a mile and a half directly toward East Point, so as to cover roads going eastward toward Rough-and-Ready Station on the Macon road. We were hardly in position before our skirmishers were briskly engaged with an advancing force of the enemy’s cavalry, and we felt sure that it was the precursor of an attack by Hood in force. It proved to be nothing but a reconnoissance, and showed that Hood was strangely misconceiving the situation. Its chief interest to me at the moment was in the experiment it enabled me to make of the speed with which my men could cover themselves in open ground in an emergency. The division was astride the East Point road, the centre in open fields where no timber could be got for revetment, and only fence rails to give some support to the loose earth. Giving the order to make the light trench of the rifle-pit class, where the earth is thrown outward and the men stand in the ditch they dig, in fifteen minutes by the watch the work was such that I reckoned it sufficient cover to repel an infantry attack, if it came. It would be an extraordinary occasion when we did not have more warning of an impending attack; and the incident will illustrate the confidence we had that in forcing the enemy to assume aggressive tactics, the campaign was practically decided.
On the 31st, as Sherman’s left wing, we held the Macon Railway at Rough-and-Ready Station, Howard, as right wing, was across Flint River, closing in on Jonesboro, whilst the centre under Thomas filled the interval. Hood had sent Hardee with his own and Lee’s (late Hood’s) corps to defeat what was supposed to be a detachment of two corps of Sherman’s army, and a sharp affair had occurred at the Flint River crossing, where Howard succeeded in maintaining his position on the east side. On hearing of our occupation of Rough-and-Ready, Hood jumped to the conclusion that it was preliminary to an attack on Atlanta from the south, and ordered Lee’s corps to march in the night and rejoin him at once. Getting a better idea of the situation before morning, he stopped Lee and prepared to evacuate Atlanta. On September 1st Sherman closed in on Jonesboro, his latest information indicating that two corps of the enemy were assembled there. Late in the day he learned of the disappearance of Lee’s corps, but assumed that Hood was assembling somewhere near. He tried hard to concentrate his forces to prevent Hardee’s escape, but his scattered army could not be united till nightfall.
In the night Hood blew up the ordnance stores at Atlanta, and hastening to join Lee by roads east of Sherman’s positions, he marched on Lovejoy Station. Hardee evacuated Jonesboro also, and before morning the Confederate army was assembled again upon the railroad, five miles nearer to Macon. Atlanta was occupied by the Twentieth Corps on the 2d, and Sherman ordered his army to return to the vicinity of that city for a period of rest. Hood’s conduct for the past three days had been the result of complete misapprehension of the facts; but its very eccentricity had been so incomprehensible that no rule of military probabilities could be applied to it, and before Sherman could learn what he was doing, the time had passed when full advantage could be taken of his errors.
The condition of Hood’s army at the close of the campaign was anything but satisfactory to him. His theory was that his offensive tactics would keep up the spirit and energy of his men and constantly improve their _morale_. When he found that they were, on the contrary, discouraged and despondent, and could not be induced to repeat the assaults upon our positions which had followed each other so rapidly in the last days of July, he querulously laid the blame at the door of his subordinates. He called the attack upon Howard’s advance at Flint River “a disgraceful effort” because only 1485 were wounded, and asked to have Hardee relieved and sent elsewhere. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. pp. 1021, 1023, 1030. Hardee had before asked to be relieved. (_Id_., pp. 987, 988.) For Hood’s final, urgent request and the result, see vol. xxxix. pt. ii. pp. 832, 880, 881.] True, he had telegraphed Hardee that the necessity was imperative that the National troops should be driven into and across the river, and that the men must go at them with bayonets fixed; but it was his own old corps, now under Lieutenant-General S. D. Lee, that made the principal attack and was repulsed. Lee was not one of the officers who might be presumed to be discontented with Johnston’s removal, but had been brought from the Department of Mississippi, at Hood’s suggestion, to take the corps when the latter was promoted, and had won Davis’s admiration by his zeal. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 892, and vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 713.] It would be hard to find better proof that the trouble lay in the consciousness of the men in the line that they were asked to lay down their lives without a reasonable hope of benefit to their cause. The discouragement pervaded the whole army, and is seen in Hood’s own dispatches hardly less than in others. [Footnote: Hood to Davis, September 3, two dispatches, _Id_., vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 1016. In another, p. 1017, he repeated an earlier suggestion to remove the prisoners from Andersonville. When Johnston had done this, it was made one of the charges against him. See Davis to Lee, _Id_., vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 692. For Hardee’s opinion of the situation, see _Id_., vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 1018.] In a labored letter to Bragg on September 4th, he unconsciously shows how his own total misunderstanding of Sherman’s movements was the prime cause of his disaster, whilst the shame at the result leads him to charge it upon others. As to the spirit of the army, nobody has given more telling testimony, for he says, “I am officially informed that there is a tacit if not expressed determination among the men of this army, extending to officers as high in some instances as colonel, that they will not attack breastworks.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 730. This letter seems to have come to light since the first publication of the records of the campaign, and is found in the supplemental volume.]
