The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Vol. II.

W >> William T. Sherman >> The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Vol. II.


Satisfied that Johnston in person was at New Hope with all his
army, and that it was so much nearer my "objective;" the railroad,
than Dallas, I concluded to draw McPherson from Dallas to Hooker's
right, and gave orders accordingly; but McPherson also was
confronted with a heavy force, and, as he began to withdraw
according to his orders, on the morning of the 28th he was fiercely
assailed on his right; a bloody battle ensued, in which he repulsed
the attack, inflicting heavy loss on his assailants, and it was not
until the 1st of June that he was enabled to withdraw from Dallas,
and to effect a close junction with Hooker in front of New Hope.
Meantime Thomas and Schofield were completing their deployments,
gradually overlapping Johnston on his right, and thus extending our
left nearer and nearer to the railroad, the nearest point of which
was Acworth, about eight miles distant. All this time a continual
battle was in progress by strong skirmish-lines, taking advantage
of every species of cover, and both parties fortifying each night
by rifle-trenches, with head-logs, many of which grew to be as
formidable as first-class works of defense. Occasionally one party
or the other would make a dash in the nature of a sally, but
usually it sustained a repulse with great loss of life. I visited
personally all parts of our lines nearly every day, was constantly
within musket-range, and though the fire of musketry and cannon
resounded day and night along the whole line, varying from six to
ten miles, I rarely saw a dozen of the enemy at any one time; and
these were always skirmishers dodging from tree to tree, or behind
logs on the ground, or who occasionally showed their heads above
the hastily-constructed but remarkably strong rifle-trenches. On
the occasion of my visit to McPherson on the 30th of May, while
standing with a group of officers, among whom were Generals
McPherson, Logan, Barry, and Colonel Taylor, my former chief of
artillery, a Minie-ball passed through Logan's coat-sleeve,
scratching the skin, and struck Colonel Taylor square in the
breast; luckily he had in his pocket a famous memorandum-book, in
which he kept a sort of diary, about which we used to joke him a
good deal; its thickness and size saved his life, breaking the
force of the ball, so that after traversing the book it only
penetrated the breast to the ribs, but it knocked him down and
disabled him for the rest of the campaign. He was a most competent
and worthy officer, and now lives in poverty in Chicago, sustained
in part by his own labor, and in part by a pitiful pension recently
granted.

On the 1st of June General McPherson closed in upon the right, and,
without attempting further to carry the enemy's strong position at
New Hope Church, I held our general right in close contact with it,
gradually, carefully, and steadily working by the left, until our
strong infantry-lines had reached and secured possession of all the
wagon-roads between New Hope, Allatoona, and Acworth, when I
dispatched Generals Garrard's and Stoneman's divisions of cavalry
into Allatoona, the first around by the west end of the pass, and
the latter by the direct road. Both reached their destination
without opposition, and orders were at once given to repair the
railroad forward from Kingston to Allatoona, embracing the bridge
across the Etowah River. Thus the real object of my move on Dallas
was accomplished, and on the 4th of June I was preparing to draw
off from New Hope Church, and to take position on the railroad in
front of Allatoona, when, General Johnston himself having evacuated
his position, we effected the change without further battle, and
moved to the railroad, occupying it from Allatoona and Acworth
forward to Big Shanty, in sight of the famous Kenesaw Mountain.

Thus, substantially in the month of May, we had steadily driven our
antagonist from the strong positions of Dalton, Resaea, Cassville,
Allatoona, and Dallas; had advanced our lines in strong, compact
order from Chattanooga to Big Shanty, nearly a hundred miles of as
difficult country as was ever fought over by civilized armies; and
thus stood prepared to go on, anxious to fight, and confident of
success as soon as the railroad communications were complete to
bring forward the necessary supplies. It is now impossible to
state accurately our loss of life and men in any one separate
battle; for the fighting was continuous, almost daily, among trees
and bushes, on ground where one could rarely see a hundred yards
ahead.

The aggregate loss in the several corps for the month of May is
reported-as follows in the usual monthly returns sent to the
Adjutant-General's office, which are, therefore, official:

Casualties during the Month of May, 1864
(Major-General SHERMAN commanding).

