further along the column, in the advance and rear of this point of attack, but not with any serious effect.

direction. Groves of trees and underbrush were interspered with cornfields, and old fields overgrown with weeds and bramble over this area of three miles square; the Tupelo road, as stated, lying east and west directly through our camp. The ground occupied by onr camp was wooded, and declined slightly toward the east, or rather it was the head of a little valley that opened toward the east, so that the interior of our lines was lower than the circular crest in which our advantage. It was a magnificent position in which to receive the attack of the enemy. The superior generalship and good judgment of General Smith, in selecting this position, were fully attested by the impregnability of our lines when assaulted, and the comparatively small loss we sustained, considering the heaviness of the enemy's fire.

Very soon after this flank attack, a fight opened at the head of our column. The enemy had planted a battery on the right of the road, commanding the road, and had lines of infantry in advance of the battery. The First brigade, Colonel McWilliams, and the Second brigade, Colonel Wilkins, engaged the enemy and drove him out of range of the road, except his bat-lines of battle were formed, giving us a decided tery, which continued to play with some effect until the entire column passed. In the column on the road, one man in the Seventh Minnesota lost a leg by a solid shot, and one in the Twelfth Iowa had his head shot off. A very heavy musketry fire on both sides was kept up for half an hour or longer, but it was late, and our only object at that hour was to get forward and into a good position for the grand fight that was expected and did follow next day. Our losses were slight. I cannot state them accurately, nor name the particular regiments of the First and Second brigades that were in the fight at the head of the column. The Ninth Minnesota, of the Second brigade, I know was in. It encountered a party of about thirty rebels, who mistook our line for their own, and before they discovered their mistake were cut down to the last man by a volley from the whole line of the Ninth Minnesota. One of our batteries was for a time in position on the right of the road, and poured a deadly fire of canister into the enemy at short range. The battery lost several horses.

Our lines may be described as having the shape of a horse shoe, with the top to the west on the road and open between the heels toward the east.

The First division, General Mower's, constitutes the right of the line; its left, Colonel Wood's brigade; the Third, extending from the road northward, bending around to the east, facing west and northwest; the Fourth brigade, Colonel Ward's, on the right of the Third, fronting north northwest, while the Second brigade, Colonel Mekin, the First brigade, Colonel MeMillan, were still further to the right, fronting north and northeast. The brigades were not extended in one continuous line, but two or more lines deep. The ground was open in front of the First division line, except at the northwest angle, the centre of Colonel Wood's brigade.

General Smith selected a grove on the east of the cluster of houses that constituted the village of Harrisburg for our camp, which was the The Third division, Colonel Moore, was on the battle-field of the fourteenth and fifteenth. The left, south of the Pontotoc road, forming a semiroad from Pontotoc to Tupelo runs east and circle around south and east. Colonel Bouton's west. The First division, General Mower's, was negro brigade was on the extreme left of the camped on the north side of the wood. The Third division. The First brigade, Colonel Third division, Colonel Moore's, was located on Murray, had the right of the Third division line; the south side of the wood. The train was the Third brigade, Colonel Wolf, next; while parked on the road well toward the eastern limit the Second brigade, Colonel Gilbert's, was someof our camp, between the divisions and the hos- what in rear near the train. pital near a little stream in the woods.

The negro brigade was on southeast side of camp, on the left of the Third division, covering the corral on that side.

No attack was made during the night of the thirteenth. The battle opened July fourteenth. At three o'clock in the morning the troops were up and under arms until broad daylight, when they were permitted to get breakfast, but without laying aside their accoutrements.

At six o'clock the enemy drove in our pickets, and our lines of battle were formed to receive him. Let me describe the ground more fully.

