Engraved for the "United States Service Magazine," from a complete and accurate map just prepared by the U. 8. Coast Survey, and kindly furnished for the purpose.

THE

UNITED STATES SERVICE

MAGAZINE.

VOL. III-APRIL, 1865.-NO. IV.

SHERMAN'S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.

BY COLONEL S. M. BOWMAN.

For

THE military situation of the United States on the opening of spring, 1864, indicated preparation for campaigns and operations heretofore unexampled during the progress of the war. weeks previous to the month of May, all the railways and water-courses in the loyal States were crowded with soldiers returning to their respective regiments, and with new recruits hastening to the front, to bear a hand in the impending conflict. Transports laden with enormous quantities of ordnance stores and supplies, for a while literally monopolized all the thoroughfares of trade and travel, and evidently the then coming military operations were designed to test the power and resources of the Confederacy to the utmost extent.

Grant had been made lieutenant-general, and put in command of all the armies of the United States. Never before in America had a general been put in command of armies so large, and operating over territory of such vast extent. His armies dotted the continent from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, and thence around and along the sea-coast, and back to the Chesapeake. His lines might have been traced by the smoke of camp-fires along the rivers, through the valleys, on the hill-tops, over the mountains, across the plains, and around the coast, throughout a zigzag journey of five thousand miles.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by C. B. RICHARDSON, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.

VOL. III-20

Nor had the Navy Department been idle. Small and almost powerless at the beginning of the war, our Navy had now be come a powerful co-operating force, and could already point with just pride to achievements scarcely less valuable and glorious than the work done by the Army. And at the time Grant and Sherman were ready to start on their great parallel campaigns- May 1, 1864-not less than six hundred vessels of war hung like an electric cloud, and flashed their signal-lights along twenty-five hundred miles of rebel coast; four thousand heavy guns were in readiness to thunder at rebel defences; and while, throughout the vast circuit of the Army of the United States, reveillé and roll-call vexed the sun in his morning walk across the continent, fifty thousand seamen, on ship-board, answered "ay," and ready for duty.

By the 1st of May the plans of the Lieutenant-general began to develop. Grant, himself, proposed to strike at Richmond, the head of the Confederacy, and at Lee's army, the visor that had so effectually protected it, while Sherman was to pierce its heart and destroy its vitals. It was left to the Navy to paralyze its Briarean arms and break its ribs.

The two great campaigns were parallel and concurrent, but not strictly co-operative. Grant's point d'appui was on the Rapidan, while Sherman's was at Chattanooga in Tennessee. The Alleghany Mountains separated them, and a thousand miles of distance intervened, so that after the start, frequent communication was impossible. Sherman could only reach Atlanta, his objective point, by a single line of railway, across a wild and mountainous country, and each day's march would only put him so much farther into the wilderness. Grant could change his base at pleasure as he advanced, and according to circumstances, with water communication, and transports within hailing distance, and no danger from lack of subsistence or munitions of war. Sherman would have to drive the enemy back, recover and repair the railroad, and then protect it or perish. Sherman's troops were composed of men chiefly from the Northwest,-men who had spent their youth in subduing the forest, inured to hardship and toil; active, intelligent, brave, and withal happy in the recollection of victories won in previous campaigns. Grant had what was left of that brave old Army of the Potomac that had fought under McClellan, McDowell, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, and Meade, against the best troops of the South, and against the best generals of the Confederacy-an army worthy of everlasting remembrance for its sufferings, patience, courage and perseverance, not less than for victories won at Antietam and Gettysburg. The balance of his command was composed, chiefly, of new recruits and colored troops.

Sherman had estimated the force required to reach and capture Atlanta at one hundred thousand men and two hundred

and fifty pieces of artillery; he started with ninety-eight thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven men and two hundred and fifty-four guns. This force was divided as follows:-Army of the Cumberland, Major-General Thomas, sixty thousand seven hundred and seventy-three men, one hundred and thirty guns; Army of the Tennessee, Major-General McPherson, twenty-four thousand four hundred and sixty-five men, ninety-six guns; Army of the Ohio, Major-General Schofield, thirteen thousand five hundred and fifty-nine men, twenty-eight guns. Sherman's intention was to make these proportions fifty thousand, thirty-five thousand, and fifteen thousand, but that wretched fiasco known as the Red River Expedition kept back some of McPherson's troops, and, besides ruining itself, did as much as possible towards impeding Sherman. However, it will be seen he was promptly furnished within twelve hundred of the number he asked for.