Killed and Missing. Wounded. Total.
1,863 7,436 9,299



General Joseph E. Johnston, in his "Narrative of his Military
Operations," just published (March 27, 1874), gives the effective
strength of his army at and about Dalton on the 1st of May, 1864
(page 302), as follows:

Infantry..................... 37,652
Artillery.................... 2,812
Cavalry...................... 2,392

Total ................... 42,856



During May, and prior to reaching Cassville, he was further
reenforced (page 352)

Polk's corps of three divisions....... 12,000
Martin's division of cavalry.......... 3,500
Jackson's division of cavalry......... 3,900

And at New Hope Church, May 26th

Brigade of Quarles.................... 2,200

Grand-total.................. 64,456


His losses during the month of May are stated by him, as taken from
the report of Surgeon Foard (page 325)


Killed Wounded Total
721 4,672 5,393


These figures include only the killed and wounded, whereas my
statement of losses embraces the "missing," which are usually
"prisoners," and of these we captured, during the whole campaign of
four and a half months, exactly 12,983, whose names, rank, and
regiments, were officially reported to the Commissary-General of
Prisoners; and assuming a due proportion for the month of May,
viz., one-fourth, makes 3,245 to be added to the killed and wounded
given above, making an aggregate loss in Johnston's army, from
Dalton to New Hope, inclusive, of 8,638, against ours of 9,299.

Therefore General Johnston is greatly in error, in his estimates on
page 357, in stating our loss, as compared with his, at six or ten
to one.

I always estimated my force at about double his, and could afford
to lose two to one without disturbing our relative proportion; but
I also reckoned that, in the natural strength of the country, in
the abundance of mountains, streams, and forests, he had a fair
offset to our numerical superiority, and therefore endeavored to
act with reasonable caution while moving on the vigorous
"offensive."

With the drawn battle of New Hope Church, and our occupation of the
natural fortress of Allatoona, terminated the month of May, and the
first stage of the campaign.




CHAPTER XVII.

ATLANTA CAMPAIGN--BATTLES ABOUT KENESAW MOUNTAIN.

JUNE, 1864.


On the 1st of June our three armies were well in hand, in the
broken and densely-wooded country fronting the enemy intrenched at
New Hope Church, about five miles north of Dallas. General
Stoneman's division of cavalry had occupied Allatoona, on the
railroad, and General Garrard's division was at the western end of
the pass, about Stilesboro. Colonel W. W. Wright, of the
Engineers, was busily employed in repairing the railroad and
rebuilding the bridge across the Etowah (or High tower) River,
which had been destroyed by the enemy on his retreat; and the
armies were engaged in a general and constant skirmish along a
front of about six miles--McPherson the right, Thomas the centre,
and Schofield on the left. By gradually covering our front with
parapet, and extending to the left, we approached the railroad
toward Acworth and overlapped the enemy's right. By the 4th of
June we had made such progress that Johnston evacuated his lines in
the night, leaving us masters of the situation, when I deliberately
shifted McPherson's army to the extreme left, at and in front of
Acworth, with Thomas's about two miles on his right, and
Schofield's on his right all facing east. Heavy rains set in about
the 1st of June, making the roads infamous; but our marches were
short, as we needed time for the repair of the railroad, so as to
bring supplies forward to Allatoona Station. On the 6th I rode
back to Allatoona, seven miles, found it all that was expected, and
gave orders for its fortification and preparation as a "secondary
base."

General Blair arrived at Acworth on the 8th with his two divisions
of the Seventeenth Corps--the same which had been on veteran
furlough--had come up from Cairo by way of Clifton, on the
Tennessee River, and had followed our general route to Allatoona,
where he had left a garrison of about fifteen hundred men. His
effective strength, as reported, was nine thousand. These, with
new regiments and furloughed men who had joined early in the month
of May, equaled our losses from battle, sickness, and by
detachments; so that the three armies still aggregated about one
hundred thousand effective men.

On the 10th of June the whole combined army moved forward six
miles, to "Big Shanty," a station on the railroad, whence we had a
good view of the enemy's position, which embraced three prominent
hills known as Kenesaw, Pine Mountain, and Lost Mountain. On each
of these hills the enemy had signal-stations and fresh lines of
parapets. Heavy masses of infantry could be distinctly seen with
the naked eye, and it was manifest that Johnston had chosen his
ground well, and with deliberation had prepared for battle; but his
line was at least ten miles in extent--too long, in my judgment, to
be held successfully by his force, then estimated at sixty
thousand. As his position, however, gave him a perfect view over
our field, we had to proceed with due caution. McPherson had the
left, following the railroad, which curved around the north base of
Kenesaw; Thomas the centre, obliqued to the right, deploying below
Kenesaw and facing Pine Hill; and Schofield, somewhat refused, was
on the general right, looking south, toward Lost Mountain.