In the correspondence between Johnston and the Confederate government regarding the numerical force of his army, he naturally emphasized his inferiority to Sherman in numbers as an explanation of his cautious defensive tactics and his retreating movements. The introduction into the Southern returns of a column of “effectives” as distinguished from the number of officers and men “present for duty,” [Footnote: _Ante_, vol. i. p. 482.] led to a habitual underestimate by their commanding officers. On several occasions Johnston defended his conduct of the campaign by asserting that his army was less than half the size of Sherman’s, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 795.] and this necessarily led to an examination of his returns. These regular numerical reports are of course the ultimate authority in all disputes, and we find the Richmond government doing just what the historian has to do,–comparing the estimates of the general with his official returns. Officers of all grades and of the highest character fall into the error of memory which modifies facts according to one’s wish and feeling. Thus at the beginning of this campaign we find General Bragg, speaking for the President, saying that General Polk’s “estimates and his official returns vary materially.” [Footnote: _Id._, vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 659.] Nobody could be freer from intentional misstatement than the good bishop-general. We find the same discrepancies at the East as well as the West. Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, and their subordinates fall into the same error. It is therefore the canon of all criticism on this subject, that nothing but the statistical returns in the adjutant-general’s office shall be received as proofs of numbers, though, of course, the returns must be read intelligently.
Conscious of straining every nerve to reinforce the great armies in the field, Mr. Davis naturally asked what it meant when the army in Georgia was said to be so weak. General Bragg assisted him with an analysis of Johnston’s last returns. Writing on June 29th, he refers to the last regular return, that of June 10th, which is the same now published in the Official Records. In using it, therefore, we agree with the Confederate government at the time in making it conclusive. It shows that Johnston’s army had present for duty 6538 officers and 63,408 enlisted men, or, in round numbers, was 70,000 strong. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 805; _Id_., pt. iii. p. 677.] The “effectives” are given as 60,564; but this, as we know, is the result of subtracting the number of the officers and non-commissioned staff from the aggregate present for duty. But in addition to the troops named, Bragg very properly adds that Johnston “has at Atlanta a supporting force of reserves and militia, estimated at from 7000 to 10,000 effective men, half of whom were actually with Johnston near Marietta.” We thus have from Confederate authorities the proof that the army was nearly 80,000 strong on June 10th, after the first month of the campaign had closed, including the engagements at Dalton, Resaca, New Hope Church, Dallas, and Pickett’s Mill.
To complete the examination of the same return, it is necessary to notice that the “aggregate present” is given at 82,413, or 12,500 more than the “present for duty.” This includes “extra-duty men,” such as clerks at headquarters of the organizations from Johnston’s own down to brigades and regiments, men permanently detailed for any special service, men in arrest, etc. [Footnote: Hood’s dispatch of September 5, _Id_., pt. v. p. 1021; and his Order No. 19, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 835.] It is here that good administration in an army seeks to reduce the number of those who are withdrawn from the fighting ranks, and to make the “aggregate present” agree as closely as possible with the “present for duty.” I shall presently note the result of such an effort.
Sherman’s return of “present for duty” on May 31st, just after Blair had joined him with the Seventeenth Corps, was the largest of the campaign, being 112,819. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. i. p. 117.] By the end of June it was reduced to 106,070, when Johnston’s was 59,196 without the reserves and militia. [Footnote: _Id._, pt. iii. p. 679.]
When Hood assumed the command, Bragg visited the army a second time, and gave new impulse to the effort to increase its effective force. On July 27th, in a very full report to Mr. Davis, he says, “the increase by the arrival of extra-duty men and convalescents, etc., is about 5000, and more are coming in daily. The return of the 1st of August will show a gratifying state of affairs.” [Footnote: _Id._, vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 714.] This promise was fulfilled when that return showed a diminution in the “present for duty,” since the 10th of the month, of only 7403, [Footnote: _Id._, vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. p. 680.] although the period included the bloody engagements of Peachtree Creek, Atlanta, and Ezra Church.
