CHAP. XXII. OPERATIONS AGAINST PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND. 1663 ensued, and very soon Early was again sent "whirling" up the Valley. The National cavalry of Emory's corps, falling upon both flanks, caused the Confederates to flee in hot haste up the Valley pike, in great disorder, to Fisher's Hill, leaving the highway strewn with abandoned hindrances to flight. The road was clogged with masses of men, wagons, cannon and caissons, in utter confusion, and these were left behind. This short but brilliant campaign of Sheridan, which nearly annihilated Early's force, ended hostilities in the Shenandoah Valley. Let us now turn again toward Petersburg and Richmond, for a moment. General Butler had thrown a pontoon-bridge across the James River at Deep Bottom, within ten miles of Richmond, over which troops passed to the north side of that stream and menaced the Confederate capital. Lee was alarmed by the movement and withdrew a large force from Petersburg to defend Richmond, believing the latter city would be immediately attacked; and there it was that General Grant made the unsuccessful attempts just mentioned, to penetrate the Confederate lines before Petersburg. He had mined under one of the principal forts, and it was blown up on the morning of the 30th of July, with terrible effect. In the place of the fortification was left a crater of loose earth two hundred feet in length, full fifty feet in width, and from twenty-five to thirty feet in depth. The fort, its guns and other munitions of war, with three hundred men, had been thrown high in air, and annihilated. Then the great guns of the Nationals opened a heavy cannonade upon the remainder of the works, with precision and fearful effect, all along the lines; but owing partly to the slowness of motion of a portion of the assaulting force, the result was a most disastrous failure on the part of the assailants. A fortnight later Grant sent another expedition to the north side of the James, at Deep Bottom, composed of the divisions of Birney and Hancock, with cavalry led by General Gregg. They had sharp engagements with the Confederates on the 13th, 16th and 18th of August, in which the Nationals lost about five thousand men without gaining any special advantage excepting the incidental one of giving assistance to troops sent to seize the Weldon railway, south of Petersburg. This General Warren effected on the 18th of August. Three days afterward he repulsed a Confederate force who attempted to repossess the portion of the road held by the Unionists; and on the same day General Hancock, who had returned from the north side of the James, struck the Weldon road at Reams's Station, and destroyed the track for some distance. The Nationals were finally driven from the road with considerable loss. For little more than a month after this, there was comparative quiet in the vicinity of Petersburg and Richmond. The National troops were moved simultaneously toward each city. General Butler, with the Tenth Army Corps under General Birney, and the Eighteenth corps under General Ord, moved upon Fort Harrison, on the north side of the James, and captured it on the 29th of September. These troops charged upon another fort near by, and were repulsed with heavy loss. Among the slain was General Burnham. General Ord was severely wounded. The captured Fort Harrison was named Fort Burnham in honor of the slain general. In these assaults the gallantry of the colored troops was so conspicuous, that General Butler presented to each of the more meritorious ones a silver medal, which bore a device commemorative of their valor. In the meantime, General Meade had sent General Warren with two divisions of his corps, General Parke with two divisions of the Ninth corps, and General Gregg with his cavalry, to attempt the extension of the National left on the Weldon road. The chief object of the movement was to mask the more important operations of Butler at that time. But it resulted in severe fighting on the first and second days of October (1864), with varying fortunes for both parties. Now there was another pause but not a settled rest for about a month, when the greater portion of the Army of the Potomac was massed on the Confederate right, south of the James; and on the 27th of October, they assailed Lee's works on Hatcher's Run, westward of the Weldon road. A severe struggle ensued. The Nationals were repulsed, and on the 29th they withdrew to their intrenchments in front of Petersburg. Very little of importance was done by the Army of the Potomac after that, until the opening of the campaign in the spring of 1865, excepting the extension of their line to Hatcher's Run. The losses of that army had been fearful during six months, from the beginning of May until November, 1854. The aggregate number in killed, wounded, missing and prisoners, was over eighty-eight thousand men, of whom nearly ten thousand were killed in battle. Add to these the losses in the Army of the Fames during the same time, and the sum would be full one hundred thousand men. The command of the troops engaged in the campaign against Atlanta was, as we have observed, entrusted to General Wm. T. Sherman, who had succeeded General Grant in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi. With a force composed of the Army of the Cumberland led by General George H. Thomas, the Army of the Tennessee led by General J. B. McPherson, and the Army of the Ohio commanded by General J. M. Schofield, Sherman moved southward from the vicinity of Chattanooga on the 6th of May, 1864. The aggregate number of his soldiers was about one CHAP. XXII. CAMPAIGN IN GEORGIA. 