General Howard moved on the right toward Jonesboro’, General Thomas had the centre, whose goal was Conch’s, on the Decatur and Fayetteville road, and General Schofield the extreme left. To get a clear impression of the army operations here, you will need the help of a large map, on which the railroads and towns about Atlanta can be seen in their relation to it. Meanwhile General Hood was growing merry over a fancied retreat by the manœuvring and confident Sherman. The long trains moving to the rear, and the course of the battalions backward toward Sandtown on the Chattahochie, looked like it. But the commander knew his enemy and the way to trap him.
August 28th, the grand army was keeping cheerful step to the music of the march to conflict and victory; the long columns of warriors proudly gazing after their chief, who with equal pride cared for and led them to the fields of conquest.
Atlanta was now the object of enthusiastic interest. It was profound strategy which divided the rebel forces at Jonesboro’ and Atlanta, throwing the Union army like a wedge between them, thus making the fall of Atlanta certain: “During the night of the 28th, the rest of the army being well under way, the Twenty-third Corps withdrew and followed the general movement toward the Macon Road, General Schofield timing his movements with the corps further on the left, which had the longer arc of the circle to traverse. The general line of march for the Twenty-third Corps was toward the junction of the two railroads at East Point, the Third division, under General Cox, holding the advance, and with the Second Division, under General Hascall, occasionally erecting temporary works to guard against threatened attacks from the enemy, who were on the alert against this demonstration. On the 31st these two divisions effected a junction with General Stanley, of the Fourth Corps. General Hascall’s division went into position to guard the left toward East Point, and General Cox pushed forward toward the Macon road, which was reached by two or three o’clock p. m., General Stanley, of the Fourth Corps, striking it about the same time. The troops of these two corps at once set to work fortifying, while details were sent out, which destroyed the track for miles. No opposition was encountered, and by dark strong works had been thrown up, facing east and south, the work of destruction on the railroad being continued through the night. On the morning of the 1st of September, Newton’s and Kimball’s divisions were marched along the line of the railroad the length of a brigade front, and at a given signal the ties and rails were lifted from their bed, piled up and burnt. Thus a mile and a half was turned up and destroyed in half an hour. An advance of another mile and a half was then made down the road, and the operation repeated. Thus alternately marching and destroying the road, the two divisions marched a distance of ten miles, to within two miles of Jonesboro’, where they formed a junction with the Fourteenth Corps. Soon after the Twenty-third Corps, which followed the Fourth, came into position on its left. Further to the left was the Army of Tennessee.
“Previous to this the enemy had discovered the direction of General Sherman’s march, and two corps under Hardee had been sent to confront him at Jonesboro’, Hood meanwhile remaining for the defence of Atlanta. Daring the night of August 30th the march of a rebel column was heard on our left and centre, and in the morning two corps were found massed on our right. At daybreak, the Second brigade of Hazen’s division of the Fifteenth Corps advanced and drove the enemy from a hill, which gave, our artillery command at Jonesboro’, and the railroad less than one half mile distant. This success was immediately followed up by the reënforcement of the brigade holding the hill, by a brigade from Osterhaus’ division. Toward three p. m. the enemy appeared in front of Hazen’s position, Lee’s corps advancing to the assault through a field of corn, while Hardee’s Corps attempted a flanking movement on the right, which was checked by Harrow’s division. Both divisions were soon engaged in checking the desperate and determined assault with which the enemy sought to overwhelm them. The rebels were driven back, only to rally again and again for the assault, until after two hours of desperate fighting they were finally repulsed. They had fortunately struck a position which we held too strongly to be easily dislodged. A reënforcement of two regiments were sent during the attack, by General Howard to General Wood, and a brigade of the Seventeenth Corps, Colonel Bryant’s, to General Hazen. Failing in this assault, Cleburne’s rebel division marched to our extreme right, and assaulted Kilpatrick, who held the bridge on Flint River. General Kilpatrick succeeded, however, in holding his position until relieved by General Giles B. Smith’s division.
“During the night Hardee despatched Lee’s corps to look after the safety of Atlanta, so that but a single rebel corps was found opposed to our army on the morning of September 1st. This corps lay in position in front of Jonesboro’, with their right resting on the railroad. Having failed in the assault with which they hoped to drive back our army, they were prepared to resist its further advance in the best position they could secure. They had a large number of guns in position, which did effective service during the day. Late in the afternoon General Davis formed his troops for a charge upon the enemy’s position; Brigadier-General Carlin’s division on the left, and Brigadier-General Morgan, joining the Fifteenth Corps on the right, General Baird being in reserve. The line was formed in the arc of a circle on the edge of the woods, the two flanks thrown forward overlapping the enemy, who held a position on some commanding ridges in front, covering Jonesboro’. In the face of a deadly fire of musketry, shell, and canister, the gallant Fourteenth Corps charged upon the rebel position, driving them from their breastworks and capturing many prisoners, including Brigadier-General Govan, several colonels and other commissioned officers. Eight guns were also taken, among them part of Loomis’s battery captured at Chickamauga. The troops captured belonged to the fighting division of Cleburne. The approach of night prevented pursuit of the broken columns of the rebels, who escaped under cover of the darkness.
