Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete
flank. After riding over the ground and hearing the varying
statements of the actors, I directed General Logan to make an
official report of the actual result, and I herewith inclose it.
Though the number of dead rebels seems excessive, I am disposed to
give full credit to the report that our loss, though only
thirty-five hundred and twenty-one killed, wounded, and missing, the
enemy's dead alone on the field nearly equaled that number, viz.,
thirty-two hundred and twenty. Happening at that point of the line
when a flag of truce was sent in to ask permission for each party to
bury its dead, I gave General Logan authority to permit a temporary
truce on that flank alone, while our labors and fighting proceeded at
all others.
I also send you a copy of General Garrard's report of the breaking
of the railroad toward Augusta. I am now grouping my command to
attack the Macon road, and with that view will intrench a strong
line of circumvallation with flanks, so as to have as large an
infantry column as possible, with all the cavalry to swing round to
the south and east, to strike that road at or below East Point.
I have the honor to be, your obedient servant,
W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General commanding.
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT AND ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE
BEFORE ATLANTA GEORGIA, July 24, 1864
Major-General W. T. SHERMAN, commanding Military Division of the
Mississippi.
GENERAL: I have the honor to report the following general summary
of the result of the attack of the enemy on this army on the 22d
inst.
Total loss, killed, wounded, and missing, thirty-five hundred and
twenty-one, and ten pieces of artillery.
We have buried and delivered to the enemy, under a flag of truce
sent in by them, in front of the Third Division, Seventeenth Corps,
one thousand of their killed.
The number of their dead in front of the Fourth Division of the
same corps, including those on the ground not now occupied by our
troops, General Blair reports, will swell the number of their dead
on his front to two thousand.
The number of their dead buried in front of the Fifteenth Corps, up
to this hour, is three hundred and sixty, and the commanding
officer reports that at least as many more are yet unburied;
burying-parties being still at work.
The number of dead buried in front of the Sixteenth Corps is four
hundred and twenty-two. We have over one thousand of their wounded
in our hands, the larger number of the wounded being carried off
during the night, after the engagement, by them.
We captured eighteen stands of colors, and have them now. We also
captured five thousand stands of arms.
The attack was made on our lines seven times, and was seven times
repulsed. Hood's and Hardee's corps and Wheeler's cavalry engaged
us.
We have sent to the rear one thousand prisoners, including
thirty-three commissioned officers of high rank.
We still occupy the field, and the troops are in fine spirits. A
detailed and full report will be furnished as soon as completed.
Recapitulation.
Our total loss............................ 3,521
Enemy's dead, thus far reported, buried,
and delivered to them..................... 3,220
Total prisoners sent North................ 1,017
Total prisoners, wounded, in our hands.... 1,000
Estimated loss of the enemy, at least.... 10,000
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Joan A. Logan, Major-General.
On the 22d of July General Rousseau reached Marietta, having
returned from his raid on the Alabama road at Opelika, and on the
next day General Garrard also returned from Covington, both having
been measurably successful. The former was about twenty-five
hundred strong, the latter about four thousand, and both reported
that their horses were jaded and tired, needing shoes and rest.
But, about this time, I was advised by General Grant (then
investing Richmond) that the rebel Government had become aroused to
the critical condition of things about Atlanta, and that I must
look out for Hood being greatly reenforced. I therefore was
resolved to push matters, and at once set about the original
purpose of transferring the whole of the Army of the Tennessee to
our right flank, leaving Schofield to stretch out so as to rest his
left on the Augusta road, then torn up for thirty miles eastward;
and, as auxiliary thereto, I ordered all the cavalry to be ready to
pass around Atlanta on both flanks, to break up the Macon road at
some point below, so as to cut off all supplies to the rebel army
inside, and thus to force it to evacuate, or come out and fight us
on equal terms.
But it first became necessary to settle the important question of
who should succeed General McPherson? General Logan had taken
command of the Army of the Tennessee by virtue of his seniority,
and had done well; but I did not consider him equal to the command
of three corps. Between him and General Blair there existed a
natural rivalry. Both were men of great courage and talent, but
were politicians by nature and experience, and it may be that for
this reason they were mistrusted by regular officers like Generals
Schofield, Thomas, and myself. It was all-important that there
should exist a perfect understanding among the army commanders, and
at a conference with General George H. Thomas at the headquarters
of General Thomas J. Woods, commanding a division in the Fourth
Corps, he (Thomas) remonstrated warmly against my recommending that
General Logan should be regularly assigned to the command of the
Army of the Tennessee by reason of his accidental seniority. We
discussed fully the merits and qualities of every officer of high
rank in the army, and finally settled on Major-General O. O. Howard
as the best officer who was present and available for the purpose;
on the 24th of July I telegraphed to General Halleck this
preference, and it was promptly ratified by the President. General
Howard's place in command of the Fourth Corps was filled by General
Stanley, one of his division commanders, on the recommendation of
General Thomas. All these promotions happened to fall upon
West-Pointers, and doubtless Logan and Blair had some reason to
believe that we intended to monopolize the higher honors of the war
for the regular officers. I remember well my own thoughts and
feelings at the time, and feel sure that I was not intentionally
partial to any class, I wanted to succeed in taking Atlanta, and
needed commanders who were purely and technically soldiers, men who
would obey orders and execute them promptly and on time; for I knew
that we would have to execute some most delicate manoeuvres,
requiring the utmost skill, nicety, and precision. I believed that
General Howard would do all these faithfully and well, and I think
the result has justified my choice. I regarded both Generals Logan
and Blair as "volunteers," that looked to personal fame and glory
as auxiliary and secondary to their political ambition, and not as
professional soldiers.
