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with Kenesaw, to prevent being flanked by Schofield, who had wheeled around Pine Knob, and was pressing along the Dallas and Marietta road. An additional motive for this movement was found in the fact that while our forces had been so successfully at work upon their centre and left, McPherson on our left had put them in a dangerous position on their right, pressing it on that flank beyond Big Shanty and Brush Mountain. Sherman continued to press at all points, skirmishing in dense forests of timber and across most difficult ravines, until the enemy was found again strongly posted and intrenched, with Kenesaw as his salient, his right wing thrown back to cover Marietta, and his left behind Nose's Creek, covering his railroad back to the Chattahoochee. This enabled him to contract his lines and strengthen them accordingly.

Our right, meanwhile, forced its way across and two miles beyond Nose's Creek, on the Dalton and Marietta road. This creek it had been found impossible to cross before, because of the swollen condition. of the stream. The stream was to be crossed by a bridge, close beyond which the rebels had a heavy line of skirmishers to repel any attempt to cross. In the face of a raking fire of musketry, four regiments charged over the bridge at a double-quick, driving the enemy before them, and making way for our advance forces. No serious opposition appears, however, to have been made to this advance, the rebel left being already refused. Their position in front of our right to the northeast remained at this time unchanged, their troops resting there behind strong works. Our centre had worked up the base of Kenesaw Mountain, and had carried some knobs west of the mountain, thus securing a position for an annoying enfilading fire upon the mountain. These points, which had been lost by the enemy through negligence, were held by our troops so firmly that all efforts to dislodge them were in vain.

Kenesaw Mountain is made up of two elevations, joined almost at their summits, one being about eight hundred feet high and the other about one hundred feet higher. Looking at them from the north side, they have the appearance of two immense mounds, surrounded at the base by gentle irregularities of surface adapted to every department of agricultural labor. The outline of the mountain rises on the east side rather gradually, describing almost a half circle, thence falling upon the west, about two hundred feet. The other portion joins the first and rises to a still greater height, and being a trifle more irregular. On the west side it then loses itself somewhat abruptly in a small valley beyond, by which the country is deprived of a mountainous character. The base of the Kenesaw is about four miles from east to west, drawing a straight line, and in breadth is about one mile. Its sides are covered with thick forests, brush, and rock and bowlders of various dimensions. It would be impossible to take it in front. The defences of the mountain consisted of a line of works on the summit, upon which were erected several batteries. Upon the sides, single guns were located at commanding points. The flanks of the mountain were held by heavy bodies of infantry and artillery, and its rear was protected in a similar manner.

It was no longer possible for our wings to make a further advance

without cutting themselves loose from the centre, whose further progress was stayed by the formidable defences of Kenesaw Mountain, the enemy on which was watched by McPherson, working his left forward, while Thomas was swinging as it were on a grand left wheel, his left on Kenesaw, connecting with General McPherson, and General Schofield was all the time working to the south and east along the old Sandtown road.

On the 22d, as Hooker had advanced his line, with Schofield on his right, the enemy, Hood's Corps, with detachments from the others, suddenly sallied and attacked. The blow fell mostly on Williams's Division of Hooker's Corps, and a brigade of Hascall's Division of Schofield's army. The enemy was badly repulsed. This was the affair of "Kulp's house." It was now that Sherman, smarting under the imputation that he would not attack fortified lines, but depended upon overwhelming numbers to outflank, determined to risk an attack. Accordingly, on June 24th, he issued orders for an attack to take place June 27th. The general point selected was the left centre; because, if a strong column could be pushed through at that point boldly and rapidly two and one-half miles, it would reach the railroad below Marietta, cut off the enemy's right and centre from its line of retreat, and then either part could be overwhelmed and destroyed.

Accordingly at the appointed time the Seventeenth Corps (Blair's) circled the eastern point of the mountain and threatened the enemy's right. The Sixteenth Corps (Dodge's), next on the right, assaulted the heights on the northern slope of the mountain; the Fifteenth (Logan's) the western slope of the mountain. On the centre, Davis's Division of the Fourteenth Corps and Newton's of the Fourth constituted the assaulting column, supported on the right by Geary and Butterfield of Hooker's Corps. On the extreme right of our line was stationed Schofield, who moved forward his whole force, driving the enemy from a line of light works. The position to be attempted offered but a desperate chance of success. On the summit of the

rugged mountain peak, covered with a dense growth of underbrush, the enemy had stationed a battery of twelve guns, from which they maintained a withering cross-fire on our troops engaged in forcing a passage up the steep sides of the mountain, and over the abatis and rifle-pits behind which the enemy lay sheltered. The utmost efforts of the men could not avoid a repulse. The Union loss, as reported by Logan, was three thousand five hundred and twenty-one. Generals Harker and McCook were among the slain.