The Confederate conscription included the whole able-bodied population, and details as for extra duty were the means by which physicians, clergymen, civilian office-holders, etc., were exempted from service in the army. These lists were rigidly scrutinized, and the laxity which had grown was corrected as far as possible. The aggregate of Hood’s army, “present and absent,” on August 1st, was 135,000, though his “aggregate present” was only 65,000. [Footnote: _Ibid._] It included, of course, prisoners of war, deserters, and men otherwise missing, besides the class last mentioned. The extent to which the efforts to bring back absentees succeeded, is shown by the return for September 20th, when the aggregate of the “present and absent” falls to 123,000, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. p. 637.] though the “present for duty” are almost as numerous as at the end of July. The difference of 12,000 shows how many were added to the army in this way, and these are in addition to the thousands which Bragg spoke of as gained by transferring non-combatants present with the army to the list of those present for duty.
It is only by examining Hood’s returns in this way that they become intelligible, for his rolls of those present for duty hardly diminish at all during the whole month of August, being 51,793 on the 1st, 51,946 on the 10th, and 51,141 on the 31st. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 680-683.] On September 10th he reports 46,149, and on the 20th 47,431, the first of these returns including his losses in the final combats of the campaign and the fall of Atlanta, and the latter indicating a gain by the exchange of prisoners with General Sherman. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxxix. pt. ii. pp. 828, 850.] By ignoring all the additions to his fighting force from the sources which I have enumerated, Hood was able to claim that his total losses while in command of the army were 5247. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. p. 636.] The absurdity was indicated by Hardee, who replied in his official report that the losses in his own corps, which was only one third of the army, “considerably exceeded 7000” during the same period. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 702.]
Sherman’s returns show a steady diminution of his available numbers during July and August, though, as he himself has said, it was not altogether from casualties on the battlefield and the diseases of the camp. [Footnote: Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 134.] The term of service of all the troops enlisted in the spring and summer of 1861 for three years was now ended, and an interval occurred in which the new levies under the law to enforce the draft had not yet reached the field, and the army was depleted by the return home of the regiments which had not “veteranized” in the last winter. He had present for duty, on July 31st, 91,675 officers and men; on August 31st, 81,758. Sherman’s statement of his losses in battle and his comparison of them with his opponents is a model of candor and fairness. With the light we now have, he might properly have increased considerably his estimate of Johnston’s casualties. [Footnote: Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 131-136.]
General Hood was quite right in arguing, in his memoirs, that the wounded in a campaign are not all a permanent loss to an army, “since almost all the slightly wounded, proud of their scars, soon return to the ranks.” [Footnote: Advance and Retreat, p. 217.] But what I have said above shows that he was entirely astray when he concluded that the difference in the returns of his effective force at the beginning and end of the campaign would show the number of killed and permanently disabled. The absence of data as to the additions to his field force through the means which I have analyzed, shows how absurd a result was drawn from his premises. The reports of casualties are not unfrequently faulty, but with all their faults they would be much more valuable if a complete series existed which could be compared and tested. It would require a minute examination of all returns, from companies to divisions, to determine accurately how many men returned to duty after being wounded or captured. The imperfect state of the Confederate archives would prevent this, if it were otherwise practicable. The statistical returns are conclusive for what they actually give, but inferences from them must be drawn with care. As an illustration (in addition to those already given) it may be noted that the Confederate cavalry made no returns of casualties or losses, and they do not appear at all in the Medical Director’s report which General Hood makes the basis of his own assertions. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. p. 687.] How grave an omission this is will be partly seen from the fact that Wheeler’s corps, which reported 8000 men present for duty on August 1st (the last return made), was in such condition when he reached Tuscumbia after the raid in the rear of Sherman’s army, that its adjutant-general doubted if more than 1000 men could be got together. [Footnote: Letter of General Forrest to General Taylor, Sept. 20, 1864, Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 859.]
The use of the cavalry in “raids,” which were the fashion, was an amusement that was very costly to both sides. Since Stuart’s ride round McClellan’s army in 1862, every cavalry commander, National and Confederate, burned to distinguish himself by some such excursion deep into the enemy’s country, and chafed at the comparatively obscured but useful work of learning the detailed positions and movements of the opposing army by incessant outpost and patrol work in the more restricted theatre of operations of the campaign.