Our army was in the centre and most elevated part of an area of partly open and partly wooded ground that the eye could take it within a radius of from one to two miles. At this distance on all sides continuous woods limited the vision. From our central position the ground descended by successive undulations or ridges in every

The battle opened about six o'clock, in the morning-our pickets being driven in and the enemy advancing in heavy force and extended lines from the west and northwest. The Twelfth Iowa, Lieutenant-Colonel Stibbs commanding, with two companies of the Seventh Minnesota, constituting the first line of Colonel Wood's brigade, immediately on the right of Pontotoc road, received the first fire of the enemy, and for about an hour held its position, receiving and delivering as heavy a musketry fire as troops were ever under. Their ammunition being exhausted, the second line on the west front of Colonel Wood's brigade, composed of eight companies of the Seventh Minnesota, Colonel Marshall commanding, advanced and relieved the Twelfth Iowa, receiving an equally heavy, and delivering an equally effective fire with that of the Twelfth. The Seventh Minnesota had never been in a Southern battle before, (it had been engaged in

the Minnesota Indian war two years,) and it re-been in seventeen battles, but was never under ceived the highest encomiums for the veteran such a heavy musketry fire before as that they firmness with which it received the shock of battle.

On the right of the Seventh Minnesota and Twelfth Iowa, and Thirty-third Missouri, Lieutenant-Colonel Heath, and the Thirty-fifth lowa, Colonel Hill, their lines nearly at right angles with former were engaged, but not so heavily as the left of the brigade.

The right of Colonel Moore's division, on left of road, was also engaged.

The enemy, as we were afterwards told by prisoners, were led to believe that General Smith's army was composed entirely of one hundred days' troops and negroes, and they expected to walk right through and over us. Hence, the persistence and recklessness with which they again and again rallied to the charge, and tried to reach and break our lines. But the storm of fire that swept from our compact lines was more than mortal man could endure, and every time they charged forward, it was but to recoil, leaving their pathway strewn with dead.

encountered from us. The success that had attended General Forrest's army in repelling Grierson's and Morgan L. Smith's column that was moving to co-operate with General Sherman in the Meridian expedition, and his late decided victory over Sturgis, had emboldened the enemy to believe that any Federal force could be beaten, and in consequence they fought more confidently of success.

Our losses were light compared with that of the enemy and for the severity of the fight. We had a magnificent position. Our lines being sheltered in good part in edge of woods, the enemy exposed himself in open ground on our left and in a corn-field on the right. A strip of woods somewhat covered his centre.

A flag was shot down by the right companies of the Seventh Minnesota, but picked up by company B of the Thirty-third Missouri. It is to be sent to the Merchants' Exchange, St. Louis.

On the thirteenth the Fourteenth Wisconsin took a flag, the color-bearer of which was shot down by the Twelfth Iowa.

They moved in heavy masses around to their left-our right-where they were met with musketry from the right of General Mower's Colonel Alex. Wilkin, of the Ninth Minnedivision, the First, Second, and Fourth brigades, sota, commanding the Second brigade of Genand a furious artillery fire from Hilmen's bat-eral Mower's division, was shot dead, the ball tery, company M, First Missouri, manned by entering his left side, passing through his the Sixth Indiana, Captain Miller, and the bat- heart. tery of company E, First Illinois light artillery. In the road, on left of Colonel Wood's brigade, guns of the Second Iowa battery were posted and did earnest work.

The Third Indiana battery, on the left of the First brigade of the Third division, in position south of Pontotoc road, was also engaged. The roar of artillery was terrific.

Lieutenant A. A. Burdick, quartermaster of the Twelfth Iowa, was killed by an elongated ball from a rifled cannon that passed through an oak twenty inches in diameter before it struck him. It also killed his horse.

The horses of Colonel Marshall and Adjutant Trader, of the Seventh Minnesota, were both shot as they were being led to the rear.

General Mower fearlessly exposed himself in all parts of the field, wherever his presence seemed needed. One of his orderlies was killed by his side.

