For these facts, read again the Federal dispatches that I have given. It is therefore manifest that only by tardy and cautious movements, or no movements, as Sherman ordered, arising from Hood's fighting qualities, they failed to place a powerful force across our road before I left the bridge across Allatoona creek or at any time on the 6th, the day following.
Sherman at first, or "for a time, attributed this result" (my withdrawing my troops) "to the effect of Gen. Cox's march" (see page 147, Vol. II., of his "Memoirs"), which, in truth, was mainly the cause; but he generously gave—however erroneously—all the credit to his lieutenant, with whom he was well pleased for "holding on" and "holding out" through faith in "his promises to come to his relief," and then complimented him in a general order that Corse must have felt as being a little ironical, save only as relates to "holding out" with a faith in Sherman which can be found in St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, where he writes that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
Sherman's signal dispatches to Corse before and during the battle to "hold the fort," intended only for their encouragement, has now become a world-wide inspiration in the form of a gospel song written by the evangelist P. P. Bliss.
Mr. Joseph M. Brown writes that "the circumstances of the messages and the battle being narrated to the evangelist, he caught from them the idea for the stirring words:
Ho! my comrades, see the signal
Waving in the sky!
Reënforcements now appearing,
Victory is nigh.
Chorus.—Hold the fort, for I am coming!
Jesus signals still;