From Chattanooga to the Chattahoochee, good work was done by Stoneman and McCook in scouting upon the front and flanks of the army, and by Colonel Lowe in vigilant guard of the railway close in rear of Sherman’s movements; but the use of mounted troops in mass was not satisfactory, and as to the raids on both sides, the game was never worth the candle. Men and horses were used up, wholesale, without doing any permanent damage to the enemy, and never reached that training of horse and man which might have been secured by steady and systematic attention to their proper duties. Forrest, of the Confederates, was the only cavalry officer whom Sherman thought at all formidable, and he showed his high estimate of him by offering, in his sweeping way, to secure the promotion of the officer who should defeat and kill him. In another form he expressed the same idea, by saying he would swap all the cavalry officers he had for Forrest. [Footnote: The matter took an odd turn, when on the report that General Mower had defeated Forrest in West Tennessee and that the brilliant cavalry leader had fallen in the action, Mower got his promotion, but it turned out that it was Forrest’s brother, a colonel, who was killed–“a horse of another color.” Mower, however, was worthy of promotion “on general principles.” See Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 471; vol. xxxix. pt. i. p. 228; _Id_., pt. ii. pp. 130, 142, 219, 233.]
High as was the National estimate of the importance of Sherman’s campaign, Southern men rated it and its consequences quite as high as we did. In the conferences at Richmond, at which Mr. Hill had represented the strong desire of Governor Brown and General Johnston for reinforcements, Mr. Davis had made his apprehension of the disastrous results which would follow the loss of Atlanta the reason of his urgency for a more aggressive campaign. In closing the interviews, Mr. Seddon, the Secretary of War, and Mr. Hill showed their sense of the importance of the crisis by exchanging letters which were diplomatic memoranda of the conversations. Mr. Hill repeated his conviction that the fate of the Confederacy hung upon the campaign. He said that the failure of Johnston’s army involved that of Lee; that not only Atlanta but Richmond must fall; not only Georgia but all the States would be overrun; that all hopes of possible foreign recognition would be destroyed; in short, that “all is lost by Sherman’s success, and all is gained by Sherman’s defeat.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 706.] Governor Brown had accompanied Mr. Hill’s effort by a dispatch in which he declared that Atlanta was to the Confederacy “almost as important as the heart is to the human body.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 680.] So far from taking exception to these strong expressions, Mr. Davis based his action in regard to General Johnston upon the absolute necessity of a military policy in Georgia, which would hold Atlanta at all hazards. When the city fell, the whole South as well as the North knew that a decisive step had been taken toward the defeat of the rebellion.
CHAPTER XLI
THE REST AT ATLANTA-STAFF ORGANIZATION AND CHANGES
Position of the Army of the Ohio at Decatur–Refitting for a new campaign–Depression of Hood’s army–Sherman’s reasons for a temporary halt–Fortifying Atlanta as a new base–Officers detailed for the political campaign–Schofield makes inspection tour of his department–My temporary command of the Army of the Ohio–Furloughs and leaves of absence–Promotions of several colonels–General Hascall resigns–Staff changes–My military family–Anecdote of Lieutenant Tracy–Discipline of the army–Sensitiveness to approval or blame–Illustration–Example of skirmishing advance–Sufferings of non-combatants within our lines–A case in point–Pillaging and its results–Citizens passing through the lines–“The rigors of the climate”–Visit of Messrs. Hill and Foster–McPherson’s death–The loss to Sherman and to the army–His personal traits–Appointment of his successor.
At the close of the first week in September the Army of the Ohio encamped at Decatur, and prepared for a month’s rest. My division took position on the east of the little town, Hascall’s on the south, and our division of cavalry under Colonel Israel Garrard was east of us, with outposts and patrols watching the roads in that direction as far as Stone Mountain. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 828.] The Army of the Cumberland was encamped about Atlanta itself, and the Army of the Tennessee was at East Point. As Sherman cheerily announced in general orders, we might expect “to organize, receive pay, replenish clothing, and prepare for a fine winter’s campaign.” [Footnote: _Id._, p. 801.]
