Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete
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.
They appealed to me to protect them. I had heard during that day
some cannonading and heavy firing down toward the "Kulp House,"
which was about five miles southeast of where I was, but this was
nothing unusual, for at the same moment there was firing along our
lines full ten miles in extent. Early the next day (23d) I rode
down to the "Kulp House," which was on a road leading from Powder
Springs to Marietta, about three miles distant from the latter. On
the way I passed through General Butterfield's division of Hooker's
corps, which I learned had not been engaged at all in the battle of
the day before; then I rode along Geary's and Williams's divisions,
which occupied the field of battle, and the men were engaged in
burying the dead. I found General Schofield's corps on the Powder
Springs road, its head of column abreast of Hooker's right,
therefore constituting "a strong right flank," and I met Generale
Schofield and Hooker together. As rain was falling at the moment,
we passed into a little church standing by the road-side, and I
there showed General Schofield Hooker's signal-message of the day
before. He was very angry, and pretty sharp words passed between
them, Schofield saying that his head of column (Hascall's division)
had been, at the time of the battle, actually in advance of
Hooker's line; that the attack or sally of the enemy struck his
troops before it did Hooker's; that General Hooker knew of it at
the time; and he offered to go out and show me that the dead men of
his advance division (Hascall's) were lying farther out than any of
Hooker's. General Hooker pretended not to have known this fact. I
then asked him why he had called on me for help, until he had used
all of his own troops; asserting that I had just seen Butterfield's
division, and had learned from him that he had not been engaged the
day before at all; and I asserted that the enemy's sally must have
been made by one corps (Hood's), in place of three, and that it had
fallen on Geary's and Williams's divisions, which had repulsed the
attack handsomely. As we rode away from that church General Hooker
was by my side, and I told him that such a thing must not occur
again; in other words, I reproved him more gently than the occasion
demanded, and from that time he began to sulk. General Hooker had
come from the East with great fame as a "fighter," and at
Chattanooga he was glorified by his "battle above the clouds,"
which I fear turned his head. He seemed jealous of all the army
commanders, because in years, former rank, and experience, he
thought he was our superior.
On the 23d of June I telegraphed to General Halleck this summary,
which I cannot again better state:
We continue to press forward on the principle of an advance against
fortified positions. The whole country is one vast fort, and
Johnston must have at least fifty miles of connected trenches, with
abatis and finished batteries. We gain ground daily, fighting all
the time. On the 21st General Stanley gained a position near the
south end of Kenesaw, from which the enemy attempted in vain to
drive him; and the same day General T. J. Wood's division took a
hill, which the enemy assaulted three times at night without
success, leaving more than a hundred dead on the ground. Yesterday
the extreme right (Hooker and Schofield) advanced on the Powder
Springs road to within three miles of Marietta. The enemy made a
strong effort to drive them away, but failed signally, leaving more
than two hundred dead on the field. Our lines are now in close
contact, and the fighting is incessant, with a good deal of
artillery-fire. As fast as we gain one position the enemy has
another all ready, but I think he will soon have to let go Kenesaw,
which is the key to the whole country. The weather is now better,
and the roads are drying up fast. Our losses are light, and,
not-withstanding the repeated breaks of the road to our rear,
supplies are ample.
During the 24th and 25th of June General Schofield extended his
right as far as prudent, so as to compel the enemy to thin out his
lines correspondingly, with the intention to make two strong
assaults at points where success would give us the greatest
advantage. I had consulted Generals Thomas, McPherson, and
Schofield, and we all agreed that we could not with prudence
stretch out any more, and therefore there was no alternative but to
attack "fortified lines," a thing carefully avoided up to that
time. I reasoned, if we could make a breach anywhere near the
rebel centre, and thrust in a strong head of column, that with the
one moiety of our army we could hold in check the corresponding
wing of the enemy, and with the other sweep in flank and overwhelm
the other half. The 27th of June was fixed as the day for the