Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete
attempt, and in order to oversee the whole, and to be in close
communication with all parts of the army, I had a place cleared on
the top of a hill to the rear of Thomas's centre, and had the
telegraph-wires laid to it. The points of attack were chosen, and
the troops were all prepared with as little demonstration as
possible. About 9 A.M. Of the day appointed, the troops moved to
the assault, and all along our lines for ten miles a furious fire
of artillery and musketry was kept up. At all points the enemy met
us with determined courage and in great force. McPherson's
attacking column fought up the face of the lesser Kenesaw, but
could not reach the summit. About a mile to the right (just below
the Dallas road) Thomas's assaulting column reached the parapet,
where Brigadier-General Barker was shot down mortally wounded, and
Brigadier-General Daniel McCook (my old law-partner) was
desperately wounded, from the effects of which he afterward died.
By 11.30 the assault was in fact over, and had failed. We had not
broken the rebel line at either point, but our assaulting columns
held their ground within a few yards of the rebel trenches, and
there covered themselves with parapet. McPherson lost about five
hundred men and several valuable officers, and Thomas lost nearly
two thousand men. This was the hardest fight of the campaign up to
that date, and it is well described by Johnston in his "Narrative"
(pages 342, 343), where he admits his loss in killed and wounded
as
Total ............. 808
This, no doubt, is a true and fair statement; but, as usual,
Johnston overestimates our loss, putting it at six thousand,
whereas our entire loss was about twenty-five hundred, killed and
wounded.
While the battle was in progress at the centre, Schofield crossed
Olley's Creek on the right, and gained a position threatening
Johnston's line of retreat; and, to increase the effect, I ordered
Stoneman's cavalry to proceed rapidly still farther to the right,
to Sweetwater. Satisfied of the bloody cost of attacking
intrenched lines, I at once thought of moving the whole army to the
railroad at a point (Fulton) about ten miles below Marietta, or to
the Chattahoochee River itself, a movement similar to the one
afterward so successfully practised at Atlanta. All the orders
were issued to bring forward supplies enough to fill our wagons,
intending to strip the railroad back to Allatoona, and leave that
place as our depot, to be covered as well as possible by Garrard's
cavalry. General Thomas, as usual, shook his head, deeming it
risky to leave the railroad; but something had to be done, and I
had resolved on this move, as reported in my dispatch to General
Halleck on July 1st:
General Schofield is now south of Olley's Creek, and on the head of
Nickajack. I have been hurrying down provisions and forage, and
tomorrow night propose to move McPherson from the left to the
extreme right, back of General Thomas. This will bring my right
within three miles of the Chattahoochee River, and about five miles
from the railroad. By this movement I think I can force Johnston
to move his whole army down from Kenesaw to defend his railroad and
the Chattahoochee, when I will (by the left flank) reach the
railroad below Marietta; but in this I must cut loose from the
railroad with ten days' supplies in wagons. Johnston may come out
of his intrenchments to attack Thomas, which is exactly what I
want, for General Thomas is well intrenched on a line parallel with
the enemy south of Kenesaw. I think that Allatoona and the line of
the Etowah are strong enough for me to venture on this move. The
movement is substantially down the Sandtown road straight for
Atlanta.
McPherson drew out of his lines during the night of July 2d,
leaving Garrard's cavalry, dismounted, occupying his trenches, and
moved to the rear of the Army of the Cumberland, stretching down
the Nickajack; but Johnston detected the movement, and promptly
abandoned Marietta and Kenesaw. I expected as much, for, by the
earliest dawn of the 3d of July, I was up at a large spy-glass
mounted on a tripod, which Colonel Poe, United States Engineers,
had at his bivouac close by our camp. I directed the glass on
Kenesaw, and saw some of our pickets crawling up the hill
cautiously; soon they stood upon the very top, and I could plainly
see their movements as they ran along the crest just abandoned by
the enemy. In a minute I roused my staff, and started them off
with orders in every direction for a pursuit by every possible
road, hoping to catch Johnston in the confusion of retreat,
especially at the crossing of the Chattahoochee River.
I must close this chapter here, so as to give the actual losses
during June, which are compiled from the official returns by
months. These losses, from June 1st to July 3d, were all
substantially sustained about Kenesaw and Marietta, and it was
really a continuous battle, lasting from the 10th day of June till
the 3d of July, when the rebel army fell back from Marietta toward
the Chattahoochee River. Our losses were:
Killed and Missing Wounded Total
Loss in June Aggregate 1,790 5,740 7,530
Johnston makes his statement of losses from the report of his
surgeon Foard, for pretty much the same period, viz., from June 4th
to July 4th (page 576):
Killed Wounded Total
Total............ 468 3,480 3,948
In the tabular statement the "missing" embraces the prisoners; and,
giving two thousand as a fair proportion of prisoners captured by
us for the month of June (twelve thousand nine hundred and
eighty-three in all the campaign), makes an aggregate loss in the
rebel army of fifty-nine hundred and forty-eight, to ours of
seventy-five hundred and thirty--a less proportion than in the
relative strength of our two armies, viz., as six to ten, thus
maintaining our relative superiority, which the desperate game
of war justified.
