telegraphed to Richmond: "I expressly accept taking the offensive; I only differ with you as to details." But "the details" dictated at Richmond were insisted upon; and when eventually, in the latter part of April, President Davis sent an officer to Georgia to explain his wishes to Johnston, the enemy had already prepared to make his long-meditated and formidable movement.

On the 1st of May, General Johnston reported the enemy ready to advance. The effective artillery and infantry of the Army of Tennessee amounted then to 40,900; the effective cavalry to about four thousand. With this force Johnston had to fight more than twice his numbers, and had no other prospect of compensation but in superior skill and strategy.

Sherman moved on Dalton in three columns; Thomas in front, Schofield from Cleveland on the northeast, while McPherson threw himself on the line of communication southwest at Resaca, fifteen miles south of Dalton. On the 7th of May Thomas occupied Tunnel Hill, ten miles northwest of Dalton, and took up a strong position at Buzzard's Roost. By the flank movement on Resaca, Johnston was forced to evacuate Dalton.

On the 14th the first important engagement of the campaign took place in Resaca valley. Two efforts were made to carry the breastworks of the Confederates, without success, when Johnston, in the afternoon, assumed the offensive, and drove the enemy some distance, with a loss which his own bulletins stated to be two thousand.

On the 15th there was desultory fighting, and on the 16th General Johnston took up, at leisure, his line of retrograde movement in the direction of the Etowah River, passing through Kingston and Cassville.

It was clear, in General Johnston's mind, that the great numerical superiority of the Yankee army made it expedient to risk battle only when position, or some blunder of the enemy, might give him counter-balancing advantages. He therefore determined to fall back slowly, until circumstances should put the chances of battle in his favor, keeping so near the Yankee army as to prevent its sending reinforcements to Grant, and hoping, by taking advantage of positions and opportunities, to reduce the odds against him by partial engagements. He also

expected it to be materially reduced, before the end of June, by the expiration of the terms of service of many of the regiments which had not re-enlisted. In this way he fell back to Cassville in two marches.

Expecting to be attacked, Johnston had drawn up his troops in an excellent position on a bold ridge immediately in rear of Cassville, with an open valley before it. But there appears to have been some doubts among his officers as to the value of the position. Lieutenant-Generals Polk and Hood together expressed the opinion, very decidedly, that the Yankee artillery would drive them, the next day, from their positions, and urged General Johnston to abandon the ground immediately, and cross the Etowah. Lieutenant-General Hardee was confident that he could hold his position. Of this dilemma, General Johnston writes in his official report: "The other two officers, however, were so earnest and unwilling to depend on the ability of their corps to defend the ground, that I yielded, and the army crossed the Etowah on the 20th of May, a step which I have regretted ever since."

ENGAGEMENT AT NEW HOPE CHURCH.

On the 25th the enemy was found to be intrenched near and east of Dallas. Hood's corps was placed with its centre near New Hope Church, and Polk's and Hardee's ordered between it and the Atlanta road, which Hardee's left was to cover. An hour before sunset Stewart's division, at New Hope Church, was fiercely attacked by Hooker's corps, which it repulsed after a hot engagement of two hours. Skirmishing was kept up on the 26th and 27th. At half past five, P. M., on the 27th, Howard's corps assailed Cleburne's division, and was driven back, about dark, with great slaughter. In these two actions the Confederates were not intrenched. Their loss in each was about four hundred and fifty in killed and wounded. On the 27th the enemy's dead, except those borne off, were counted six hundred, and a reasonable estimate of their entire loss may, therefore, be stated as certainly not less than three thousand. So far, the retrograde movement of Johnston was, in some respects, a success. It had been attended with at least two

considerable victories-Resaca and New Hope; it had been executed deliberately, being scarcely ever under the immediate pressure of the enemy's advance; and it had now nearly approached the decisive line of the Chattahoochee, or whatever other line he, who was supposed to be the great strategist of the Confederacy, should select for the cover of Atlanta. The events of the campaign, so far, were recounted with characteristic modesty by General Johnston. On the 1st of June he telegraphed to Richmond of his army: "In partial engage ments it has had great advantages, and the sum of all the combats amounts to a battle."

The two armies continued to manoeuvre for position. Skirmishing was kept up until the 4th of June, the enemy gradually extending his intrenched line towards the railroad and Ackworth. On the morning of the 5th the army was formed with its left at Lost Mountain, its centre near Gilgath Church, and its right near the railroad. On the 7th, the right, covered by Noonday Creek, was extended across the Ackworth and Marietta road. The enemy approached under cover of successive lines of intrenchments. On the 19th a new line was taken by Johnston; Hood's corps with its right on the Marietta and Canton road, Loring's on the Kenesaw Mountain, and Hardee's with its left extending across the Lost Mountain and Marietta road. The enemy approached, as usual, under cover of intrenchment. In this position there was incessant fighting and skirmishing until July 3d, the enemy gradually extending his intrenched right towards Atlanta.

