80 



ARMY OPERATIONS. 



Georgia railroad to the east, and his left ex- 

 tended toward Turner's Ferry, at a general 

 distance of four miles from Atlanta. In the 

 course of the day a steep and strongly-fortified 

 hill, about five hundred yards in advance of 

 the skirmish line of the extreme Federal left, 

 was gallantly carried hy Gen. Leggett's division 

 of the 17th corps, though with a loss cf seven 

 hundred and fifty men. Four desperate 

 attempts were made by the division of Gen. 

 Cleburne to regain the position, which com- 

 pletely commanded Atlanta and the two prin- 

 cipal roads leading north and south from the 

 city ; but the enemy finally retired, bafHed and 

 severely crippled, leaving his dead and most of 

 his wounded on the slope of the hill. He also 

 lost about a hundred prisoners. Gen. McPher- 

 son immediately threw out working parties to 

 the hill, with the intention of occupying it with 

 strong batteries. 



On the 22d the whole advanced line of the ene- 

 my was found abandoned, a circumstance which 

 at first led Gen. Sherman to believe that they 

 intended to surrender Atlanta without further 

 contest. Gen. Hood, however, was only prepar- 

 ing to repeat, on a larger scale, the experiment 

 of the 20th. By a show of retreating upon the 

 city he hoped to decoy Gen. Sherman into a rapid 

 advance, and then suddenly, with heavy masses 

 of troops, to strike the Federal army while in 

 motion, at such weak points as should present 

 themselves. "It is now quite evident," says an 

 army correspondent, writing on the 24th, " that 

 the enemy, when they fell back out of their 

 works, did not retire to the inner line around 

 the city at all, though by taking that direction, 

 and showing themselves in large numbers upon 

 their works, they intended to make us believe 

 they had done so. Gen. Hardee's corps, instead, 

 marched during the night away round to the 

 eastward, sweeping entirely the circle of the 

 Federal left wing, and then, as we closed in 

 around the city, and before the left wing had 

 got in position, struck us tipon the front, and 

 also upon the flanks." Unsuspicious of this 

 deep laid plan for his discomfiture, Gen. Sher- 

 man pushed his troops beyond the abandoned 

 works, and found the enemy occupying in force 

 a line of finished redoubts completely covering 

 the approaches to Atlanta, and busily occupied 

 in connecting these redoubts with curtains 

 strengthened by. rifle trenches, abatis, and che- 

 vaux-de-frise. This satisfied him that Gen. 

 Hood meant to fight, and he immediately re- 

 sumed the dispositions previously commenced 

 for pressing the city on its eastern and north- 

 ern fronts. As the Federal line closed in, the 

 circle which it formed became so contracted, 

 that the 16th corps, Gen. Dodge, which formed 

 the right of the Army of the Tennessee, was 

 thrown out of position, and fell behind the 15th 

 corps, the latter thus closing up with Gen. 

 Schofield, who held the centre. Gen. McPher- 

 son accordingly ordered Gen. Dodge to shift 

 his position to the extreme left of the line, and 

 occupy the hill carried by the 17th corps on 



the previous day, and which was still held by 

 Gen. Leggett's division. At about 11 A.M., 

 soon after this movement had commenced, Gen. 

 McPherson met the commander-in-chief near 

 the centre of the lines. " He described to me," 

 says Gen. Sherman in his official report, " the 

 condition of things on his flank and the dispo- 

 sitions of his troops. I explained to him that 

 if we met serious resistance in Atlanta, as pres- 

 ent appearances indicated, instead of operating 

 against it by the left, I would extend to the 

 right, and that I did not want him to gain 

 much distance to the left. He then described 

 the hill occupied by Gen. Leggett's division of 

 Gen. Blair's (17th) corps as essential to the oc- 

 cupation of any ground to the east and south 

 of the Augusta railroad, on account of its com- 

 manding nature. I therefore ratified his dis- 

 position of troops, and modified a previous order 

 I had sent him in writing to use Gen. Dodge's 

 corps, thrown somewhat in reserve by the 

 closing up of our line, to break up railroad, 

 and I sanctioned its going, as already ordered 

 by Gen. McPherson, to his left, to hold and 

 fortify that position." 



At noon Gen. McPherson rode off to the left, 

 where the enemy appeared to be making a 

 slight cavalry demonstration. He had not been 

 gone half an hour Avhen the desultory skirmish- 

 ing which had been going on in that quarter 

 all the morning suddenly deepened into a loud 

 crash of musketry, followed by rapid artillery 

 firing, indicating the presence of the enemy in 

 large force. Gen. Hood had in fact secured 

 the opportunity which he desired, and ap- 

 prehending rightly that a demonstration Avas 

 least expected on the left flank, had massed 

 Gens. Hardee's and- Stewart's corps under 

 the cover of the thick woods which skirt 

 the railroad, and was preparing to attack the 

 IGth and 17th corps while they were getting 

 into position, his forts meanwhile holding 

 the Federal centre and right in check. Gen. 

 Sherman instantly transmitted orders to Gens. 

 Schofield and Thomas to keep the enemy em- 

 ployed on all parts of their front, and the former 

 was directed to hold as large a force as possible 

 in reserve to sustain the left, should aid be 

 needed. 



Gen. McPherson, upon reaching the left, 

 found the 16th corps just about moving into 

 position to prolong the flank, and temporarily 

 facing to the left in a direction perpendicular 

 to our main line. Between the right of the 

 16th and the left of the 17th corps was a wooded 

 space of about half a mile which was not occu- 

 pied by any troops. Shortly after twelve o'clock 

 the enemy emerged from the dense woods in 

 front of these corps in three solid columns, and 

 marched directly upon the 16th corps for the 

 purpose of turning our whole line. Three des- 

 perate assaults were repelled by Gen. Dodge, 

 in the last of which the enemy suffered severe 

 loss from the well-directed fire of the Federal 

 batteries. Finding that the attempt to break 

 the lines had failed at this point, Gen. McPher- 