On the 11th the Etowah bridge was done; the railroad was repaired
up to our very skirmish line, close to the base of Kenesaw, and a
loaded train of cars came to Big Shanty. The locomotive, detached,
was run forward to a water-tank within the range of the enemy's
guns on Kenesaw, whence the enemy opened fire on the locomotive;
but the engineer was not afraid, went on to the tank, got water,
and returned safely to his train, answering the guns with the
screams of his engine, heightened by the cheers and shouts of our
men.

The rains continued to pour, and made our developments slow and
dilatory, for there were no roads, and these had to be improvised
by each division for its own supply train from the depot in Big
Shanty to the camps. Meantime each army was deploying carefully
before the enemy, intrenching every camp, ready as against a sally.
The enemy's cavalry was also busy in our rear, compelling us to
detach cavalry all the way back as far as Resaca, and to
strengthen all the infantry posts as far as Nashville. Besides,
there was great danger, always in my mind, that Forrest would
collect a heavy cavalry command in Mississippi, cross the Tennessee
River, and break up our railroad below Nashville. In anticipation
of this very danger, I had sent General Sturgis to Memphis to take
command of all the cavalry in that quarter, to go out toward
Pontotoc, engage Forrest and defeat him; but on the 14th of June I
learned that General Sturgis had himself been defeated on the 10th
of June, and had been driven by Forrest back into Memphis in
considerable confusion. I expected that this would soon be
followed by a general raid on all our roads in Tennessee. General
G. J. Smith, with the two divisions of the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Corps which had been with General Banks up Red River,
had returned from that ill-fated expedition, and had been ordered
to General Canby at New Orleans, who was making a diversion about
Mobile; but, on hearing of General Sturgis's defeat, I ordered
General Smith to go out from Memphis and renew the offensive, so as
to keep Forrest off our roads. This he did finally, defeating
Forrest at Tupelo, on the 13th, 14th, and 15th days of July; and
he so stirred up matters in North Mississippi that Forrest could
not leave for Tennessee. This, for a time, left me only the task
of covering the roads against such minor detachments of cavalry as
Johnston could spare from his immediate army, and I proposed to
keep these too busy in their own defense to spare detachments. By
the 14th the rain slackened, and we occupied a continuous line of
ten miles, intrenched, conforming to the irregular position of the
enemy, when I reconnoitred, with a view to make a break in their
line between Kenesaw and Pine Mountain. When abreast of Pine
Mountain I noticed a rebel battery on its crest, with a continuous
line of fresh rifle-trench about half-way down the hill. Our
skirmishers were at the time engaged in the woods about the base of
this hill between the lines, and I estimated the distance to the
battery on the crest at about eight hundred yards. Near it, in
plain view, stood a group of the enemy, evidently observing us with
glasses. General Howard, commanding the Fourth Corps, was near by,
and I called his attention to this group, and ordered him to compel
it to keep behind its cover. He replied that his orders from
General Thomas were to spare artillery-ammunition. This was right,
according to the general policy, but I explained to him that we
must keep up the morale of a bold offensive, that he must use his
artillery, force the enemy to remain on the timid defensive, and
ordered him to cause a battery close by to fire three volleys. I
continued to ride down our line, and soon heard, in quick
succession, the three volleys. The next division in order was
Geary's, and I gave him similar orders. General Polk, in my
opinion, was killed by the second volley fired from the first
battery referred to.