CHAPTER XVIII.
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN--BATTLES ABOUT ATLANTA
JULY, 1864.
As before explained, on the 3d of July, by moving McPherson's
entire army from the extreme left, at the base of Kenesaw to the
right, below Olley's Creek, and stretching it down the Nickajack
toward Turner's Ferry of the Chattahoochee, we forced Johnston to
choose between a direct assault on Thomas's intrenched position, or
to permit us to make a lodgment on his railroad below Marietta, or
even to cross the Chattahoochee. Of course, he chose to let go
Kenesaw and Marietta, and fall back on an intrenched camp prepared
by his orders in advance on the north and west bank of the
Chattahoochee, covering the railroad-crossing and his several
pontoon-bridges. I confess I had not learned beforehand of the
existence of this strong place, in the nature of a tete-du-pont,
and had counted on striking him an effectual blow in the expected
confusion of his crossing the Chattahoochee, a broad and deep river
then to his rear. Ordering every part of the army to pursue
vigorously on the morning of the 3d of July, I rode into Marietta,
just quitted by the rebel rear-guard, and was terribly angry at the
cautious pursuit by Garrard's cavalry, and even by the head of our
infantry columns. But Johnston had in advance cleared and
multiplied his roads, whereas ours had to cross at right angles
from the direction of Powder Springs toward Marrietta, producing
delay and confusion. By night Thomas's head of column ran up
against a strong rear-guard intrenched at Smyrna camp-ground, six
miles below Marietta, and there on the next day we celebrated our
Fourth of July, by a noisy but not a desperate battle, designed
chiefly to hold the enemy there till Generals McPherson and
Schofield could get well into position below him, near the
Chattahoochee crossings.
It was here that General Noyes, late Governor of Ohio, lost his
leg. I came very near being shot myself while reconnoitring in the
second story of a house on our picket-line, which was struck
several times by cannon-shot, and perfectly riddled with
musket-balls.
During the night Johnston drew back all his army and trains inside
the tete-du-pont at the Chattahoochee, which proved one of the
strongest pieces of field-fortification I ever saw. We closed up
against it, and were promptly met by a heavy and severe fire.
Thomas was on the main road in immediate pursuit; next on his right
was Schofield; and McPherson on the extreme right, reaching the
Chattahoochee River below Turner's Ferry. Stoneman's cavalry was
still farther to the right, along down the Chattahoochee River as
far as opposite Sandtown; and on that day I ordered Garrard's
division of cavalry up the river eighteen miles, to secure
possession of the factories at Roswell, as well as to hold an
important bridge and ford at that place.
About three miles out from the Chattahoochee the main road forked,
the right branch following substantially the railroad, and the left
one leading straight for Atlanta, via Paice's Ferry and Buckhead.
We found the latter unoccupied and unguarded, and the Fourth Corps
(Howard's) reached the river at Paice's Ferry. The right-hand road
was perfectly covered by the tete-du-pont before described, where
the resistance was very severe, and for some time deceived me, for
I was pushing Thomas with orders to fiercely assault his enemy,
supposing that he was merely opposing us to gain time to get his
trains and troops across the Chattahoochee; but, on personally
reconnoitring, I saw the abatis and the strong redoubts, which
satisfied me of the preparations that had been made by Johnston in
anticipation of this very event. While I was with General Jeff. C.
Davis, a poor negro came out of the abatis, blanched with fright,
said he had been hidden under a log all day, with a perfect storm
of shot, shells, and musket-balls, passing over him, till a short
lull had enabled him to creep out and make himself known to our
skirmishers, who in turn had sent him back to where we were. This
negro explained that he with about a thousand slaves had been at
work a month or more on these very lines, which, as he explained,
extended from the river about a mile above the railroad-bridge to
Turner's Ferry below,--being in extent from five to six miles.
Therefore, on the 5th of July we had driven our enemy to cover in
the valley of the Chattahoochee, and we held possession of the
river above for eighteen miles, as far as Roswell, and below ten
miles to the mouth of the Sweetwater. Moreover, we held the high
ground and could overlook his movements, instead of his looking
down on us, as was the case at Kenesaw.
From a hill just back of Mining's Station I could see the houses in
Atlanta, nine miles distant, and the whole intervening valley of
the Chattahoochee; could observe the preparations for our reception
on the other side, the camps of men and large trains of covered
wagons; and supposed, as a matter of course, that Johnston had
passed the river with the bulk of his army, and that he had only
left on our side a corps to cover his bridges; but in fact he had
only sent across his cavalry and trains. Between Howard's corps at
Paice's Ferry and the rest of Thomas's army pressing up against
this tete-du-pont, was a space concealed by dense woods, in
crossing which I came near riding into a detachment of the enemy's
cavalry; and later in the same day Colonel Frank Sherman, of
Chicago, then on General Howard's staff, did actually ride straight
into the enemy's camp, supposing that our lines were continuous.
He was carried to Atlanta, and for some time the enemy supposed
they were in possession of the commander-in-chief of the opposing
army.