Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete
open field. My party attracted the fire of a battery; a shell
passed through the group of staff-officers and burst just beyond,
which scattered us promptly. The next morning the enemy had
disappeared, and our pursuit was continued to Kingston, which we
reached during Sunday forenoon, the 19th.
From Resaca the railroad runs nearly due south, but at Kingston it
makes junction with another railroad from Rome, and changes
direction due east. At that time McPherson's head of column was
about four miles to the west of Kingston, at a country place called
"Woodlawn;" Schofield and Hooker were on the direct roads leading
from Newtown to Casaville, diagonal to the route followed by
Thomas. Thomas's head of column, which had followed the country
roads alongside of the railroad, was about four miles east of
Kingston, toward Cassville, when about noon I got a message from
him that he had found the enemy, drawn up in line of battle, on
some extensive, open ground, about half-way between Kingston and
Cassville, and that appearances indicated a willingness and
preparation for battle.
Hurriedly sending orders to McPherson to resume the march, to
hasten forward by roads leading to the south of Kingston, so as to
leave for Thomas's troops and trains the use of the main road, and
to come up on his right, I rode forward rapidly, over some rough
gravel hills, and about six miles from Kingston found General
Thomas, with his troops deployed; but he reported that the enemy
had fallen back in echelon of divisions, steadily and in superb
order, into Cassville. I knew that the roads by which Generals
Hooker and Schofield were approaching would lead them to a seminary
near Cassville, and that it was all-important to secure the point
of junction of these roads with the main road along which we were
marching. Therefore I ordered General Thomas to push forward his
deployed lines as rapidly as possible; and, as night was
approaching, I ordered two field-batteries to close up at a gallop
on some woods which lay between us and the town of Cassville. We
could not see the town by reason of these woods, but a high range
of hills just back of the town was visible over the tree-tops. On
these hills could be seen fresh-made parapets, and the movements of
men, against whom I directed the artillery to fire at long range.
The stout resistance made by the enemy along our whole front of a
couple of miles indicated a purpose to fight at Cassville; and, as
the night was closing in, General Thomas and I were together, along
with our skirmish-lines near the seminary, on the edge of the town,
where musket-bullets from the enemy were cutting the leaves of the
trees pretty thickly about us. Either Thomas or I remarked that
that was not the place for the two senior officers of a great army,
and we personally went back to the battery, where we passed the
night on the ground. During the night I had reports from
McPherson, Hooker, and Schofield. The former was about five miles
to my right rear, near the "nitre-caves;" Schofield was about six
miles north, and Hooker between us, within two miles. All were
ordered to close down on Cassville at daylight, and to attack the
enemy wherever found. Skirmishing was kept up all night, but when
day broke the next morning, May 20th, the enemy was gone, and our
cavalry was sent in pursuit. These reported him beyond the Etowah
River. We were then well in advance of our railroad-trains, on
which we depended for supplies; so I determined to pause a few days
to repair the railroad, which had been damaged but little, except
at the bridge at Resaca, and then to go on.
Nearly all the people of the country seemed to have fled with
Johnston's army; yet some few families remained, and from one of
them I procured the copy of an order which Johnston had made at
Adairsville, in which he recited that he had retreated as far as
strategy required, and that his army must be prepared for battle at
Cassville. The newspapers of the South, many of which we found,
were also loud in denunciation of Johnston's falling back before us
without a serious battle, simply resisting by his skirmish-lines
and by his rear-guard. But his friends proclaimed that it was all
strategic; that he was deliberately drawing us farther and farther
into the meshes, farther and farther away from our base of
supplies, and that in due season he would not only halt for battle,
but assume the bold offensive. Of course it was to my interest to
bring him to battle as soon as possible, when our numerical
superiority was at the greatest; for he was picking up his
detachments as he fell back, whereas I was compelled to make
similar and stronger detachments to repair the railroads as we
advanced, and to guard them. I found at Cassville many evidences
of preparation for a grand battle, among them a long line of fresh
intrenchments on the hill beyond the town, extending nearly three
miles to the south, embracing the railroad-crossing. I was also
convinced that the whole of Polk's corps had joined Johnston from
Mississippi, and that he had in hand three full corps, viz.,
Hood's, Polk's, and Hardee's, numbering about sixty thousand men,
and could not then imagine why he had declined battle, and did not
learn the real reason till after the war was over, and then from
General Johnston himself.
