BOLD MOVEMENT BY HOOD.

385

ments, rifle trenches, abatis and chevaux-de-frise covering every road connected with Atlanta.

July, 1864.

Hood's policy was to fight for positions, not to abandon them, as Sherman discovered, when, on the 22d," the Army of the Tennessee, with McPherson at its head, was preparing to move against the Confederate works. That army, describing in its line of march the arc of a circle, rapidly diminishing in radius, moved from Decatur on the direct road to Atlanta. Logan's corps formed the center, Dodge's the right, and Blair's the left. On the previous night, the latter, after a severe struggle, had driven the Confederates from a hill that overlooked the heart of the city, and McPherson now made preparations for planting heavy batteries upon it, to be supported by Dodge's corps, which was ordered from the right to the left, to make that point a strong general left flank.

While, at near noon, Dodge's troops were making their way along an obscure road in the rear of Logan, Sherman, who was at Howard's house, with General Schofield, some distance off, heard the sound of battle on the left and rear of McPherson's troops, first as a mere sputter of musketry, then as volleys, and then as the thunder of artillery. McPherson had left Sherman only a little while before, for that part of his line, and the latter, who quickly comprehended the situation, felt sure that the commander of the Army of the Tennessee would do all that man could to avert calamity. Hood had made a bold movement, and this was the first revelation of it. He had left a sufficient number of troops within his intrenchments on the front of Sherman, to hold them, and with his main body, led by Hardee, had made a long night march to the left and rear of the Nationals, and struck them there a severe and unexpected blow. It fell with heaviest force upon Giles A. Smith's division of Blair's corps, and it was received with gallantry and fortitude. Alas! McPherson was not there to order the further movements of the troops. He had ridden from Sherman to Dodge's moving column, when he sent nearly the whole of his staff and orderlies on various errands, and moved forward into a wood, for observations, in the rear of Smith's troops. At that moment Hardee made his first charge. His troops were pouring into a gap between Dodge and Blair; and just as McPherson had given an order for a brigade to move up and fill that gap, a Confederate sharp-shooter, of the same name, shot the brave leader dead.' His riderless and wounded horse made his way back to the Union lines, and the body of the hero was recovered during the heat of battle, and was sent in charge of his personal staff back to Marietta.

"The suddenness of this calamity," General Sherman afterward said, "would have overwhelmed me with grief, but the living demanded my whole thoughts. He ordered General John A. Logan to take command of the Army of the Tennessee, and hold the ground McPherson had chosen, and especially a hill which General Leggett had secured the night before. At the gap, into which the charging Confederates poured, Murray's battery of six guns was

1 General McPherson had thrown himself flat on his horse, and attempted to fly, when Major McPherson, of the Fifth Regiment of the Confederate army, drew up his carbine, took deliberate aim, and shot the General.— Oral Statement to the author by Major Charles W. Gibson, of Forrest's cavalry.

Speaking of General McPherson, Sherman said: "He was a noble youth, of striking personal appearance [see page 235], of the highest professional capacity and with a heart abounding in kindness, that drew to him the affections of all men."

VOL. III.-103

386

FIRST BATTLE OF ATLANTA.

captured by them, but Wangelin's brigade, obeying McPherson's last order, came up in time to check the assailants there. One wing of Smith's divi

sion was forced back, and two more guns were lost. Fortunately for the Nationals, General Stewart, who was to attack Blair in front simultaneously with Hardee's assault on flank and rear, was not up in time to effect much.

When Logan assumed command, the battle had been general along the whole line, and it raged fiercely for several hours. The Nationals had the advantage of position, and inflicted very heavy loss on the Confederates, who had been unable to drive Blair and Dodge. The latter gave their assailants very severe blows on their right, killing and wounding many, and capturing a considerable number of prisoners. Finally, at four o'clock in the afternoon, there was a lull in the contest. Meanwhile, Wheeler, with his cavalry, finding no opposition on the left of Sherman's army, in consequence of the absence of Garrard and his horsemen at Covington, between Decatur and

JOHN A. LOGAN.

Augusta, engaged in destroying the railway there, attempted to capture McPherson's wagon-train at the former town. But Colonel (afterward General) Sprague, in command there, so skillfully guarded the wagons that he succeeded in sending all but three of them out of the reach of danger.

