SUMMARY OF THE CAMPAIGN. 399 who have so often and so gallantly and a new Commander-in-Chief, second periled their lives in battling with the to none of the Confederacy in reputaenemy; and for blessings and comfort tion for skill, sagacity, and extreme from the Father of Mercies to the sick, popularity. All at once our armies wounded and prisoners, and to the assumed life and action and appeared orphans and widows of those who have before Dalton; threatening Rocky Face, fallen in the service of their country; we threw ourselves upon Resaca, and and that He will continue to uphold the the rebel army only escaped by the Government of the United States against rapidity of its retreat, aided by the all the efforts of public enemies and numerous roads with which he was famsecret foes." iliar, and which were strange to us. President Lincoln also issued a spe- Again, he took post in Allatoona, but cial order tendering "the national thanks we gave him no rest; and by a circuit to General Sherman and the gallant toward Dallas and subsequent moveofficers and soldiers of his command ment to Ackworth. we gained the Allabefore Atlanta, for the distinguished toona Pass. Then followed the eventability, courage and perseverance dis-ful battles about Kenesaw, and the esplayed in the campaign in Georgia, which, under Divine power, resulted in the capture of the city of Atlanta. The marches, battles, sieges and other military operations that have signalized this campaign, must render it famous in the annals of war, and have entitled those who have participated therein, to the applause and thanks of the nation.' cape of the enemy across Chattahoochie river. The crossing of the Chattahoochie and breaking of the Augusta road, was most handsomely executed by us, and will be studied as an example in the art of war. At this stage of our game, our enemies dissatisfied with their old and skillful commander, selected one more bold and rash. New tactics In a special Congratulatory Order were adopted. Hood first boldly and addressed to his army from his head-rapidly, on the 20th of July, fell on our quarters "In the Field, Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 8, 1864," General Sherman presented this striking summary of the leading incidents of his campaign. "The officers and soldiers," said he, "of the armies of the Cumberland, Ohio, and Tennessee, have already received the thanks of the nation, through its President and Commander-in-Chief; and it now remains only for him who has been with you from the beginning, and who intends to stay all the time, to thank the officers and men for their intelligence, fidelity and courage displayed in the campaign of Atlanta. On the 1st of May our armies were lying in garrison, seemingly quiet from Knoxville, and our enemy lay behind his rocky-faced barrier at Dalton, proud, defiant and exulting. He had had time since Christmas to recover from his discomfiture on the Mission Ridge, with his ranks filled right at Peachtree creek, and lost. Again, on the 22d he struck our extreme left, and was severely punished; and finally again, on the 28th he repeated the attempt on our right, and that time must have been satisfied, for since that date he has remained on the defensive. We slowly and gradually drew our lines from Atlanta, feeling for the railroads which supplied the rebel army and made Atlanta a place of importance. We must concede to our enemy that he met these efforts patiently and skillfully, but at last he made the mistake we had waited for so long, and sent his cavalry to our rear, far beyond the reach of recall. Instantly our cavalry was on his only remaining road, and we followed quickly with our principal army, and Atlanta fell into our possession as the fruit of well concerted measures, backed by a brave and confi dent army. This completed the grand task which had been assigned us by our Government, and your general again repeats his personal and official thanks to all the officers and men composing this army, for the indomitable courage and perseverance which alone could give success. We have beaten our enemy on every ground he has chosen, and have wrested from him his own Gate City, where were located his foundries, arsenals, and workshops, deemed secure on account of their distance from our base, and the seemingly impregnable obstacles supervening. Nothing is impossible to an army like this, determined to vindicate a Government which has rights wherever our flag has once floated, and is resolved to maintain them at any and all costs. In our campaign many, yes, very many of our noble and gallant comrades have preceded us to our common destination, the grave; but they have left the memory of deeds, on which a nation can build a proud history. McPherson, Harker, McCook, and others dear to us all, are now the binding links in our minds that should attach more closely together the living, who have to complete the task which still lays before us in the dim future. I ask all to continue as they have so well begun, the cultivation of the soldierly virtues that have ennobled our own and other countries. Courage, patience, obedience to the laws and constituted authorities of our Government; fidelity to our trusts and good feeling among each other; each trying to excel the other in the presence of those high qualities, and it will then require no prophet to foretell that our country will in time emerge from this war, purified by the fires of war, and worthy its great founder, Washington." The allusion to the loss of general officers in the campaign, was simple and sincere, and made with a true soldier's instinct of the path of duty. We have seen the warmth with which General Sherman in his official report records the animated youth and services of McPherson. A native of Ohio, a graduate at West Point in 1853 at the head of his class, at the age of twenty-five, he had then been appointed to the Corps of Engineers, and was engaged in its active duties, rising to the rank of Captain. In the first year of the war he was appointed Aide to General Halleck in the West, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was Chief Engineer in the army of Tennessee, and conducted some of its most important operations. He was promoted to Major-General of Volunteers in reward for his services in the field. His purity and elevation of character secured him the warmest regard of those who knew him. "Frank, manly, generous, earnest, truthful, kind,” writes a friend after his death, "these were his chief characteristics."