1665 hundred thousand men. These were confronted by about fifty-five thousand men, led by General Joseph E. Johnston, and arranged in three corps commanded respectively by Generals Hardee, Hood, and Polk. This army then lay at Dalton, at the parting of the ways, one leading into East Tennessee, and the other into West Tennessee. To strike that position in front was impracticable, or, at least, perilous, for the Confederates were very strongly posted; and Sherman began there a series of successful flank movements. When he menaced the flanks of the Confederates at Dalton by seeking a passage through Snake Hill Gap, on the left, the insurgents fell back to a point near Resaca Station at the Oostenaula River, on the line of the railway between Chattanooga and Atlanta. At that place a sharp battle occurred on the 15th of May, when the Confederates were driven across the Oostenaula. Johnston fired the bridge that spanned that stream, cutting off direct pursuit immediately. Generals Thomas, Hooker, McPherson, Schofield, and other noted leaders were engaged in the fight; and as soon as a temporary bridge was constructed, the next morning, Thomas pursued Hardee (who covered the retreat) directly, while McPherson and Schofield kept on their flanks. The Confederates fled from post to post, burning bridges behind them, until they reached a mountainous region covering the Allatoona Pass. There Johnston halted, with the Etowah River between his troops and the National forces; and then both armies took a brief rest. These flanking movements had resulted so favorably to the Nationals, that Sherman resolved to pursue them. He determined to flank Johnston out of his strong position at Allatoona Pass, by concentrating his forces at Dallas, westward of him. In attempting to thwart this movement, the Confederates brought on an engagement near Dallas, on the 25th of May. The battle was indecisive, and was followed by a very stormy night, during which Johnston's men used the pickaxe and spade so industriously, that by morning Sherman found his antagonist strongly intrenched, with lines extending from Dallas to Marietta. Between these towns was a broken, wooded country, and in that region there was much severe fighting for several days. At length Johnston was compelled to evacuate Allatoona Pass (June 1, 1864), when it was garrisoned by Sherman and made his second base of supplies, the first being at Chattanooga. The burned bridges were rebuilt and well guarded, and full possession of the railway in his rear was obtained by Sherman. At Allatoona he was reinforced on the 8th by troops under General Frank Blair, which made his number of effec tive men nearly what it was when he moved from Chattanooga. THE ARMIES AT MARIETTA-DEATH OF BISHOP POLK-HOOD IN COMMAND-BATTLES AROUND STONEMAN'S OON after evacuating Allatoona Pass, General Johnston was compelled to abandon other posts before the approach of Sherman's strengthened army. The latter pressed vigorously forward toward the Kenesaw Mountains that overlooks Marietta. Around these great hills and upon their slopes and summits, and also upon Lost and Pine Mountains, the Confederates had cast up intrenchments and planted signal stations; but after a desperate struggle-fighting battle after battle for the space of about a month, while rain was falling copiously almost without intermission-the Confederates were forced to leave all these strong positions. They fled toward the Chattahoochee River, in the direction of Atlanta, closely pursued by the Nationals. One of their corps commanders (Bishop Polk) had been instantly killed by a shell on the summit of Pine Mountain, and the insurgent armies had suffered fearful losses in that terrible struggle. So persistently did Johnston dispute the way from Dalton, in northern Georgia, to Atlanta, that when he reached the intrenchments at the latter place, he had lost nearly one-fourth of his army. When, on the evening of July 2d, Sherman's cavalry threatened Johnston's flanks and menaced the ferry of the Chattahoochee, the Confederates abandoned the Great Kenesaw, and fled; and at dawn the next morning, when National skirmishers planted the Stars and Stripes over the Confederate battery on the summit of that eminence, they saw the hosts of their enemies flying in hot haste toward Atlanta. At eight o'clock Sherman rode into Marietta, a conqueror, close upon the heels of Johnston's army. He hoped to strike the Confederates a fatal blow while they were crossing the CHAP. XXIII. OPERATIONS NEAR ATLANTA. 1667 Chattahoochee; but Johnston, by quick and skillful movements, passed that stream without molestation, and made a stand along the line of it. General Howard laid a pontoon bridge two miles above the ferry where Johnston had crossed, and at the same time there was a general movement of Sherman's forces all along his line. The imperilled Confederates were compelled to abandon the works which they had thrown up near the Chat tahoochee, and retreat to a new line that covered Atlanta, their left resting on the Chattahoochee and their right on Peach Tree Creek. Now, toward the middle of July, the two armies rested; and Johnston, an able and judicious leader, was succeeded by General J. B. Hood, of Texas, a dashing and less cautious officer than his predecessor. At that time (July 10), or sixty-five days after Sherman put his army in motion southward, he was master of the whole country north and west of the river on the banks of which he was resting (or nearly one-half of Georgia), and had accomplished one of the major objects of the campaign, namely, the advancement of the National lines from the Tennessee to the Chattahoochee. The possession of Atlanta, the key-point of military advantage in the campaign in that region, was the next prize to be contended for. The Nationals advanced at a little past the middle of July, destroying railways and skirmishing bravely; and on the 20th the Confederates, led by Hood in person, fell upon the corps of Howard, Hooker and Palmer, with heavy force. The assailants were repulsed after a sharp battle, in which both parties suffered severely. There were now indications that Hood intended to evacuate Atlanta, when the Nationals moved rapidly toward the city, encountering strong intrenchments. Before these a part of Hood's army held their antagonists; while the main body, led by General Hardee, made a long night march, gained the rear of Sherman's forces on the morning of the 22d of July, and fell upon them with crushing weight of numbers that day. A terrific battle ensued, lasting many hours; and after a brief interval, one still more sanguinary was begun, which resulted in victory for the Nationals and the retreat of the Confederates to their works. During that day, General McPherson, who was at the head of the Army of the Tennessee, while recon. noitering in a wood, was shot dead by a Confederate sharp-shooter (Majo McPherson); and General Logan took his place in command. Yet another sanguinary battle was fought on the 28th of July, before Atlanta, when the Confederates were again driven to their lines, with heavy losses; and from that time until the close of August, hostilities in that region were confined, chiefly, to raids upon railways and the interruption of the communications of each army with its supplies. Finally, on the 31st of August, the forces |