It was of course probable that Hood would use the interval, which was even more welcome to him than to us, in similar preparation for resuming the struggle, though the resources of the Confederacy were so strained that the Treasury was in debt to the soldiers for ten months’ pay. He told the government that “it would be of vast benefit to have this army paid,” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 1027.] but this expressed his desire rather than a hope. Depression reigned in his camps about Lovejoy’s Station, of which the name was a mockery. Dissent was rife among his general officers, and with the whole army he had lost prestige by the costly failure of his campaign. A period of rest might relieve the discouragement somewhat, and stringent means were to be used to bring absentees and conscripts to the ranks. Hardee was transferred to Savannah; Mackall, Johnston’s devoted friend, was removed from the head of the staff, and other changes of organization were made with a view to give Hood the men of his own choice in important positions. [Footnote: These were mostly in accordance with Hood’s recommendations to General Bragg when the latter visited him at the end of July. See Bragg to Davis, _Id._, vol. lii. pt. ii. p. 713.]
Sherman was fully aware that he would have many advantages in pushing after Hood at once, but besides his army’s real need of rest, he was clear in his judgment that he must, at this stage of affairs, prepare for a campaign on a great scale to be continued through the winter till great results should be achieved. If the line of operations was to be extended toward Mobile, as was contemplated by General Grant at the opening of the campaign, or if Hood should retreat toward the east, in either case he must make Atlanta a fortified base. Experience had proven that his long line of communications was liable to interruption, and would be still more so as he penetrated further into Georgia. He must have a well-supplied and well-protected depot in the same relations to the next forward movement that Chattanooga had been to the campaign just finished. He wanted to get his share of the drafted men under the conscription law now in operation, to fill up the places of regiments whose terms had expired, and to be assured that Canby from New Orleans would co-operate in a settled plan. He was already revolving in his mind other problems which Hood might possibly open for solution; but the probability seemed strong that the Confederate army would bar the way to his advance, and must be beaten and driven back again. His first task, therefore, was to prepare Atlanta for his uses. “I want it,” he said, “a pure Gibraltar, and will have it so by October 1st.” [Footnote: Dispatch to Halleck, September 9th. See also that of September 4th, in which his ideas were fully outlined. Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. pp. 794, 839.] This use of the town made it necessary to remove the resident citizens, sending north those who were loyal and ordering south those who adhered to the Confederacy. As a fortified depot must be ready for a siege, trade and free intercourse with the surrounding country could not go on. The inhabitants, therefore, would be dependent on the army for food, their industries must cease, and it was more merciful to them, as well as a military necessity, to send them away. [Footnote: Sherman to Hood, _Id_., p. 822.]
The temporary interruption of active campaigning was eagerly seized upon as an opportunity for leaves of absence by those whose private and family affairs urgently called for attention. The presidential campaign was on, and in consultation with Governor Morton of Indiana, Secretary Stanton selected half a dozen officers from that State, which was politically a doubtful one, to vary their labors in the field by “stumping the State” for a month. The form of the request indicates the feeling as to the character of the civil contest. “In view,” said the Secretary, “of the armed organizations against the Government of the United States that have been made throughout the State of Indiana and are now in active operation in the campaign for Jefferson Davis, this department deems it expedient that the officers named should have leave to go home, provided they can be spared without injury to the service.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 802. Among these appears the name of Colonel Benjamin Harrison, 70th Indiana, afterward President. Sherman’s characteristic reply was sent from camp near Jonesboro, on 6th September: “The officers named in your dispatch of the 5th will be ordered to report to the Governor of Indiana for special duty, as soon as I return to Atlanta, which will be in a day or two unless the enemy shows fight, which I am willing to accept on his own terms if he will come outside of his cursed rifle-trenches.” _Id_., p. 809. I don’t recall any other instance of a regular military detail for a political campaign.] Generals Logan and Blair also went North for similar work in Illinois and Missouri.
In the middle of September General Schofield left the army for a time, to visit Knoxville and Louisville, within his department, on official business, and extended his absence for a brief reunion with his family north of the Ohio. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 379; pt. iii. p. 10.] This left me in command of the Army of the Ohio, and Hood’s later movement upon our communications prevented Schofield’s return till the end of our active campaign in October. A liberal issue of furloughs to enlisted men, especially convalescents in hospital, was made, so that we might get them back in robust health and good spirits when the fall campaign should open. General Hascall resigned and left us, and the command of his division passed to General Joseph A. Cooper, who had been promoted from the colonelcy of the Sixth East Tennessee. My own division was temporarily commanded by General James W. Reilly, who had been promoted on my recommendation from the colonelcy of the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio. Hascall had commanded his division with marked ability throughout the campaign, but had become discouraged by the evidences that he need expect no recognition from the Indiana governor, [Footnote: See _ante_, vol. i. pp. 406, 485; vol. ii. p. 253.] whose influence was potent if not omnipotent in the promotion of Indiana officers. The recently announced promotion of Hovey over him seemed to him equivalent to an invitation to resign, and he acted upon it.
