Schofield ordered the divisions of the Twenty-third Corps to cross the Connasauga at different places, and make their way by different roads eastward to the Federal road crossing of the Coosawattee, turning south after crossing that river and marching till abreast of Adairsville and some four or five miles distant from it. As we had to gain several miles of easting and to cross two rivers before marching southward, ours was, of course, much the longer route; and as the pontoons were all in use at Resaca and Lay's Ferry, we had to find fords or build trestle-bridges.
I marched my own division to Hogan's Ford on the Connasauga, two miles below Tilton, and there crossed in water so deep that the men had to strip and carry their clothes and arms on their heads. Once over we pushed for the Federal road and the crossing of the Coosawattee at Field's Ferry. The other two divisions of the corps crossed the Connasauga at or near Fite's Ferry, where were trestle-bridges. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 210.]
General Hooker started upon the Newtown road, which runs southward some miles upon a long, narrow ridge which here separates the Oostanaula from its tributary; but before he had gone far he learned that the crossing at Newtown (the mouth of the Connasauga) was unfordable, and other means of getting over doubtful. He now turned abruptly to the east, crossed the Connasauga at Fite's, and marched toward McClure's Ford on the Coosawattee. [Footnote:Id., pp. 205, 206.] In moving out from Hogan's (or Hobart's) Ford, I had learned that the road from the north which crosses the Coosawattee at McClure's was probably the principal and shortest route to Cassville and had reported this to General Schofield, who ordered Judah's and Hovey's division to take the most direct roads to McClure's. These columns, however, ran into Hooker's, which were making for the same point and had headed Schofield's off, having the inner of the concentric routes on which we were marching. Neither at McClure's nor the more distant ferry at Field's Mill was there any bridge or tolerable ford, and Hooker was no better off than he would have been at Newtown. This movement had wholly disjointed Sherman's plan of keeping the three armies upon separate lines of march. Finding no means for rapid crossing at McClure's, he pushed one of his divisions to Field's, and so occupied and blocked both of the Coosawattee crossings, which by the orders should have been wholly at Schofield's disposal. We found ourselves obliged therefore to camp on the north side of the Coosawattee on the night of the 16th, instead of being well over that river and ready for a prompt advance on the 17th. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 210, 211, 220, 221, 225, 226.] Hooker himself might much better have obeyed his original orders. He reported to Thomas at ten o'clock on the morning of the 17th that he was not yet over, and had not the means of constructing a bridge that would stand; in short, that he had been "bothered beyond parallel." [Footnote: Id., p. 221.] When Schofield requested that he would allow our troops to take precedence of the Twentieth Corps wagons at either the ferry or the bridge, so that Sherman's expectation might not be disappointed, Hooker suggested that we should march back to Resaca and follow Thomas across the bridges there, thus getting into the place he himself should have taken if the Newtown crossing had been really impossible! [Footnote: Id., p. 227.]
Modern systems lay great stress upon the most scrupulous care on the part of corps commanders to follow the roads assigned them, and to avoid trespassing upon those assigned to others. Moltke has even condensed the whole strategic art of moving troops into "marching divided in order to fight united," and to avoid interference and confusion of columns en route is quite as essential as to keep tactical manoeuvres on the battle-field from crossing each other. [Footnote: See Prince Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's Letters on Strategy (Wolseley Series), vol. ii. pp. 160, 161, 185, 237, etc.] No better proof of the necessity of the rule could be given than this. Sherman was most anxious to bring Johnston to battle in the open country between the two rivers, and ordered his subordinates to press the pursuit and to engage the enemy wherever he might be overtaken, trusting to the quick advance of the several columns to their support. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 201, 202, 211, 220, 232, 242.] Anything which delayed the columns or put them on different roads from those indicated by the commanding general, directly tended to thwart his plans. All of Sherman's dispatches during the 17th, 18th, and 19th of May show his disappointment at not getting forward more rapidly.
Johnston seemed disposed, in the afternoon of the 17th, to meet Sherman's wish for a decisive battle, and had selected a position a mile or two north of Adairsville, where the valley of the Oothcaloga Creek seemed narrow enough to give strong positions for his flanks on the hills bordering it. Preliminary orders were given and the cavalry was strongly supported by infantry to hold back Sherman's advance-guard till the deployment should be completed. The skirmishing was so brisk that, at a distance, it sounded like a battle; but upon testing the position by a partial deployment, Johnston concluded that his army would not fill it, and he resumed his retreat on Cassville and Kingston, hoping that Sherman's columns would be so separated that he could concentrate upon one of them, and so fight his adversary in detail. [Footnote: Narrative, pp. 319, 320.]