General Sherman did not rest long under this failure, and Schofield was ordered to press strongly on the left, while, on July 1st, McPherson, being relieved by Garrard's Cavalry in front of Kenesaw, moved with his whole army by the right, threatening Nickajack Creek and Turner's Ferry on the Chattahoochee. Stoneman was sent to the river below Turner's. The result was the retreat of the enemy on the night of July 2d. At half-past eight A. M., July 3d, Sherman entered Marietta. Logan's Corps of General McPherson's army, which had not moved far, was ordered back into Marietta by the main road, and McPherson and Schofield were instructed to cross Nickajack and attack

the enemy in flank and rear, and, if possible, to catch him in the confusion of crossing the Chattahoochee; but Johnston had foreseen and provided against all this, and had covered his movement well. He had intrenched a strong tête de pont at the Chattahoochee, with an advanced intrenched line across the road at Smyrna camp-meeting ground, five miles from Marietta.

Here Thomas found him, his front covered by a good parapet, and his flank behind the Nickajack and Rottenwood Creeks. Ordering a garrison for Marietta, and Logan to join his own army near the mouth of Nickajack, Sherman overtook Thomas at Smyrna. On the 4th of July he pushed a strong skirmish line down the main road, capturing the entire line of the enemy's pits, and made strong demonstrations along Nickajack Creek and about Turner's Ferry. This had the desired effect, and the next morning the enemy was gone, and the army moved to the Chattahoochee, Thomas's left flank resting on it near Paice's Ferry, McPherson's right at the mouth of Nickajack, and Schofield in reserve. The enemy lay behind a line of unusual strength, covering the railroad and pontoon bridges, and beyond the Chattahoochee.

The operations of General Sherman had been greatly harassed by the movements of guerrillas, and on his arrival in the neighborhood of Marietta he issued the following letter to the people of Tennessee and Georgia, living within the limits of the Department of the Cumberland, for their information, as expressing the sentiments of the department commander :

"HEAD-QUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE "MISSISSIPPI, IN THE FIELD, BIG SHANTY, “GEORGIA, June 21, 1864.

"General BURBRIDGE, Commanding Division of Kentucky: "GENERAL:-The recent raid of Morgan, and the concurrent acts of men styling themselves Confederate partisans or guerrillas, calls for determined action on our part. "Even on the Southern 'State Rights' theory, Kentucky has not seceded. Her people, by their vote and their actions, have adhered to their allegiance to the National Government, and the South would now coerce her out of the Union and into theirs by the very dogma of 'coercion' upon which so much stress was laid at the outset of the war, and which carried into rebellion the people of the Middle or Border Slave States.

"But politics aside, these acts of the so-called partisans or guerrillas are nothing but simple murder, horse-stealing, arson, and other well-defined crimes, which do not sound as well under their true names as more agreeable ones of warlike meaning.

"Now, before starting on this campaign, I foresaw it, and you remember, that this very case would arise, and I asked Governor Bramlette to at once organize in each county a small, trustworthy band, under the sheriff, and at one dash arrest every man in the community who was dangerous to it; and also every fellow hanging about the towns, villages, and cross-roads who had no honest calling, the material out of which guerrillas are made up; but this sweeping exhibition of power doubtless seemed to the Governor rather arbitrary.

"The fact is, in our country personal liberty has been so well secured that public safety is lost sight of in our laws and institutions, and the fact is, we are thrown back one hundred years in civilization, law, and every thing else, and will go right straight to anarchy and the devil, if somebody don't arrest our downward progress.

"We, the military, must do it, and we have right and law on our side. All governments and communities have a right to guard against real and even supposed danger. The whole people of Kentucky must not be kept in a state of suspense and real danger, lest a few innocent men should be wrongfully accused.

"1. You may order all your post and district commanders that guerrillas are not soldiers, but wild beasts, unknown to the usages of war. To be recognized as soldiers, they must be enlisted, enrolled, officered, uniformed, armed, and equipped, by recognized belligerent power, and must, if detailed from a main army, be of sufficient strength, with written orders from some army commander to do some military thing. Of course we have recognized the Confederate Government as a belligerent power, but deny their right to our lands, territories, rivers, coasts, and nationality-admitting the right to rebel and move to some other country, where laws and customs are more in accordance with their own ideas and prejudices.

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"2. The civil power being insufficient to protect life and property, ex necessitate rei, to prevent anarchy, which nature abhors,' the military steps in, and is rightful, constitutional, and lawful. Under this law everybody can be made to stay at home and mind his and her own business,' and, if they won't do that, can be sent away, where they must keep their honest neighbors in fear of danger, robbery, and insult.

"Your military commanders, provost-marshals, and other agents may arrest all males and females who have encouraged or harbored guerrillas and robbers, and you may cause them to be collected in Louisville, and when you have enough-say three or four hundred-I will cause them to be sent down the Mississippi through their guerrilla gauntlet, and by a sailing-ship send them to a land where they may take their negroes and make a colony, with laws and a future of their own. If they won't live in peace in such a garden as Kentucky, why, we will send them to another if not a better land, and surely this would be a kindness to them, and a God's blessing to Kentucky.

"I wish you to be careful that no personalities are mixed up in this, nor does a full and generous 'love of country,' 'of the South,' of their State or country, form a cause of banishment, but that devilish spirit which will not be satisfied, and that makes war the pretext of murder, arson, theft in all its grades, perjury and all the crimes of human nature.