BATTLE OF KENESAW MOUNTAIN.

On the 27th of June, General Sherman directed an attack on Johnston's position at Kenesaw Mountain. This mountain. was the apex of Johnston's lines. Both armies were in strong works, the opposite salients being so near, in some places, that skirmishers could not be thrown out. The assault of the enemy was made in three columns, about eight o'clock in the morning. It was repulsed on every part of the Confederate line. The assaults were most vigorous on Cheatham's and Cleburne's divisions of Hardee's corps, and French's and

Featherstone's of Loring's. Lieutenant-General Hardee reported that Cheatham's division lost in killed, wounded, and missing, one hundred and ninety-five. The enemy opposed to it, by the statement of staff-officers subsequently captured, lost two thousand. The loss of Cleburne's division was eleven, that of the enemy in his front, one thousand; and Major-General Loring reported two hundred and thirty-six of his corps killed, wounded, and missing. The loss of the enemy, by their own estimates, was between twenty-five hundred and three thousand. Of this affair General Sherman wrote, with rare candor, or with peculiar recklessness, that it was a failure; but that it demonstrated to General Johnston the enemy's courage that it "would assault, and that boldly."

Sherman, on the failure of the Kenesaw assault, again resorted to manoeuvring. McPherson's whole army was thrown rapidly to the Chattahoochee. On the 22d of July, Johnston finding the enemy's right nearer to Atlanta, by several miles, than our left, the army fell back, during the night, to Smyrna Church. On the 4th, Major-General Smith reported that he should be compelled to withdraw, on the morning of the 5th, to the line of intrenchments covering the railroad bridge and Turner's Ferry. The army was, therefore, ordered to retire at the same time to that line, to secure our bridges. The cavalry crossed the Chattahoochee-Wheeler observing it for some twenty miles above, and Jackson as far below.

Sherman was left master of the Chattahoochee, and Atlanta lay but eight miles distant. Peach-tree Creek, and the river below its mouth, was now taken by Johnston for his line of defence. A position on the high ground south of the creek was selected for the army, from which to attack the enemy while crossing. The engineer officers, with a large force of negroes, were set to work to strengthen the fortifications of Atlanta; and the two armies confronted each other in what was unmistakably the crisis of the Georgia campaign.

We can easily state the just and historical merits of that question so much discussed in Confederate prints-the retreat of Johnston to Atlanta. Something may always be said on both sides of a question which has divided the public mind, and been a topic of a certain censure as well as of approbation. It is true that, in some respects, Johnston's retreat to At

lanta was a sore disappointment to the Confederate public; for it had given up to the Yankees half of Georgia, abandoned one of the finest wheat districts of the Confederacy, almost ripe for harvest; and at Rome and on the Etowah River, had surrendered to the enemy iron-rolling mills, and government works of great value.

had

In other respects, however, the retreat had been a masterpiece of strategy, and a solid as well as a splendid success. The loss of our infantry and artillery, from the 5th of May, been about ten thousand in killed and wounded, and four thousand seven hundred from all other causes. According to the opinions of our most experienced officers, daily reports of prisoners, and statements of Northern papers, the enemy's loss in action could not have been less than five times as great

as ours.

The strategic advantages which Johnston had secured in his retreat were indisputable. "At Dalton," writes Johnston, "the great numerical superiority of the enemy made the chances of battle much against us; and, even if beaten, they had a safe refuge behind the fortified pass of Ringgold and in the fortress of Chattanooga. Our refuge, in case of defeat, was in Atlanta, one hundred miles off, with three rivers intervening. Therefore, victory for us could have been decisive, while defeat would have been utterly disastrous. Between Dalfon and the Chattahoochee we could have given battle only by attacking the enemy intrenched, or so near intrenchments that the only result of success to us would have been his falling back into them; while defeat would have been our ruin. In the course pursued, our troops, always fighting under cover, had very trifling losses, compared with those they inflicted; so that the enemy's numerical superiority was reduced daily and rapidly, and we could reasonably have expected to cope with the Federal army on equal ground by the time the Chattahoochee was passed. Defeat on this side of the river would have been its destruction. We, if beaten, had a place of refuge in Atlanta, too strong to be assaulted, and too extensive to be invested."

It was clear, in the month of July, that a pause had been given to the parallel operations of the enemy in Virginia and Georgia; aimed, the one at Richmond, which the Yankees