In a conversation with General Johnston, after the war, he
explained that on that day he had ridden in person from Marietta to
Pine Mountain, held by Bates's division, and was accompanied by
Generals Hardee and Polk. When on Pine Mountain, reconnoitring,
quite a group of soldiers, belonging to the battery close by,
clustered about him. He noticed the preparations of our battery to
fire, and cautioned these men to scatter. They did so, and he
likewise hurried behind the parapet, from which he had an equally
good view of our position but General Polk, who was dignified and
corpulent, walked back slowly, not wishing to appear too hurried or
cautious in the presence of the men, and was struck across the
breast by an unexploded shell, which killed him instantly. This is
my memory of the conversation, and it is confirmed by Johnston
himself in his "Narrative," page 337, except that he calculated the
distance of our battery at six hundred yards, and says that Polk
was killed by the third shot; I know that our guns fired by volley,
and believe that he was hit by a shot of the second volley. It has
been asserted that I fired the gun which killed General Polk, and
that I knew it was directed against that general. The fact is, at
that distance we could not even tell that the group were officers
at all; I was on horseback, a couple of hundred yards off, before
my orders to fire were executed, had no idea that our shot had
taken effect, and continued my ride down along the line to
Schofield's extreme flank, returning late in the evening to my
head-quarters at Big Shanty, where I occupied an abandoned house.
In a cotton-field back of that house was our signal-station, on the
roof of an old gin-house. The signal-officer reported that by
studying the enemy's signals he had learned the key, and that he
could read their signals. He explained to me that he had
translated a signal about noon, from Pine Mountain to Marietta,
"Send an ambulance for General Polk's body;" and later in the day
another, "Why don't you send an ambulance for General Polk?" From
this we inferred that General Polk had been killed, but how or
where we knew not; and this inference was confirmed later in the
same day by the report of some prisoners who had been captured.

On the 15th we advanced our general lines, intending to attack at
any weak point discovered between Kenesaw and Pine Mountain; but
Pine Mountain was found to be abandoned, and Johnston had
contracted his front somewhat, on a direct line, connecting Kenesaw
with Lost Mountain. Thomas and Schofield thereby gained about two
miles of most difficult, country, and McPherson's left lapped well
around the north end of Kenesaw. We captured a good many
prisoners, among them a whole infantry regiment, the Fourteenth
Alabama, three hundred and twenty strong.

On the 16th the general movement was continued, when Lost Mountain
was abandoned by the enemy. Our right naturally swung round, so as
to threaten the railroad below Marietta, but Johnston had still
further contracted and strengthened his lines, covering Marietta
and all the roads below.

On the 17th and 18th the rain again fell in torrents, making army
movements impossible, but we devoted the time to strengthening our
positions, more especially the left and centre, with a view
gradually to draw from the left to add to the right; and we had to
hold our lines on the left extremely strong, to guard against a
sally from Kenesaw against our depot at Big Shanty. Garrard's
division of cavalry was kept busy on our left, McPherson had
gradually extended to his right, enabling Thomas to do the same
still farther; but the enemy's position was so very strong, and
everywhere it was covered by intrenchments, that we found it as
dangerous to assault as a permanent fort. We in like manner
covered our lines of battle by similar works, and even our
skirmishers learned to cover their bodies by the simplest and best
forms of defensive works, such as rails or logs, piled in the form
of a simple lunette, covered on the outside with earth thrown up at
night.

The enemy and ourselves used the same form of rifle-trench, varied
according to the nature of the ground, viz.: the trees and bushes
were cut away for a hundred yards or more in front, serving as an
abatis or entanglement; the parapets varied from four to six feet
high, the dirt taken from a ditch outside and from a covered way
inside, and this parapet was surmounted by a "head-log," composed
of the trunk of a tree from twelve to twenty inches at the butt,
lying along the interior crest of the parapet and resting in
notches cut in other trunks which extended back, forming an
inclined plane, in case the head-log should be knocked inward by a
cannon-shot. The men of both armies became extremely skillful in
the construction of these works, because each man realized their
value and importance to himself, so that it required no orders for
their construction. As soon as a regiment or brigade gained a
position within easy distance for a sally, it would set to work
with a will, and would construct such a parapet in a single night;
but I endeavored to spare the soldiers this hard labor by
authorizing each division commander to organize out of the freedmen
who escaped to us a pioneer corps of two hundred men, who were fed
out of the regular army supplies, and I promised them ten dollars a
month, under an existing act of Congress. These pioneer
detachments became very useful to us during the rest of the war,
for they could work at night while our men slept; they in turn were
not expected to fight, and could therefore sleep by day. Our
enemies used their slaves for a similar purpose, but usually kept
them out of the range of fire by employing them to fortify and
strengthen the position to their rear next to be occupied in their
general retrograde. During this campaign hundreds if not thousands
of miles of similar intrenchments were built by both armies, and,
as a rule, whichever party attacked got the worst of it.