General Smith saw all that was going on, but the perfect dispositions that had been made for battle, with the advantageous position selected by him, left little to be done during the engage

For three hours-from six o'clock until nine -the battle raged-heaviest in front of Colonel Wood's brigade of General Morris's division, as before described, and as the list of casualties surely indicates-when repulsed and beaten at all points, the enemy fell back and drew off. A charge of Colonel Wood's brigade, the Thirtythird Missouri and Thirty-fifth Iowa, on the right, and the Twelfth Iowa and Seventh Min-ment. nesota on the left, was made, which swept over the field, capturing prisoners, driving the enemy and rendering the victory complete. It was too hot, and the men too much exhausted, to pursue far the retreating foe. In front of the lines of Colonel Wood's brigade lay the rebel Colonel Harrison, of the Sixth Mississippi cavalry, Lieutenant-Colonel Nelson, of the same regiment, and several line officers, and a great | part of their command. Colonel Faulkner's body lay in front of Colonel Moore's division on the left. A Major McKay was also killed.

Prisoners say that the attack on the morning of the fourteenth was made by seven thousand of the enemy's best troops, and that many men were shot down by their own officers in driving them to the charge. One fellow said he had

On the evening of the fourteenth the enemy attacked the extreme left of our lines held at that time by a skirmish line of Colonel Bently's brigade. The skirmishers were driven in on the main line, when the latter in the centre, and Colonel Gilbert's brigade, of the Fourteenth, twenty-seventh, and thirty-second Iowa, and twenty-fourth Missouri on the left, and a part of Colonel Wolf's brigade on the right, charged on the enemy and drove him back with great slaughter. This work was brief, but as gallant as any of the day.

A skirmish down the Pontotoc road occured about sunset, brought on by our sending out to bring in a piece of artillery of the enemy that we had disabled. It was some distance out from our line, but too near for the enemy to get it

We pursued them nearly a mile and then shelled them with visible effect. In a line of skirmishers thrown out at this time, Lieutenant Louis Hardy, commanding company E, Seventh Minnesota, was killed. He was a gallant fellow, but went into the fight imprudently in full uniform, a conspicuous mark for sharp-five; shooters.

The Third division, with the train, had got miles away by this time, and the First division was called in and took up the line of march homeward.

The army went into camp on the Old Town road, about five miles from the battle field. As our rear was getting into camp, the enemy came up and opened on us with artillery. Colonel McMillan's brigade of the First Ohio was in the rear, composed of the rearmost regiments, the Seventy-second and Ninety-fifth Ohio, and One hundred and fourteenth Illinois, which charged the enemy with a rapid musketry fire, that made him pay fearfully for this last attack. If our men had not been so weary they could have taken his battery. This was the last of the fighting.

The enemy's dead in the aggregate, by count and careful estimate, was certainly five hundred. The usual proportions would give the wounded at two thousand to twenty-five hundred. We took about two hundred and fifty prisoners.

Doc. 39.

SHERMAN'S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.

IN THE FIELD, NEAR DALLAS,
GEORGIA, June 3.

Thirty-five days of active campaigning under Sherman; thirty-five nights of march, picket, skirmish, battle, or of uneasy slumber on beds of grass, leaves, rails, rocks, or mother earth, with the blue heavens for a canopy; and to-day, a seat beside a mountain stream a mile from camp, with no sign of man's handiwork visible save the few rails that form my seat, can not be expected to fit your correspondent well for the task of giving a graphic account of military operations for the last ten days. Right well pleased am I to know, however, that the tardiness of my pen will work no disadvantage to the readers of the Gazette, since a "relief" in the form of another of the knights of the quill has arrived, and made this portion of the army his particular field. Yet, I know that there are some of the events that transpire among us, unimportant, perhaps, historically, but of much interest to many, which I may tell without repeating what may be better written by

another.*

To make a little resume of the whole ten days, let us go back to Kingston, May twentysecond-the date of my last letter. On that day portions of the army had advanced some miles beyond Kingston, and were skirmishing with the enemy; while Sherman's energy had completed the railroad to his army and had thrown forward twenty days' rations, ready for a move without a base to begin next morning. But never perhaps was the saying that "large bodies move slowly," more fully verified than to the troops which formed the rear guard of McPherson's command that day. Early in the morning orders to be ready at a moment's notice were given, but the morning wore away and left the troops lying as the sunrise found them. Gladly, at noon, was the sound to fall in heard. Let the weather be as it may, there is nothing so perplexing and so troublesome as a night march; no soldiers likes to have it in prospect. Appearances, however, all deceive in a soldier's life. Doomed to a night march, it was of no avail that orders came early. It required just so many hours to get the immense wagon train in line, and the rear guard could not go until that was done. It was actually sunset when the last of the troops filed out of Kingston. A night march of course followed, and one of the most unpleasant imaginable. Following the trains would certainly wear the patience of the most patient. A movement forward of ten feet, then a halt of two minutes, another move, and another halt ad infinitum made up the order of march. Plunging into gutters, tumbling over rocks and stumps, and irregularities that could not be distinguished for the darkness, is it any