* The following account of the manner of his death gathered from one of his staff officers appeared in the Nashville Union of July 26th: "General McPherson had ridden from left to right of his corps, in superintending the advance of his skirmish line, and was returning again to the right, when a party of rebel bushwackers, in ambush, ran from their covert, between the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Corps, and crying out: “There they come, give them hell," fired. couple of staff officers and two orderlies accompanied the General, all of whom escaped except the General, who fell and expired almost instantly, the ball having cut the aorta. The enemy rushed forward to rifle the body. Officers and orderlies meeting Colonel Strong, Inspector-General, and Captain Buell, both of General McPherson's staff, accompanied by a few orderlies, related the circumstance. Colonel Strong instantly drew the party into line and ordered a charge. This handful of brave and impetuous men, regardless of the foemen in front, dashed gallantly * Obituary in the N. Y. Evening Post, August 1, 1864. A Entered according to act or Congress &.D.1866. by Jahnson Pry & Co. in the clerks office of the district court of the southern dize of NY OBITUARY. ahead and drove off the thieving enemy, and, while Captain Buell with his revolver kept them at bay, Colonel Strong, assisted by the orderlies, lifted the nude body, stripped of every article of clothing save a glove and sock, to his own horse, and bore it safely from the field. Beneath the light glove covering the left hand was a diamond ring, which the vandals failed to discover, and which will be forwarded to the General's friends in Ohio." 401 Our beloved and trusted young General was close by, pressing forward his column, when the fatal wound was received." A native of New Jersey, General Harker graduated at West Point in 1858, where he was appointed to a lieutenancy in the Second Infantry, and subsequently became captain in the Fifteenth Regiment of Regulars. At the beginning of the war he had command of an Ohio regiment of volunteers, and became distinguished in the campaigns in Tennessee, being promoted to a brigade for his gallantry at Chickamauga. Colonel Daniel McCook, acting Brigadier-General, one of the patriotic Ohio family, so distinguished in the volunteer service of the war, was mortally wounded while charging the enemy's works at the battle of Kenesaw Mountain. He was removed to Ohio, where he died at Steubenville on the 17th of July. He bore his father's Christian name, whose death at the hands of Morgan's men while defending his State against the incursion of that rebel leader in July, 1863, will be remembered by the reader. Of the seven sons of this devoted patriot who entered the field three had now fallen with their father. A generous tribute was paid by Major-General Howard to the memory of his division commander, General Charles G. Harker. "Strict and exact," says he, "in the performance of his own duty, he obtained the most willing and hearty co-operation from all his officers without apparent effort. The only complaint I ever heard was, that if Harker got started against the enemy he could not be kept back. Yet I never found him other than cool and self-possessed. Whenever anything difficult was to be done, anything that required peculiar pluck and energy, we called on General Harker. At Rocky Face, where his division wrested one half of that wonderful wall of strength from the rebels; at Resaca, where he tenaciously held a line of works close under the rebel fire; Such, in the brief, condensed military at Dallas, where he held on for several narrative of the commanding general, is days with their lines, in conjunction the history of this remarkable camwith his brother officers, and hammered paign, which, in the scene on which it the rebel works at a distance of less than was carried on-the heart of the enemy's 100 yards; at Mud Creek, where he country-the resistance to be met and reinforced the skirmishers and directed physical difficulties to be overcome, the their movements with so much skill long line of communications to be guardand vigor as to take and hold a ed, the nice adaptation of means to strong line of the enemy's earthworks; ends, the patient endurance and persisin fact, in every place where the corps tent effort manifested will ever stand has been engaged, this noble young man prominently forward in the annals of earnestly and heartily performed his this heroic war. To pursue the details part. On the 27th of June he led the of this campaign in the reports of subterrible assault on the enemy's breast-ordinate officers and in the stirring reworks. We did not carry them, but part of his command reached the works. A sergeant bearing the colors was bayoneted as he was climbing over. citals of the various correspondents on the field would extend this chapter to a volume. Throughout these months of continuous toil, with their exactions of |