The lull in the battle was brief. The Confederates soon charged up the railway and main Decatur road, scattering an advanced regiment acting as pickets, and capturing its two guns in battery at the foot of a tall pine-tree,

This is a view of the remains of a National battery, by the side of one of the roads leading from Atlanta to Decatur, which did great execution on the 22d of July, as it appeared when the writer sketched it, in May, 1866. It was in the woods seen in front of it, and not more than eighty rods distant from it, that McPherson was killed. Here was the place of some of the heaviest fighting in the battle of Atlanta

used as a signal station.' Then advancing rapidly, they broke through the Union line between the divisions of Wood and Harrow, of Logan's corps, posted on each side the roads, and pushed back, in much disorder, Lightburn's brigade, about four hundred yards, to a point held by it the night before. The Confederates took possession of two important batteries, and held them, at the point of separation which they had made between the divisions of Wood and Harrow. Sherman, who was near, fully comprehending the importance of the unity of the army at that point, and of checking the farther advance of the Confederates, ordered up several of Schofield's batteries, and directed Logan to regain the ground just lost, at any cost, while Wood was directed to press forward, supported by Schofield, and recover the captured guns. The orders were all promptly executed, Sherman said, "in superb style, at times our men and the enemy fighting across the narrow parapet." At length the Confederates gave way, and fell back to their defenses; and so ended, in advantage to the Nationals, THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA, on the 22d of July. It was a sanguinary one, and was much more disastrous in the loss of men to the Confederates than to the Patriots.2 On the day after the battle" just recorded, General Garrard returned from Covington, where he had sufficiently injured the Au

⚫ July 28,
1864.

SIGNAL TREE

At the same

gusta railway to make it useless to the Confederates. time Generals Thomas and Schofield had well closed up, and Hood was firmly held behind his inner line of intrenchments. Considering the situ ation in all its bearings, Sherman concluded to make a flank movement by his right, and in the mean time to send out the bulk of his cavalry to raid on the railways in Hood's rear. He accordingly ordered Stoneman to take his own and Garrard's cavalry, about five thousand in all, and move by the left around Atlanta to Macdonough, while McCook, with his own, and the fresh cavalry brought by Rousseau (now commanded by Colonel Harrison, of the Eighth Indiana), was to move by the right to Fayetteville, and, sweeping round, join Stoneman on the railway south of Atlanta leading to Macon, at Lovejoy's Station, on the night of the 28th.

These bodies of mounted men moved simultaneously. McCook went

1 This station was for the purpose of directing the fire of the Nationals on the Confederate army, the country being so broken and wooded that the artillerists could not certainly know the position of their foes. Lieutenant Reynolds was a the platform near the top of this tree, acting as signal officer when the Confederates made the charge mentioned in the text, and was shot dead at his post. This tree was between the railway and the Decatur road, and the writer sketched it, in May, 1866.

2 The total loss of the Nationals was 3,722, of whom about 1,000 were well prisoners. General Logan computed the Confederate dead, alone, at 3,240. He delivered to Hood, under a flag of truec, 800 dead bodies and reported that 2,200, by actual count, were found on the field. Sherman estimated Hood's entire loss on the 224 of July, "at full 8,000 men." Among the Confederate killed was General W. H. T. Walker, of Georgia.

3 Garrard destroyed the railway bridges over the Ulcofauhatchee and Yellow rivers, burned a train of cars and 2,000 bales of Confederate cotton, the depots of stores at Covington and Conyer's Station, and cap. tured 200 men and some good horses. His loss was only two men.

388

MISFORTUNES OF STONEMAN'S COMMAND.

down the west side of the Chattahoochee to Rivertown, where he crossed the stream on à pontoon bridge, tore up the track of the railway between Atlanta and West Point, near Palmetto Station, and pushed on to Fayetteville. There he captured five hundred of Hood's wagons and two hundred and fifty men, and killed and carried away about a thousand mules. Pressing on, he struck and destroyed the Macon railway at the appointed time and place, but Stoneman was not there. McCook had no tidings of him; so, being hard pressed by Wheeler's cavalry, he turned to the southwest and struck the West Point road again at Newman's Station. There he was met by a heavy body of infantry from Mississippi, on its way to assist Hood at Atlanta. At the same time his rear was closely pressed by Confederate cavalry, and he was compelled to fight great odds. He did so gallantly, and fought his way out, but with the loss of his prisoners, and five hundred of his own men, including Colonel Harrison, who was made a captive.