As soon as it was known that General Howard had been chosen to
command the Army of the Tennessee; General Hooker applied to
General Thomas to be relieved of the command of the Twentieth
Corps, and General Thomas forwarded his application to me approved
and heartily recommended. I at once telegraphed to General
Halleck, recommending General Slocum (then at Vicksburg) to be his
successor, because Slocum had been displaced from the command of
his corps at the time when the Eleventh and Twelfth were united and
made the Twentieth.
General Hooker was offended because he was not chosen to succeed
McPherson; but his chances were not even considered; indeed, I had
never been satisfied with him since his affair at the Gulp House,
and had been more than once disposed to relieve him of his corps,
because of his repeated attempts to interfere with Generals
McPherson and Schofield. I had known Hooker since 1836, and was
intimately associated with him in California, where we served
together on the staff of General Persifer F. Smith. He had come to
us from the East with a high reputation as a "fighter," which he
had fully justified at Chattanooga and Peach-Tree Creek; at which
latter battle I complimented him on the field for special
gallantry, and afterward in official reports. Still, I did feel a
sense of relief when he left us. We were then two hundred and
fifty miles in advance of our base, dependent on a single line of
railroad for our daily food. We had a bold, determined foe in our
immediate front, strongly intrenched, with communication open to
his rear for supplies and reenforcements, and every soldier
realized that we had plenty of hard fighting ahead, and that all
honors had to be fairly earned.
Until General Slocum joined (in the latter part of August), the
Twentieth Corps was commanded by General A. S. Williams, the senior
division commander present. On the 25th of July the army,
therefore, stood thus: the Army of the Tennessee (General O. O.
Howard commanding) was on the left, pretty much on the same ground
it had occupied during the battle of the 22d, all ready to move
rapidly by the rear to the extreme right beyond Proctor's Creek;
the Army of the Ohio (General Schofield) was next in order, with
its left flank reaching the Augusta Railroad; next in order,
conforming closely with the rebel intrenchments of Atlanta, was
General Thomas's Army of the Cumberland, in the order of--the
Fourth Corps (Stanley's), the Twentieth Corps (Williams's), and the
Fourteenth Corps (Palmer's). Palmer's right division (Jefferson C.
Davis's) was strongly refused along Proctor's Creek. This line was
about five miles long, and was intrenched as against a sally about
as strong as was our enemy. The cavalry was assembled in two
strong divisions; that of McCook (including the brigade of Harrison
which had been brought in from Opelika by General Rousseau)
numbered about thirty-five hundred effective cavalry, and was
posted to our right rear, at Turner's Ferry, where we had a good
pontoon-bridge; and to our left rear, at and about Decatur, were
the two cavalry divisions of Stoneman, twenty-five hundred, and
Garrard, four thousand, united for the time and occasion under the
command of Major-General George Stoneman, a cavalry-officer of high
repute. My plan of action was to move the Army of the Tennessee to
the right rapidly and boldly against the railroad below Atlanta,
and at the same time to send all the cavalry around by the right
and left to make a lodgment on the Macon road about Jonesboro.
All the orders were given, and the morning of the 27th was fixed
for commencing the movement. On the 26th I received from General
Stoneman a note asking permission (after having accomplished his
orders to break up the railroad at Jonesboro) to go on to Macon to
rescue our prisoners of war known to be held there, and then to
push on to Andersonville, where was the great depot of Union
prisoners, in which were penned at one time as many as twenty-three
thousand of our men, badly fed and harshly treated. I wrote him an
answer consenting substantially to his proposition, only modifying
it by requiring him to send back General Garrard's division to its
position on our left flank after he had broken up the railroad at
Jonesboro. Promptly, and on time, all got off, and General Dodge's
corps (the Sixteenth, of the Army of the Tennessee) reached its
position across Proctor's Creek the same evening, and early the
next morning (the 28th) Blair's corps (the Seventeenth) deployed on
his right, both corps covering their front with the usual parapet;
the Fifteenth Corps (General Logan's) came up that morning on the
right of Blair, strongly refused, and began to prepare the usual
cover. As General Jeff. C. Davis's division was, as it were, left