By the 1st of May, Sherman had made all things ready. Few persons except his admiring army, and the careful student of military history, will ever appreciate the remarkable skill which Sherman had exhibited in selecting and mobilizing his forces; in providing his transportation; in guarding by many devices his lines of communication; in disposing and strengthening his outposts and garrisons over that immense stretch of country which lay far to the rear under his care, and the successful invasion of which would not only have brought inconceivable loss and chagrin to our cause, but might, perhaps, have checked and ruined his campaign. As in the East it was needful to so dispose of the troops that no flank attack on Maryland could be made, and no offensive return by Lee, as he was forced slowly back to Richmond, so it was Sherman's task to guard his flanks and rear from Forrest's Cavalry, the strongest and best body of that arm in the Confederate service, and led by a most daring and indefatigable officer. But the Richmond campaign had the simplest possible task in this respect-the mere sealing of one single defile between mountain ridges, the closing of the Shenandoah Valley by a respectable army of occupation. Sherman had hundreds of miles over which to stretch his scanty chain of outposts, and to depend on skill in disposition to make up for the wide stretch of country in which he played his gigantic game. In the actual result, while Early raided once through the length and breadth of Maryland, defeating and driving our troops back into the very breastworks of Baltimore and Washington; while a second time he marched into the heart of Pennsylvania, burning our towns and exacting forced contributions; while yet a third time he crossed the Potomac with his cavalry, and pillaged and preyed again on Maryland— Sherman kept his vast tract of country in his own control, and every attempt on the part of the enemy to destroy his communications resulted in his own disaster.

On the 6th of May, Thomas lay at Ringgold, McPherson at Gordon's Mill, on the Chickamauga, and Schofield at Red Clay, on the Georgia line. The Confederate General Johnston was in and about Dalton, sixty thousand strong-fifty thousand infantry in the three corps of Hardee, Hood, and Polk, all able men, and ten thousand cavalry under Wheeler. The latter force exceeded ours.

Whoever is familiar with the country in Northern Georgia, knows that to have driven an army like Johnston's directly back from Dalton to Atlanta, by an attack in front on his positions, would have been a sheer impossibility. But Sherman ascertained that fact very soon, and did not resort to doubtful experiment to prove it to others. He had arranged at the outset a series of movements which, being successful, gave him the title of the " great flanker."

McPherson's army was at once moved from Gordon's Mill, by a rapid and circuitous march of thirty to forty miles, through Snake Creek Gap, to Resaca, a point eighteen miles below Dalton, on the Western and Atlanta Railroad, and, of course, on the enemy's left flank and rear. Meanwhile, on the 7th of May, Thomas marched directly from Ringgold, seized the strong position at Tunnel Hill, driving the enemy's cavalry before him, and confronted his position at Dalton. This latter point was covered by the Great Rocky Face Ridge, cloven by the narrow Buzzard Roost Gap, through which the railroad runs. This gap was well stocked with abattis, was artificially flooded by the waters of a creek, and swept from end to end by batteries posted on the spurs on either side, and from a commanding ridge at the farther end. Of course, it was out of the question to carry it. But Thomas made a strong feint against the gap, while Schofield moved down on Dalton from Cleveland, about thirty miles northeast from Chattanooga. On the 9th, Thomas renewed his attack so vigorously, that Veicht's Division of Howard's (Fourth) Corps, in the language of Sherman's official report (for of this we must now begin to make use), "carried the ridge, and turning south towards Dalton, found the crest too narrow, and too well protected by rock epaulements, to enable him to reach the gorge, or pass. Geary's Division of, Hooker's Twentieth Corps, also, remarkably distinguished itself by its bold push for the rocky summit. In a word, so well was the whole demonstration carried out, that McPherson was able to reach within a mile of Resaca, finding only a picket force to oppose him. On the 8th, he reached Snake Creek Gap, completely surprising a brigade of cavalry which was coming to watch and hold it. Sherman's instructions to him had been, to either carry Resaca or to break up the railroad at some point below Dalton, by a bold attack, and then to fall back to a strong defensive point near Snake