On the 19th of June the rebel army again fell back on its flanks,
to such an extent that for a time I supposed it had retreated to
the Chattahoochee River, fifteen miles distant; but as we pressed
forward we were soon undeceived, for we found it still more
concentrated, covering Marietta and the railroad. These successive
contractions of the enemy's line encouraged us and discouraged him,
but were doubtless justified by sound reasons. On the 20th
Johnston's position was unusually strong. Kenesaw Mountain was his
salient; his two flanks were refused and covered by parapets and by
Noonday and Nose's Creeks. His left flank was his weak point, so
long as he acted on the "defensive," whereas, had he designed to
contract the extent of his line for the purpose of getting in
reserve a force with which to strike "offensively" from his right,
he would have done a wise act, and I was compelled to presume that
such was his object: We were also so far from Nashville and
Chattanooga that we were naturally sensitive for the safety of our
railroad and depots, so that the left (McPherson) was held very
strong.

About this time came reports that a large cavalry force of the
enemy had passed around our left flank, evidently to strike this
very railroad somewhere below Chattanooga. I therefore reenforced
the cavalry stationed from Resaca to Casaville, and ordered forward
from Huntsville, Alabama, the infantry division of General John E.
Smith, to hold Kingston securely.

While we were thus engaged about Kenesaw, General Grant had his
hands full with Lee, in Virginia. General Halleck was the chief of
staff at Washington, and to him I communicated almost daily. I
find from my letter-book that on the 21st of June I reported to him
tersely and truly the condition of facts on that day: "This is the
nineteenth day of rain, and the prospect of fair weather is as far
off as ever. The roads are impassable; the fields and woods become
quagmire's after a few wagons have crossed over. Yet we are at
work all the time. The left flank is across Noonday Creek, and the
right is across Nose's Creek. The enemy still holds Kenesaw, a
conical mountain, with Marietta behind it, and has his flanks
retired, to cover that town and the railroad behind. I am all
ready to attack the moment the weather and roads will permit troops
and artillery to move with any thing like life."

The weather has a wonderful effect on troops: in action and on the
march, rain is favorable; but in the woods, where all is blind and
uncertain, it seems almost impossible for an army covering ten
miles of front to act in concert during wet and stormy weather.
Still I pressed operations with the utmost earnestness, aiming
always to keep our fortified lines in absolute contact with the
enemy, while with the surplus force we felt forward, from one flank
or the other, for his line of communication and retreat. On the
22d of June I rode the whole line, and ordered General Thomas in
person to advance his extreme right corps (Hooker's); and
instructed General Schofield, by letter, to keep his entire army,
viz., the Twenty-third Corps, as a strong right flank in close
support of Hooker's deployed line. During this day the sun came
out, with some promise of clear weather, and I had got back to my
bivouac about dark, when a signal message was received, dated--

KULP HOUSE, 5.30 P.M.

General SHERMAN:
We have repulsed two heavy attacks, and feel confident, our only
apprehension being from our extreme right flank. Three entire
corps are in front of us.

Major-General HOOKER.

Hooker's corps (the Twentieth) belonged to Thomas's army; Thomas's
headquarters were two miles nearer to Hooker than mine; and Hooker,
being an old army officer, knew that he should have reported this
fact to Thomas and not to me; I was, moreover, specially disturbed
by the assertion in his report that he was uneasy about his right
flank, when Schofield had been specially ordered to protect that.
I first inquired of my adjutant, Dayton, if he were certain that
General Schofield had received his orders, and he answered that the
envelope in which he had sent them was receipted by General
Schofield himself. I knew, therefore, that General Schofield must
be near by, in close support of Hooker's right flank. General
Thomas had before this occasion complained to me of General
Hooker's disposition to "switch off," leaving wide gaps in his
line, so as to be independent, and to make glory on his own
account. I therefore resolved not to overlook this breach of
discipline and propriety. The rebel army was only composed of
three corps; I had that very day ridden six miles of their lines,
found them everywhere strongly occupied, and therefore Hooker could
not have encountered "three entire corps." Both McPherson and
Schofield had also complained to me of this same tendency of Hooker
to widen the gap between his own corps and his proper army
(Thomas's), so as to come into closer contact with one or other of
the wings, asserting that he was the senior by commission to both
McPherson and Schofield, and that in the event of battle he should
assume command over them, by virtue of his older commission.