"My own preference was, and is, that the civil authorities in Kentucky would and could do this in that State; but, if they will not, or cannot, then we must, for it must be done. There must be an 'end to strife,' and the honest, industrious people of Kentucky, and the whole world, will be benefited and rejoiced at the conclusion, however arrived at.

"I use no concealment in saying that I do not object to men or women having what they call 'Southern feeling,' if confined to love of country, and of peace, honor, and security, and even a little family pride, but these become 'crimes' when enlarged to mean love of murder, of war, desolation, famine, and all the horrid attendants of anarchy. I am, with respect, your friend,

"W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General."

CHAPTER LX.

The New Position of the Enemy.-Johnston again Turned and Pushed Back upon Atlanta-Rousseau's Raid.-Hood Succeeds Johnston.-Investment of Atlanta.Battles of July 20th and 22d-Death of McPherson.-Cavalry Raids of Stoneman and McCook.-Defeat and Capture of Stoneman.-Battle of July 28th.-Prolongation of the Union Right Wing.-Changes of Commanders in Sherman's Army.

THE oft-recurring difficulty again presented itself to General Sherman of the enemy holding a position too strong to be carried by assault, even with the superior force that the Union general maintained in spite of the continued waste by battle and disease. The position could only be turned by crossing the rapid and deep Chattahoochee on bridges. It was necessary to move promptly, and Schofield was ordered to cross at Soap Creek, eight miles above the railroad bridge. This movement was completed July 7th, and a gun and some prisoners were captured. At the same time Garrard moved

with his cavalry upon Roswell, still farther up the river, destroying some cloth factories that displayed the French flag. He was ordered to hold the ford at Roswell, but was soon relieved in that duty by a division of Thomas, until McPherson's Corps was transferred from the extreme right to the extreme left. By the 9th three good points of passage had been secured over the Chattahoochee, above the railroad bridge. Johnston thereupon abandoned his tête de pont on the night of the 9th, leaving Sherman master of the country north and west of Atlanta, and eight miles distant from that place. The Federal army had now been advanced from the line of the Tennessee to the line of the Chattahoochee, and in view of the long marching and hard fighting to which they had been subjected, the troops were permitted to enjoy a few days' repose. Meantime a cavalry force under Rousseau had been sent to cut the railroad at Opelika, Alabama, leading from Georgia to Alabama and Mississippi. He started on the 10th of July from Decatur, Alabama, and reached Marietta on the 23d, having accomplished his mission with considerable success and trifling loss.

Meantime, the long retreat of Johnston having brought him to the south side of the Chattahoochee, and within eight miles of Atlants, vehement demands were made at the South that he should be relieved of his command. Accordingly, on July 17th, he was succeeded by General Hood.* The impatience of the Southern people demanded more vigorous operations than those which had been conducted by Johnston, who, with a force considerably less than that of Sherman, had opposed him step by step, as he advanced from Tunnel Hill to the Chattahoochee, inflicting much loss, without himself sustaining any serious disaster. The arduous task imposed upon him was overlooked, and the fact only was noticed that Sherman had been enabled to press steadily on, until Atlanta, under the flanking process, was in danger. A new offensive policy was to be adopted under General Hood, who, however, was provided with no additional means to carry it out. The fact that Johnston's army, after sixty days' retreat, was still considered available for the duty to be imposed upon it, is a sufficient proof of the ability of that commander.

On the 17th of July, Sherman, having rested and recruited his army, resumed his forward movement. Thomas was ordered to cross at Powers's and Paice's Ferry bridges, and to march by Buckhead. Scho

* John B. Hood was born in Bath County, Kentucky, in 1531, and graduated at West Point in 1853. After seeing considerable service in the West, he resigned his commission, in April, 1861. and joined the rebel army. He was appointed colonel of a Texas regiment, in September, and in the succeeding spring a brigadier-general, and for gallantry at the battle of Gaines's Mill was promoted to be a major-general. He commanded a division in Longstreet's Corps in the second Bull Run campaign and in the succeeding battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg, and at the battle of Gettysburg was severely wounded in the arm. He accompanied Longstreet to the West, in the autumn of 1863, and lost a leg at the battle of Chickamauga. He was now commissioned a lieutenant-general, and appointed to command one of

the three corps of Johnston's army in Georgia. In July, 1864, he superseded that general, and on the 20th, 220, and 28th of the month had severo encounters with Sherman in front of Atlanta in which he suffered prodigious losses. On September 1st, being flanked by Sherman, he evacuated Atlanta and retired upon McDonough. In October he moved against Sherman's communications, and, passing through Northern Alabama, invaded Tennessee in the latter part of November. After the hard-fought battle of Franklin, he moved upon Nashvill, in front of which place he was disas trously defeated, on December 15th and 16th, by Thomas, in a series of battles, which broke the rebel strength in the Southwest. He retreated into Mississippi with the remnant of his army, and in January, 1865, was relieved of his command.

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