Stoneman, in the mean time, attempting to do too much, failed in nearly all things. At the last moment before leaving, he obtained General Sherman's consent to go farther after striking the railway at Lovejoy's, and sweeping southward, capture Macon, the capital of Georgia, and pushing on to Andersonville, release the thousands of Union prisoners then suffering horribly there. He had gone but a short distance, when he cut loose from Garrard's cavalry, and, in disobedience of Sherman's orders, omitted to co-operate with McCook in his movement upon the railway at Lovejoy's With his own command, about three thousand in number, he pressed directly upon Macon. There he was met so stoutly by Confederate cavalry, unde General Iverson, that he not only abandoned all thoughts of capturing Macon, or becoming the liberator of the prisoners at Andersonville, but he turned hastily back, impelled by the urgent business of trying to escape. In so doing, he weakened his force by dividing it, and instructing the three brigades of which it was composed, to seek safety by separate paths. Iverson pressed closely upon the fugitives. One of the brigades, commanded by Colonel Adams, reached Atlanta without much loss. Another, under Colonel Capron, was dispersed by a charge of Confederate cavalry; and the remainder, about one thousand strong, commanded by Stoneman himself, and who had been employed in checking Iverson while the others should escape, were surrounded by the active Georgian, and seven hundred of them were made prisoners. The remainder escaped. Iverson had only about five hundred men, but deceived his antagonist with a show of superior force. Stoneman's unfortunate expedition cost Sherman about one-third of his cavalry, without any compensating advantage. Garrard, meanwhile, had been compelled to skirmish heavily with Wheeler's cavalry, near Flat Rock, where Stoneman had left him. Hearing nothing from his superior, he returned to the army before Atlanta.

July 27, 1864.

Simultaneously with the raids just mentioned, Sherman began a movement for flanking Hood out of Atlanta. Some important changes in the commands of his army had just been made." By order of the President, O. O. Howard' was made the successor of McPherson in the command of the Army of the Tennessee. This preference was regarded by Gen

1 See page 61.

HOOD FLANKED AT ATLANTA.

389

eral Hooker as a disparagement of himself, and he resigned the command of the Twentieth Corps, which was assigned to General H. W. Slocum. The latter was then at Vicksburg, and the corps was ably handled by General A. S. Williams, until the arrival of his superior. General Palmer resigned the command of the Four

August 6,

1864.

August 22.

teenth Army Corps," and
was succeeded by that
true soldier and most use-
ful officer, General Jefferson C. Davis.
The latter at once announced as his
chief-of-staff, Colonel A. C. McClurg,
an active young officer of the West,
who had been the adjutant-general of
the Fourteenth Corps since soon after
the battle of Missionaries' Ridge, in
which he was distinguished. General
D. S. Stanley succeeded
General Howard as com- July 27.
mander of the Fourth Corps.

Sherman began his new flanking movement by shifting the

Army of the Tennessee

ates.

July 27.

H. W. SLOCUM.

from his extreme left on the Decatur road, to his extreme right on Proctor's Creek. General Howard had the chief supervision of the movement, which was made en echelon. Dodge's corps was on the left nearest the ConfederBlair's was to come up on its right, and Logan's on Blair's right, refused as a flank. By ten o'clock on the morning of the 28th, the army was in position. The vigilant Hood had penetrated Sherman's design, but not until the change of the position of the Army of the Tennessee was substantially effected, and the men were casting up rude breast works along their new front.

JEFFERSON C. DAVIS.

Hardee and S. D. Lee,' with the expectation of finding Howard's forces in some confusion, on account of their shifting movements. He was mistaken, and disastrous consequences followed his misapprehension. His heavy masses were thrown swiftly against Logan's corps, on Howard's right,

1 When Hood took command of the army, his corps was placed in charge of General S. D. Lee, an experienced officer, who had performed much service in Tennessee.