See Document 8, page 24, ante.

wonder that the poor soldier dreads a night
march? Then, on this particular occasion, the
dust was inches in depth; penetrating every
crevice and fold, and covering the whole man
with its dirty gray mist, it is the most disagree-
soldier has to contend.
able element, save gunpowder, with which the

This is the history of the first night's march of six miles or eight across the Etowah river, on the Van Wert road.

As it had been at Dalton, so it was to be at the Etowah. McPherson, Sherman's right-hand man, was to take the right and flank the position, not only of Etowah but of Altoona. Hence his movement by the Van Wert road, crossing the Etowah at a bridge a few miles from Kingston, which the rebels did not destroy. On the twenty-fourth his command encamped at Van Wert, a little village twenty miles southwest of Kingston, and apparently far away from any military operations. From this place the line of march was changed to the southeast, point ing towards Dallas. On the twenty-sixth, at four P. M., after slight skirmishing, McPherson's command and Jefferson C. Davis' division of the Fourteenth corps, marched by different roads simultaneously into Dallas, the county seat of Paulding county. This is some thirty miles northwest of Atlanta, and nearly twenty miles west of Marietta, the nearest point on the railroad. It was, to many, a source of considerable surprise to find next morning the whole rebel army confronting us, that is confronting Sherman, who was now about ready to form line.

All day of the twenty-seventh was most busily occupied in getting into position. General Fuller's, Colonel Rice's, and Colonel Sprague's brigades, were fiercely engaged all day in as heavy and severe a skirmish as I ever witnessed. Night found them, however, in good position, a half a mile further advanced than they were in the morning. In this skirmish the Twenty-seventh Ohio lost Captain Sawyer, killed, and Lieutenant De Bote, wounded. The Sixty-sixth Indiana lost Captain H. S. McRae, wounded, besides a number of enlisted men. The Sixty-sixth Illinois, formerly known as Birge's sharpshooters, were at the front, and lost quite heavily. The Fifteenth corps, which took position on the right of the Sixteenth, also lost heavily. A portion of the Ninth Iowa was surprised and captured at breakfast.

At night the whole line threw up slight works, and, as well as it could be done, amid a continual popping of skirmishers' guns, the men rested.

All day of the twenty-eighth there had been a continuous rattle of musketry, interspersed with an occasional shot from artillery, which kept a slow procession of ambulances passing to and from the lines to convey the wounded to hospital. Toward evening an unusual activity among the rebels in front of Logan, who was on Dodge's right, appeared. Suddenly a force of infantry was seen hastening toward the rebel

cription. Never before have I witnessed such a scene of terrible grandeur! The night was dark, and a heavy air seemed to weigh down the sulphurous smoke until the darkness was changed to gray, in which the dark figures of the men became visible-a sort of demon-looking set, engaged in a ghastly play with death. But it could not last long. The earthworks, together with the wild aiming of the rebels, gave us complete protection, while they were without any shield. Soon they renewed the attack at another place, then on Mersey again, and again to the right, until at three o'clock, when they recoiled from their last attack, they had made seven attempts to break our lines! The occasion of this desperation, it is thought, was that they had detected a movement commenced in the morning by the Fifteenth Corps toward our left and thought to break through our lines while moving. The movement had commenced, and if they had waited a few hours later, their attack might have resulted in a different manner. Our loss was comparatively nothing, and was confined almost exclusively to the men deployed as skirmishers in front of the works. Lieutenant Ulrick, of the Sixty-sixth Illinois, was mortally wounded. Lieutenant Williamson, same regiment, was wounded.

