CHAPTER XXIV.
PEACH-TREE CREEK.
DURING the night all the rebels evacuated Lookout Mountain, and retreated upon the main army, posted at the eastward of them. The storming of the heights was part of the great battle of Chattanooga, directed by General Grant with the most consummate skill, and carried out by his subordinates with a zeal and energy which insured a great and decisive victory. Chattanooga was ours; East Tennessee was purged of the rebels who had been persecuting the devoted loyalists from the beginning of the war; and with these events substantially closed the campaign of 1863.
Our limited space compels us to pass over the time from this period to the July of the next year. Somers and De Banyan still held their positions on the staff of the general, spending the winter in the vicinity of Chattanooga. There were a great many letters passed between the young captain and his friends, and all of them from him were not directed to Pinchbrook. Between himself and Lilian a most excellent understanding still subsisted.
In the reorganization of the army, which followed the well-deserved promotion of Grant to the rank of lieutenant general, “Fighting Joe” was placed in command of the twentieth corps; and in Sherman’s bloody and decisive advance to Atlanta, he was one of the central figures in the picture. He was the idol of his corps, as he had been in the Army of the Potomac. His men loved and trusted him, and he never disappointed them. He was always in the thickest of the danger, to support and to cheer them.
Everything went wrong with the rebels. Johnston, beaten and flanked time and again, fell back, until Atlanta, the objective point of Sherman, was reached, where he was superseded by Hood, who was eminently a fighting man, and was expected to retrieve the failing fortunes of the Confederacy. On the 20th of July was fought the battle of Peach-Tree Creek, which was a desperate attempt on the part of the newly-appointed rebel commander to redeem the disasters of the past. The attack was made against a weak place in the line, where there was a large gap between the divisions of Geary and Williams.
Into this gap Hood hurled his compact column; who, inspired with a hope that their new leader would turn the tide of battle setting so strongly against the rebels, fought with unwonted desperation. They poured, in solid masses, through the open space, and fell upon the boys of the twentieth corps with fiendish valor. For a moment they shook—but “Fighting Joe” flashed before them like a meteor; his full tones were heard as buoyant as in the hour of victory, and the soldiers gathered themselves up under this potent inspiration, and bravely faced the impetuous foe. From both sides of the gap, into which the rebels had wedged themselves, deadly volleys of musketry were poured in upon them. They were mowed down like ripe grain before the scythe. They bit the dust in hundreds; but the survivors maintained the conflict.
Still the commander of the twentieth corps dashed along the line, and everywhere restored the breaking column. His voice was a charm on that day, and more than any other of the war in which he had been engaged, this was his battle; for, with his voice, his eye, and his commanding presence, he banished panic, and wrested victory from the arms of defeat. The assault was triumphantly repelled; and doubtless the rebels believed that the Fabian policy of Johnston was preferable to the bloody and bootless desperation of Hood.
The battle was won; and many and earnest were the congratulations exchanged among officers and soldiers after the bloody affair. De Banyan and Somers had been particularly active, not only in bearing orders, but in rallying the troops; and the general personally thanked them for their devotion: at the same time the aid-de-camp was directed to convey information of the result to a general whose position might be affected by it.