Schofield had pressed the march of his troops after getting over the Coosawattee, but the interruptions had been such that the distance made was not great, though the time was long and the troops were more tired than if they had made double the number of miles on an unobstructed road. My division was on the extreme left flank and in advance. After crossing the river at Field's Mill, the infantry by Hooker's foot-bridge and the artillery by the flat-boat ferry, I marched at ten o'clock in the evening and reached Big Spring Creek at two o'clock in the morning of the 18th. Resting only till five o'clock, we marched again, going southward on the Cassville road three miles, thence westward on the Adairsville road five miles to Marsteller's Mill. The other divisions of our corps took roads westward of that which I followed, and the cavalry under Stoneman passed beyond our left flank, scouting up the valley of Salequa Creek as far as Fairmount and Pine Log Post-Office. Hooker moved two of his divisions toward Calhoun after getting over the Coosawattee, and these regained the position relative to the rest of Thomas's army which the corps had been ordered to take. The other division (Butterfield's), which had crossed in advance of my own at Field's Mill, was necessarily on roads assigned to Schofield's command, and a good deal of interference was inevitable. Hooker was personally with this division, and in the afternoon of the 18th met General Schofield at Marsteller's Mill, and then went forward about six miles to the foot of the Gravelly Plateau, Butterfield's division going still further forward on its top. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 238-242. The Atlas of the Official Records does not give the routes of all the columns of either Hooker's or Schofield's corps, nor does it give the line of march of the cavalry on our left. The march of my own division is fixed by the memoranda of my personal diary of the campaign. The official "Atlas" (Plate lviii.) gives two mills as Marsteller's. It is difficult to identify the several roads, but my own line of march was the principal Cassville road leading from Field's Mills and ferry through Sonora until we reached the road running directly to Adairsville. On this last we marched to Marsteller's Mills. Our route on the 19th is also incorrectly marked on the map. See Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 256.]
General Schofield assembled the corps at the mills and rested for the night. Early on the 19th my division took the advance and marched southward on by-roads till we overtook Hooker's corps and found it in line of battle, its movement being disputed by the enemy's cavalry. Schofield deployed his corps on Hooker's left, my division taking the extreme flank and advancing in line to the south fork of Two Run Creek. Crossing this, we went forward to a position a mile northeast of Cassville, briskly skirmishing with part of Hood's corps. We found that we were opposite the extreme right of the Confederate position, which was a strong one on the hills behind Cassville; but an exchange of artillery shots satisfied us that we to some extent enfiladed their intrenchments. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. ii. p. 680.] The concentration of Thomas's army with Schofield's made a continuous line facing the enemy on the north and west. Night was falling as we took position.
Johnston had followed the railroad to Kingston, where he was joined by French's division coming to Polk's corps from Rome, and still stuck to the general line of the railway to Cassville, though this led him by a considerable detour to the east. His manifest policy was to make the largest use of the railroad to move his baggage and supply his troops, for wagon trains were not over-abundant with the Confederates. He naturally reckoned also that Sherman could not go far from the same line, and as the road crossed the Etowah near the gorges of the Allatoona hills, he wished to lead the national commander into that difficult country from the north, instead of taking the more direct wagon-roads from Kingston toward Marietta. Could Sherman have been sure of the route his adversary would take, no doubt he would have concentrated his columns by shortest roads on Cassville, gaining possibly a day thereby. [Footnote: Id., pt. iv. pp. 242, 266.]
The position on the hills behind the village of Cassville was so strong a one, and Johnston so much desired to offer battle at an early day, that he resolved to retreat no further and to try conclusions with Sherman here. He signified this in an unusually formal manner by issuing a brief and stirring address to his troops, in which he said that as their communications were now secure, they would turn and meet our advancing columns. "Fully confiding in the conduct of the officers and the courage of the soldiers," he said, "I lead you to battle" [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 728.] But when our left flank crossed Two Run Creek and partly turned the right of his position, his corps commanders, Hood and Polk, became so uneasy that they protested against giving battle there, and induced Johnston to continue the retreat through Cartersville across the Etowah River. He saw the mistake he had made as soon as it was done, and never ceased to regret it. [Footnote: Narrative, p. 323, etc.] The Richmond government had been disappointed at his retreat from Dalton and Resaca and its continuation through Adairsville. His strained relations with Mr. Davis were rapidly tending toward his deprivation of command. But more strictly military reasons made his change of purpose very undesirable. Hardly anything is more destructive of the confidence of an army than vacillation. The order to fight had been published, and even a defeat might be less mischievous than the sudden retreat in the night without joining the battle which had been so formally announced. Either the order had been an error or the retreat was one. Every soldier in the army knew this, and the morale of the whole was necessarily affected by it.
Sherman had no mind to follow the enemy into the defiles of Allatoona from Cartersville. His position at Kingston offered a far more easy way to turn that fastness by the south, if he could replenish his stores, rebuild the bridges behind him, and make Kingston the base for a march upon Dallas and thence on Marietta. On the 20th of May his orders were issued for the new movement, to begin on the 23d with preparation for a twenty days' separation from the railroad. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 271.] My own duty on the 20th was to follow the enemy's rear-guard to the river and learn the condition of the bridges and crossings. The division marched early, most of the distance to Cartersville being made in line of battle, the opposition being at times stubborn. The purpose of this was probably to prepare for the destruction of the bridges, which were burned as soon as the rear-guard crossed. We sent detachments to destroy the Etowah Mills and Iron Works a few miles above; [Footnote: Id., pp. 286, 298.] meanwhile General Schofield concentrated the Army of the Ohio at Cartersville, General Thomas occupied Kingston as the centre, and McPherson came into position on the right near the same place. General J. C. Davis's division had occupied Rome, finding there important iron-works and machine-shops as well as considerable depots of supplies. [Footnote: Id., p. 264.] General Blair was advancing from Decatur, Ala., with the Seventeenth Corps, under orders to relieve Davis at Rome, when the latter would rejoin Palmer's corps at the front.