left, as if to turn Logan's right. Scarcely had they passed the point where they were visible to us, when a larger force returned at the same rate. Then came volleys along Logan's front, from right to left. A wonderful animation was suddenly infused into the apparently dead mass of wagons and artillery that lay all day in the great open field behind the Fifteenth Corps. A storm was gathering-where should it break? The question was not long unanswered. Minor attempts were made along almost the whole of Logan's line, but in front of General Sweeny's division was the main force. Bates' division of Hardee's corpse was hurled against Sweeny's division, which at that time presented a front of two regiments and one portion of a battery. The immortal Second Iowa, and the younger, but not less gallant Sixty-sixth Indiana, with two sections of Welker's Battery, (H, First Missouri Light Artillery,) met the shock of the charge. Fierce and hot was the contest-brave men were pitted against brave-but it was impossible to advance before the withering fire of that portion of Colonel Rice's brigade. In half an hour from the first volley, the shout of victory rang on the evening air, and was taken up by regiment after regiment, until the woods rang again. A few prisoners were captured, from whom it was ascertained that the rebel Second Kentucky Regi- Hardly had the first half hour's fighting ment was engaged. One of that regiment, ended, until General Dodge made his appearBadger, of Columbus, Kentucky, who was cap-ance at Welker's battery, carrying before him tured, has friends in Cincinnati. Another from on his horse a box of canister! He had heard Covington, Kentucky, named Jones, belonging to that their canister was gone, and unable to find the same regiment, was also captured. The loss the proper officer in such a melee, he went himof the Sixty-sixth and Second Iowa, was very self and carried all he could. He also seized slight. The next day the Sixty-sixth Indiana two wagon loads of infantry ammunition from found sixty-three dead rebels in their front. the Fifteenth Corps, which were passing, and sent boxes up to the front line, so that although at the beginning there was but forty rounds to the man, these were not gone until a beautiful supply was at hand.

On the twenty-ninth Colonel Mersey's brigade relieved Colonel Rice's, and still the skirmishing continued. Company B, of the Eighty-first Ohio, was deployed as skirmishers, and Private James Anderson, of Company D, volunteered to go also. Very soon he was borne back mortally wounded. All day the heavy skirmishing was kept up. The lines were so close that rebel balls reached even beyond the headquarters of Generals Sweeny and Dodge. No general attack was made, however.

It was after eleven o'clock at night, of the twenty-ninth, when as some of us were listening to the dull, heavy booming of Hooker's guns to the left, a bright flash of a musket to the right, and in front of our line, told of approaching danger. Almost instantly the whole picket line in front of Mersey's brigade was ablaze, and retiring before our advancing column. Scarcely had the pickets reached the works, until every man of the long, sinuous line, which a moment before seemed wrapped in slumber, was up to his place, and the next moment the Eighty-first Ohio and Twelfth Illinois poured a volley of death into the approaching column. A flash and a whiz was the reply, but now loading and firing as rapidly as possible, while Welker poured an almost ceaseless fire from his four guns, the scene became grand beyond des

The eager Sixty-sixth Indiana, who had built those works, and repulsed the attack there on the twenty-eighth could not be held in reserve. When Colonel Adams sent word that his ammunition was nearly gone, Colonel Rice ordered out the Sixty-sixth to relieve the Eighty-first. With a cheer they responded, and were soon in readiness. But here arose a question; the ammunition was now abundant, and the Eightyfirst Ohio did not want to be relieved! General Dodge upon application allowed the Eighty-first to retain its position, and the gallant boys of the Sixty-sixth Indiana retired disappointed.

The loss of the enemy could not be ascertained; the intervening ground being contraband. A deserter who came in to-day, says that Bates' division was terribly cut up in that night attack, which, he says, was made under a misunderstanding of orders.

For some reason, it was determined to change the position of McPherson and Davis' divisions of the Fourteenth Corps. The orders were issued for this on the twenty-eighth, but were countermanded by the attack made by the enemy. On the twenty-ninth, the movement