their position until four o'clock P. M., when the enemy, seeing himself completely hemmed in, with the Ostanaula River in his rear, and his last line of works, covering Resaca, almost within our grasp, resolved to dislodge General Williams, and, if possible, turn the left flank of our army. Upon this scheme rested Johnston's forlorn hope, since a portion of McPherson's command had already succeeded in crossing the Ostanaula at Calhoun Ferry, and again threatened the rear of the rebel army. To Hood's rebel corps was assigned the desperate undertaking just mentioned. Massing Stuart's division four lines deep along our front, and supporting it with strong reserves, the rebel general pushed his columns forward to the assault. Colonel Robinson's brigade being upon the extreme left of the line, and having a wide, open field in its front, received the first onset of the enemy. As soon as the rebels emerged from the woods, the brave men of the First, Second and Third brigades opened a tremendous fire upon their advancing masses. The enemy checked, but not daunted, pressed steadily on, apparently determined to carry the position at every hazard. Colonel Robinson's brave men, with sweaty, powder-blackened faces, but unflinching hearts, redoubled their exertions, and poured upon the enemy a leaden storm, such as it seemed impossible to withstand. The enemy

returned the fire with great energy, but at length hesitated, staggered and fell back. Then went up along the lines such pealing, heart-stirring cheers as only soldiers can give in the flush of victory. But the storm was not yet over. The enemy rallied again behind his woody covert, and once more advanced to the assault. Though he received a like greeting as before, his lines swept impetuously on, apparently goaded by a resolution stronger than death. The field became strewed with his wounded and dead, and his advancing lines grew thinner and thinner. There was no quailing in the Union ranks. Standing firm in their places, the brave defenders of human liberty seemed resolved not to yield. The enemy came on within fifty yards of their lines before he became convinced of the impossibility of driving General Williams' heroes from their positions. Then he turned and fled, leaving his killed and wounded, one battle-flag and hundreds of small arms lying upon the field. A number of the enemy who found it almost certain death to retreat in the face of our fire, surrendered as prisoners of war.

"Night now drew her sable curtain over the scene of carnage, as if to vail its horrors from the sight of men and angels. The fighting entirely ceased, and the stillness was broken only by the melancholy voice of the whip-poor-will, and by the piercing

cries of the rebel wounded, who lay uncared for between the hostile lines. The brave men who had fought so well could not listen to these sounds of distress indifferently. They sallied forth, even far beyond the picket lines, and brought in and tenderly cared for the poor victims of a fiendish rebellion."

INCIDENTS OF THE BATTLE OF RESACA.

After storming a portion of the rebel works, by Butterfield's division, on the 15th, as heretofore described, and while our men were crouching about the fort, and protecting the captured guns, a man from the Seventieth Indiana regiment suddenly exposed himself to that close and terrible source of destruction, the rebel's line of masked breastworks, "Shoot!" and with an oath repeated "shoot!" The defiance was answered, and he fell dead with an oath on his lips and a bullet in his heart, and thus passed into eternity.

A Confederate soldier, who had been captured during the battle, and brought into the presence of General Sherman, without knowing that he was standing before Sherman, said: "The Confederates had a great horror of old Sherman's flank move.. ments, that they could not find a position that he could not flank them out of it; they believed that

he could outflank the devil, and that he must have come into the world by a flank movement."

General Dan. Sickles was present during the battle of the 14th and 15th, on a special mission to which he had been assigned by the President. He was in the saddle both days from morning till night, and was everywhere conspicuous where the fighting was the hardest. General Hooker, seeing how recklessly he exposed himself, said to him: “Dan, you must go back; we want to save that other leg of yours." Sickles did not take the advice, but remained on the field. As he rode along our lines, he was frequently applauded and cheered by our troops. "Who's that?" one would ask. Another would reply, "That is Dan Sickles, the man who saved the army at Chancellorsville." Sickles' staff volunteered their services, and were actively employed on Hooker's and Butterfield's staff's during the battle.

CHAPTER IX.

SHERMAN'S GREAT CAMPAIGN FROM CHATTANOOGA TO ATLANTA.

ORDER

THE PURSUIT OF THE ENEMY-THEIR WOUNDED
OF THE PURSUIT AN AMBUSCADE-FIGHTING AND
SKIRMISHING AN ACCOUNT BY AN EYE-WITNESS

SKIRMISHING

CAPTURE OF ROME, KINGSTON AND CASSVILLE-
GUERRILLA OPERATIONS -MOVEMENT ACROSS THE
ETOWAH
LOSS OF WAGONS -THE
GALLANT ACTION OF THE TWENTY-FIFTH INST.-AN-
OTHER AMBUSCADE- SHERMAN'S OBJECT-A FURIOUS
ASSAULT OCCUPATION OF DALLAS-THE SITUATION
ON JUNE FIRST SHERMAN'S STRATEGY.

THE ENEMY

ABANDONED THEIR WORKS-SHERMAN'S DISPATCH— WHAT THE ARMY HAD ACCOMPLISHED CHARACTER OF SHERMAN -INCIDENTS.

On Monday, the day after the battle of Resaca, the army was in pursuit of the enemy. Our forces moved in three grand columns, sweeping the country for twenty miles. The wounded and dead of the enemy were scattered along the road and in the edges of the woods, where temporary hospitals had been established. They were taken to our hospitals, in the rear, where our surgeons did