"When the enemy's troops were about to leave they set fire to immense trains of cars and wagons, loaded with army stores and ammunition. More than a hundred cars were burned at the Augusta depot, shell, torpedoes, fireballs, and boxes of ammunition popping, blazing and roaring, shook the city and were heard plainly by us at the river. When Colonel Coburn entered the city they were exploding in the forts, and sounded like the continual discharge of artillery.
"What machinery had not been removed has been destroyed. The great rolling mill has been taken to Augusta, and it is said, will be taken to Deep River, North Carolina, and put up. Our position here cuts the enemy off from his greatest iron works in Northern Georgia. There are some of considerable extent yet used by them near Selma, Alabama. We see fire brick here which are made near Augusta, the bed of clay having been discovered since the war; before that time they were procured in the North. We see also in the ruins of the rolling mill a quantity of gunboat iron five inches thick, ready rolled for plating.
"The surrounding county is hilly and poor. South of this the water is not good, and the land is much lower and richer. To the east, about fifteen miles, is Stone Mountain, a grand elevation of more than two thousand feet, affording a prospect of unequalled extent and beauty.
"It is a solitary sugar-loaf, and looms up from the horizon gray and grand. Northwest, some eight miles, is the Chattahoochee River, a yellow, muddy and swift-running stream, some two hundred yards wide. Chattahoochee means 'blossoming rocks.' The Cherokees so named it from a great ledge of beautifully-colored rock on its banks, which resembles flowers. The river of 'blossoming rocks' is anything but a beautiful stream. Peach Tree Creek, the now famous scene of the battle of the 20th of July, is three miles north, a muddy, deep slimy stream. Its true name is 'Pitch-Tree,' from a great pitch-pine tree on its banks. The Indians called it 'Pitch-Tree.'
"The whole face of the earth is marked and scared for many miles around with the rival fortifications."
A quarter of a century has nearly obliterated them all.
A series of military operations around Atlanta followed. Further pursuit of Hood's army was for a time suspended while Sherman's army rested, and its leader was planning the next step in the campaign. Thus passed the month of September. Many changes occurred in the composition and organization of the army. The field portion of the Army of the Tennessee was consolidated into two corps numbered Fifteenth and Seventeenth, and commanded, during the temporary absence of Logan and Blair, by P. J. Osterhaus and T. E. G. Ransom, General Howard retaining his place at the head of that army which now lay at East Point, and the Sixteenth corps now in the Mississippi Valley. The Army of the Cumberland, under General Thomas, was in Atlanta. The Army of the Ohio was at Decatur under General Cox, General Schofield having returned temporarily to Knoxville. Atlanta was carefully fortified, on a smaller but stronger scale than had been done by Johnston, so that it might be held by a comparatively small force when Sherman's main army had left.
As for the Rebel army, it changed its tactics altogether, and was soon moving westward and northward. Apparently Hood's intention was by, as he said, towing him back, to cut Sherman's communications, and if possible carry the war back into Tennessee. If Hood would only march back to Tennessee, Sherman would gladly give him rations and transportation for the journey. Hood did march back, and the result of his doing so may be summed up at this point in a few words. He tried to destroy the garrisons Sherman had left behind him here and there, but Sherman turned on him all but Slocum's Corps, so that he utterly failed to do so. French's Division of the Rebel army, for example, attacked Allatoona, where Howard had placed a handful of troops. General Corse hastened with help from Rome. French sent in a note to Corse, summoning him to surrender, and threatening that if he did not do so he would be attacked, and every man of his command massacred. To this monstrous message the undaunted Corse defiantly replied that the Rebels were welcome to come and take the place if they thought they were able. French immediately assaulted the place with great fury, and again and again his overwhelming columns surged against the works. But at nightfall they were compelled to retire with dreadful loss. Next morning Sherman reached the top of Kenesaw, to within signalling distance of Corse, eighteen miles away. Signal flags waved from peak to peak, conveying Sherman's message to Corse, which has been idealized in a popular song, "Hold the fort, for I am coming." Corse's reply has become historic. He had had a chip from his cheek shot away by a Rebel ball, but was only the more determined to hold out. He said to Sherman, "I am short part of an ear and cheekbone, but am able to whip all hell yet!"
During October, Hood moved to the northwest, Howard following him up vigorously. At last, at the end of the month, as he ran toward Gaylesville, Ala., Sherman decided to let Hood go, trusting to Schofield and Thomas, whom he sent with troops to Nashville, to deal with him, should he enter Tennessee. He did enter Tennessee, and met his fate at Franklin and Nashville.
But to return to Sherman's work at Atlanta, before Hood's flanking and final flight. Sherman determined to march forward through Georgia to the sea, and to make Atlanta, as he left it behind him, a purely military post, occupied and controlled solely by his army. On September 4th he made this order: