| THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA, GA., JULY 22, 1864. |
Thus equipped and disciplined, the army set out from Chattanooga on the 5th of May (the day on which Grant entered the Wilderness), following the line of the railroad south toward Atlanta. A direct approach to Dalton was impossible, because of Johnston's fortifications at Tunnel Hill. So Sherman made a feint of attacking there, and sent McPherson southward to march through the gap in the mountains, strike Resaca, and cut the railroad over which Johnston drew all his supplies. Here at the very outset was the brilliant opportunity of the campaign, not to occur again. McPherson reached Resaca, but found fortifications and an opposing force there, and just lacked the necessary boldness to attack promptly and vigorously, thrusting his army into a position where it would have made the destruction of Johnston's almost certain. Instead of this, he fell back to the gap, and waited for the remainder of the army to join him there. But this enabled Johnston to learn what was going on, and when Sherman had passed down to the gap with his entire army, he found, of course, that his antagonist had fallen back to Resaca and concentrated his forces there in a strong position.
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MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN M. SCHOFIELD. |
General Sherman says of this error of McPherson's: "McPherson had startled Johnston in his fancied security, but had not done the full measure of his work. He had in hand twenty-three thousand of the best men of the army, and could have walked into Resaca (then held only by a small brigade), or he could have placed his whole force astride the railroad above Resaca, and there have easily withstood the attack of all of Johnston's army, with the knowledge that Thomas and Schofield were on his heels. Had he done so, I am certain that Johnston would not have ventured to attack him in position, but would have retreated eastward by Spring Place, and we should have captured half his army and all his artillery and wagons at the very beginning of the campaign. But at the critical moment McPherson seems to have been a little cautious. Still he was perfectly justified by his orders, and fell back and assumed an unassailable defensive position in Sugar Valley, on the Resaca side of Snake Creek Gap. As soon as informed of this, I determined to pass the whole army through Snake Creek Gap, and to move on Resaca with the main army."
On the 14th of May, Sherman's army was in position around Resaca on the north and west, and on that and the next day there was continual skirmishing and artillery firing, though nothing like a great battle. Neither general was willing to fight at disadvantage; Sherman would not attack the intrenchments, and Johnston would not come out of them. McPherson, on the right, advanced his line of battle till he gained an elevated position from which his guns could destroy the railroad bridge over the Oostenaula in the Confederate rear, and all attempts to drive him out of this position ended only in bloody repulse. On the left of the line, Hooker exhibited something of his usual dash by capturing a small portion of the enemy's intrenchments, with four guns and some prisoners. Meanwhile, Sherman had thrown two pontoon bridges across the river three miles below the town, so that he could send over a detachment to break the railroad, and had also sent a division of cavalry down the river, to cross at some lower point for the same purpose. Johnston, therefore, seeing his communications threatened so seriously, and having no good roads by which he could retreat eastward, did not wait to be cooped up in Resaca, but in the night of the 15th retired southward across the river, following the railroad, and burned the bridges behind him. Sherman thus came into possession of Resaca; but Resaca was not what he wanted, and without the slightest delay he started his entire army in pursuit of the enemy. Hooker crossed the river by fords and ferries above the town; Thomas and Schofield repaired the half-burned bridges and used them; McPherson crossed by the pontoons.
The enemy was found, on the 19th, in position at Cassville, just east of Kingston, and apparently ready to fight; but when Sherman's columns converged on the place the Confederates, after some sharp skirmishing, retreated again in the night of the 20th, and crossed Etowah River. Johnston had really intended to fight here, and he explains his refusal to do so by saying that Hood and Polk told him their corps could not hold their positions, as a portion of each was enfiladed by the National artillery. Hood's version of the mysterious retreat is to the effect that he wanted to assume the offensive, marching out with his own corps and a part of Polk's to overwhelm Schofield, who was separated from the remainder of the National army.
Here Sherman halted for a few days, to get his army well together, re-provision it, and repair the railroad in his rear. Twenty years before, when he was a young lieutenant, he had ridden through the country from Charleston, S. C., to northwestern Georgia, and he still retained a good recollection of the topography. Knowing that Allatoona Pass, through which runs the railroad south of Kingston, was very strong and would probably be held by Johnston, he diverged from the railroad at Kingston, passing considerably west of it, and directed his columns toward Dallas; his purpose being to threaten Marietta and Atlanta so as to cause Johnston to withdraw from Allatoona and release his hold on the railroad, which became more and more necessary to the invading army as it advanced into the country. Johnston understood this manoeuvre, and moved westward to meet it. The armies, in an irregular way—for each was somewhat scattered and uncertain of the other's exact position—came into collision at the cross-roads by New Hope Church. Around this place for six days there was continuous fighting, sometimes mere skirmishing, and sometimes an attack by a heavy detachment of one party or the other; but all such attacks, on either side, were costly and fruitless. The general advantage, however, was with Sherman; for as he gradually got his lines into proper order, he strengthened his right, and then reached out with his left toward the railroad, secured all the wagon-roads from Allatoona, and sent out a strong force of cavalry to occupy that pass and repair the railroad. Johnston then left his position at New Hope Church, and took up a new one.
Thus ended the month of May in this campaign, where each commander exercised the utmost skill, neither was guilty of anything rash, and the results were such as would naturally follow from the military conditions with which it began. The losses on each side, thus far, were fewer than ten thousand men—killed, wounded, and missing; but strong positions had been successively taken up, turned, abandoned; and Sherman was steadily drawing nearer to his goal.
Johnston's new position was on the slopes of Kenesaw, Pine, and Lost Mountains, thus crossing the railroad above Marietta. It had the advantage of a height from which everything done by Sherman's approaching army could be seen; but it had the disadvantage of a line ten miles long, and so disposed that one part could not readily reinforce another. Though heavy rains were falling, the National army kept close to its antagonist, and intrenched at every advance. The railroad was repaired behind it, and the trains that brought its supplies ran up almost to its front. In one instance, an engineer detached his locomotive and ran forward to a tank, where he quietly took in the necessary supply of water, while a Confederate battery on the mountain fired several shots, but none of them quite hit the locomotive, which woke the echoes with its shrill whistling as it ran back out of range.