“At daybreak on the 2d, the Fourth and Twenty-third Corps advanced in pursuit of the retreating rebels, who came to bay near Lovejoy’s Station, six miles beyond Jonesboro’, toward Macon, taking position on a wooded ridge behind a swamp bordering a creek. Some skirmishing was had with the enemy’s first line until night, which was spent by our troops in intrenching. The enemy being found in strong position, and his retreat being assured, no further advance was attempted.
“Meantime Atlanta was alive with excitement. Despair had succeeded confidence as it became known that Hardee had been driven from Jonesboro’ south, while Hood was left in Atlanta with his communications severed, and our army threatening both from the north and the south. Early on Thursday, September 1st, the removal of supplies and ammunition commenced, and was continued through the day. Large quantities of provisions that could not be removed were distributed to the citizens, the storehouses at the same time being thrown open to the troops as they passed through the city. The rolling stock of the railroad, consisting of about one hundred cars and six engines, was gathered together and destroyed. The cars were laden with the surplus ammunition taken out on the Augusta Railroad, and set on fire and blown up, making the earth tremble with the explosion. Over one thousand bales of cotton were also given to the torch. The scene of confusion and excitement among the town’s people when it became evident that the city was to be evacuated, is beyond description. Every possible and impossible vehicle was brought into requisition to carry away the effects of the inhabitants, who, in sorrowful procession, took up their line of march toward the South. For the third time the peripatetic Memphis Appeal was on the wing, its editor reporting himself at this time ‘thoroughly demoralized.’ From the shanties and cellars of the city swarmed out the lower classes of the population to seize what they could from the general wreck. The explosion of ammunition was heard by General Slocum, of the Twentieth Corps, seven miles distant. Suspecting the cause, he sent out a heavy column to reconnoitre at daybreak on the morning of the 2d instant. They met with no opposition, and pushed forward on the roads leading into Atlanta from the north and northwest. Arriving near the city, they were met by the mayor, Mr. Calhoun, who formally surrendered the city. The formalities disposed of, our troops entered Atlanta with banners flying and music playing, the inhabitants looking on in silence. General Slocum established his headquarters at the Trout House, the principal hotel of the city. Eleven heavy guns, mostly sixty-six pounders, were found in the forts of the city, and others were subsequently discovered buried in fictitious graves. About three thousand muskets, in good order, and three locomotives were also secured, besides large quantities of manufactured tobacco. About two hundred rebel stragglers were gathered up by the Second Massachusetts, which was detailed for provost duty, its colonel, Cogswell, being appointed provost-marshal. But a small proportion of the inhabitants remained in the city, and these principally of the lower classes, and tradesmen who proposed to make an honest penny out of the army. Their hopes were speedily cut short by a peremptory order from General Sherman ordering all civilians from the city.”
In looking back upon this campaign, a very remarkable feature of it was the protection of his line of communication: “It was not a little precarious, and more than once aroused the anxiety of the nation. It might well occasion solicitude. His base was, in one sense, not at Chattanooga, but at Nashville; with the former point as a secondary base. Accordingly, the enemy bent his efforts not only to breaking the railroad between Atlanta and Ringgold, striking it at Dalton and Calhoun, but also to raiding on the road from Chattanooga back to Nashville. From Atlanta to Chattanooga the railroad is one hundred and thirty-five miles long; from Chattanooga to Nashville, only a little less. With this line of two hundred and fifty miles, stretched clear across the great Alleghany chain from flank to flank, in a disputed country, filled with guerrillas and hostile inhabitants, with myriads of nooks and eyries in the mountainous region, apt for the assemblage and protection of marauding bands, with that attenuated line infested by many squadrons of the best cavalry in the Confederacy, long accustomed to be victorious everywhere—cavalry who had devastated almost with impunity the broad States of Kentucky and Tennessee again and again, under such bold and skilful leaders as John Morgan, Forrest, Wheeler, Stephen Lee, Rhoddy, and Chalmers—in spite of all, for four eventful months, through victory and repulse, in action and repose alike, Sherman has been able to keep his lines strong and clear.
“While all the Southern newspapers and many Southern generals, and while even English journals of great ability were proving by all the laws of logic and strategy that Sherman must now retreat, Sherman did not retreat. At the very moment, indeed, when the exultation of the Confederates was the highest at the absolute certainty of his downfall, Sherman pushed on and took Atlanta, ending logic and campaign both at once.”
It was one of the grandest, most decisive and exciting scenes of the civil war, when the great leader of the Union battalions in Georgia enjoyed the pause in marches and battles afforded by the occupation of Atlanta. The sound of booming cannon, the crack of musketry, all the Babel discord of war, was comparatively hushed. In the distance the foe was reluctantly, slowly retreating; and along the track of both armies the new-made graves and the wounded were lying, the waymarks of a gigantic struggle for