The resting-spell at Decatur was the natural time for such changes in organization as had become necessary. The death of my adjutant-general, Captain Saunders, in June, made it necessary to fill that very important position, and my aide, Lieutenant Theodore Cox, was promoted to it. His regiment (the Eleventh Ohio) was just completing its term of enlistment, and he would be mustered out of service with it, unless a new appointment were given him, fairly won, as it had been, by two years of meritorious service. My request was so cordially backed by Generals Schofield and Sherman that there was no hesitation at Washington, and I secured for the rest of the war an invaluable assistant, whose system, accuracy, and neat methods made the business of my headquarters go on most satisfactorily.
My inspector-general, Lieutenant-Colonel Sterling, felt obliged to resign for business reasons connected with events in his father’s family, and I had to part with another faithful friend and able officer. As the adjutant-general is the centre of the formal organization, keeping its records, carrying on its correspondence, and formulating the orders of his chief, so the inspector-general is the organ of discipline and of soldierly instruction as well as the superintendent of the outpost and picket duty, which makes him the guardian of the camp and the head of the intelligence service when no special organization of the latter is made. He should be one of the most intelligent officers of the command, and a model of soldierly conduct. It was no easy thing to fill Colonel Sterling’s place, but I was fortunate in the selection of Major Dow of the One Hundred and Twelfth Illinois, a quiet, modest man, a thorough disciplinarian of clear and strong intellect, and of that perfect self-possession which is proof against misjudgment in the most sudden and terrifying occurrences.
I had brought with me from East Tennessee, as my chief of artillery, Major Wells, who had commanded an Illinois battery, and who directed the artillery service of the division with great success. My medical director was Surgeon-Major Frink, of Indiana, who, though he took the position by virtue of his seniority in the division medical staff, was as acceptable as if I had chosen him with fullest knowledge of his qualifications. The topographer was Lieutenant Scofield of the One Hundred and Third Ohio, educated in civil engineering, and indefatigable in collecting the data by which to correct the wretched maps which were our only help in understanding the theatre of operations. He was a familiar figure at the outposts, on his steadily ambling nag, armed with his prismatic compass, his odometer, and his sketch-book. The division commissary of subsistence was Captain Hentig, a faithful and competent officer who worked in full accord with Captain Day, the energetic quartermaster who had come with me over the mountains the preceding year.
A general officer’s aides-de-camp are usually his most intimate associates in the military family, and were sometimes selected with too much regard to their social qualities. Those of a major-general were appointed on his nomination, but a brigadier-general must detail the two allowed him, from the lieutenants in his command. When commanding a division, custom allowed him to detail a third. They were the only officers technically called the personal staff, the others being officers of the several staff corps, or merely detailed from regiments to do temporary duty. Thus, no inspector-general was allowed to a brigadier, but when commanding a division or other organization larger than a brigade, he was permitted to detail an officer of the line for the very necessary and responsible duty. The aides are authorized to carry oral orders and to explain them, to call for and to bring oral reports, and as the general’s confidential and official representatives they should be of the most intelligent and soldierly men of their grade. All the other staff officers may be called upon to act as aides when it is necessary, but these are _ex officio_ the ordinary go-betweens, and, if fit for their work, are as cordially welcomed and almost as much at home with the brigade commanders as with their own chief.
My senior aide, after my brother’s promotion, was Lieutenant Coughlan of the Twenty-fourth Kentucky, a handsome young Irishman of very humble origin, to whom the military service had been the revelation of his own powers and a noble inspiration. He was lithe and well set up, though by no means a dandy; would spring at call for any duty, by night or by day, and delighted the more in his work, the more perilous or arduous it was. He was captured in the last days of our operations about Atlanta; [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 623.] but the exchange of prisoners negotiated by Sherman gave me the opportunity to secure his return after a month’s captivity and imprisonment at Charleston. Two months later he died heroically in the battle of Franklin. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 356.]
Lieutenant Bradley of the Sixty-fifth Illinois was second on the list, an excellent officer who was competent and ready to assist the