In the autumn of 1865, when in command of the Military Division of
the Missouri, I went from St. Louis to Little Rock, Arkansas, and
afterward to Memphis. Taking a steamer for Cairo, I found as
fellow-passengers Generals Johnston and Frank Blair. We were, of
course, on the most friendly terms, and on our way up we talked
over our battles again, played cards, and questioned each other as
to particular parts of our mutual conduct in the game of war. I
told Johnston that I had seen his order of preparation, in the
nature of an address to his army, announcing his purpose to retreat
no more, but to accept battle at Cassville. He answered that such
was his purpose; that he had left Hardee's corps in the open fields
to check Thomas, and gain time for his formation on the ridge, just
behind Cassville; and it was this corps which General Thomas had
seen deployed, and whose handsome movement in retreat he had
reported in such complimentary terms. Johnston described how he
had placed Hood's corps on the right, Polk's in the centre, and
Hardee's on the left. He said he had ridden over the ground, given
to each corps commander his position, and orders to throw up
parapets during the night; that he was with Hardee on his extreme
left as the night closed in, and as Hardee's troops fell back to
the position assigned them for the intended battle of the next day;
and that, after giving Hardee some general instructions, he and his
staff rode back to Cassville. As he entered the town, or village,
he met Generals Hood and Polk. Hood inquired of him if he had had
any thing to eat, and he said no, that he was both hungry and
tired, when Hood invited him to go and share a supper which had
been prepared for him at a house close by. At the supper they
discussed the chances of the impending battle, when Hood spoke of
the ground assigned him as being enfiladed by our (Union)
artillery, which Johnston disputed, when General Polk chimed in
with the remark that General Hood was right; that the cannon-shots
fired by us at nightfall had enfiladed their general line of
battle, and that for this reason he feared they could not hold
their men. General Johnston was surprised at this, for he
understood General Hood to be one of those who professed to
criticise his strategy, contending that, instead of retreating, he
should have risked a battle. General Johnston said he was
provoked, accused them of having been in conference, with being
beaten before battle, and added that he was unwilling to engage in
a critical battle with an army so superior to his own in numbers,
with two of his three corps commanders dissatisfied with the ground
and positions assigned them. He then and there made up his mind to
retreat still farther south, to put the Etowah River and the
Allatoona range between us; and he at once gave orders to resume
the retrograde movement.
This was my recollection of the substance of the conversation, of
which I made no note at the time; but, at a meeting of the Society
of the Army of the Cumberland some years after, at Cleveland, Ohio,
about 1868, in a short after-dinner speech, I related this
conversation, and it got into print. Subsequently, in the spring
of 1870, when I was at New Orleans, on route for Texas, General
Hood called to see me at the St. Charles Hotel, explained that he
had seen my speech reprinted in the newspapers and gave me his
version of the same event, describing the halt at Cassville, the
general orders for battle on that ground, and the meeting at supper
with Generals Johnston and Polk, when the chances of the battle to
be fought the next day were freely and fully discussed; and he
stated that he had argued against fighting the battle purely on the
defensive, but had asked General Johnston to permit him with his
own corps and part of Polk's to quit their lines, and to march
rapidly to attack and overwhelm Schofield, who was known to be
separated from Thomas by an interval of nearly five miles, claiming
that he could have defeated Schofield, and got back to his position
in time to meet General Thomas's attack in front. He also stated
that he had then contended with Johnston for the "offensive-
defensive" game, instead of the "pure defensive," as proposed by
General Johnston; and he said that it was at this time that General
Johnston had taken offense, and that it was for this reason he had
ordered the retreat that night. As subsequent events estranged
these two officers, it is very natural they should now differ on
this point; but it was sufficient for us that the rebel army did
retreat that night, leaving us masters of all the country above the
Etowah River.
For the purposes of rest, to give time for the repair of the
railroads, and to replenish supplies, we lay by some few days in
that quarter--Schofield with Stoneman's cavalry holding the ground
at Cassville Depot, Cartersville, and the Etowah Bridge; Thomas
holding his ground near Cassville, and McPherson that near
Kingston. The officer intrusted with the repair of the railroads
was Colonel W. W. Wright, a railroad-engineer, who, with about two
thousand men, was so industrious and skillful that the bridge at
Resaca was rebuilt in three days, and cars loaded with stores came
forward to Kingston on the 24th. The telegraph also brought us the
news of the bloody and desperate battles of the Wilderness, in
Virginia, and that General Grant was pushing his operations against
Lee with terrific energy. I was therefore resolved to give my
enemy no rest.
In early days (1844), when a lieutenant of the Third Artillery, I
had been sent from Charleston, South Carolina, to Marietta,
Georgia, to assist Inspector-General Churchill to take testimony
concerning certain losses of horses and accoutrements by the
Georgia Volunteers during the Florida War; and after completing the
work at Marietta we transferred our party over to Bellefonte,
Alabama. I had ridden the distance on horseback, and had noted
well the topography of the country, especially that about Kenesaw,
Allatoona, and the Etowah River. On that occasion I had stopped
some days with a Colonel Tumlin, to see some remarkable Indian
mounds on the Etowah River, usually called the "Hightower:" I
therefore knew that the Allatoona Pass was very strong, would be
hard to force, and resolved not even to attempt it, but to turn the
position, by moving from Kingston to Marietta via. Dallas;