Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 11.
Frank Moore, Ed.

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[275] with an inquisitive smile. To this ensemble I must add a hat which was the reverse of dignified or distinguished — a simple felt affair,with a round crown and drooping brim, and you have as fair a description of General Sherman's externals as I can pen.

Seating himself on a stick of cord-wood hardby the fence, he drew a bit of pencil from his pocket and spreading a piece of note paper on his knee, he wrote with great rapidity. Long columns of troops lined the road a few yards in his front, and beyond the road, massed in a series of spreading green fields, a whole division of infantry was awaiting its turn to take up the line of march, the blue ranks clear cut against the uniform verdant background. Those who were near their General looked at him curiously, for in so vast an army the soldier sees his Commander-in-chief but seldom. Page after page was filled by the General's nimble pencil and despatched. For a half hour I watched him, and though I looked for and expected to find them, no symptoms could I detect that the mind of the great leader was taxed by the infinite cares of a terribly hazardous military coup de main. Apparently it did not lie upon his mind the weight of a feather. A mail arrived. He tore open the papers and glanced over them hastily, then chatted with some General officers near him, then rode off with characteristic suddenness, but with fresh and smiling countenance, filing down the road beside many thousand men, whose lives were in his keeping.

Here was a movement in progress, which, turn out as it may, will stand out in high relief in history, as an instance of the marvellous daring and ingenuity of Sherman, and the readiness and compactness of his army. Here was a host such as Napoleon led in the maturity of his fame and power; yet we can hardly realize, as we watch the endless river of men, that we are seeing the event developing — conning the history as it appeals, fresh and unwritten, to our eyes. The columns whose faces seem to have something in common — to be uniformed like their bodies — a brisk squadron of horse — masses of recumbent troops — a cluster of guns, looking stupid with inertia — flankers of the genus camp-African, laden, as to weight, like a Holland emigrant — a General with his staff, a trifle smarter in attire and bearing than the line — and over in valleys, creeping in relief against the hills fused of the emerald and amethyst, and on crests in relief against the — pale blue of the sky, the articulated wagon-trains — these are the aggregate — the movement.

August 29.--To-day the army has not advanced its lines. The day has been consumed in issuing rations to the men, and tearing up and burning the railroad, thirteen miles of which have been so completely destroyed by Howard, Stanley and Davis, that nothing remains but the embankment. Generals Sherman and Thomas have their headquarters on the railway six miles from East Point.

There has been no fighting amounting to anything during the operation.

Fifteen members of the Ninetieth Ohio foolishly ventured outside the pickets to-day, two or three miles, and were all captured save one.

The operation of tearing up the road has been very interesting, and one over which the men, notwithstanding it is the hardest kind of labor, were quite enthusiastic. A regiment or brigade formed along the track; rails were loosened at their flanks, whereupon the whole line seized the track and flung a stretch corresponding to the length of their line from its bed. The rails were then detached, the ties piled up and covered with fence-rails. The iron was then deposited upon the pyre, the torch applied and the thing was soon consummated. The men, not content with the curve made in the rails by the intense and continued heat, seized many and twisted them until they looked like members of a phonographic alphabet.

The troops to-day were placed on three quarter rations, to provide against any emergency. They are getting abundance of roasting-ears, so their dinners will have bulk as well as nutrition.

August 30.--We get the direction of Atlanta to-night by looking toward the north star. We are now directly south of the city, between the West Point and Macon railroads, and so near the latter — the last artery of the Gate City--that we must strike it to-morrow.

The Fourteenth corps broke camp at six o'clock this morning, and moved out on the direct road to Rough and Ready Station, on the Macon railroad, eleven miles from Atlanta. The Fourth corps marched at the same hour on a parallel road further north. The advance has had slight skirmishing with a brigade or two of rebel cavalry and infantry.

Learning that the enemy was fortified along the Macon railway, the Army of the Cumberland halted, and intrenched about two miles west of it. The Twenty-third corps closed up and faced north-east, to guard against an attack from the direction of Atlanta. The Army of the Tennessee moved toward Jonesboroa in two columns, Hazen's division, Fifteenth. corps, in advance. On reaching the head of Flint river, about a mile from Jonesboroa, skirmishers were found on the opposite bank. After a lively skirmish the Fifteenth corps effected a crossing, where it formed and intrenched.

Kilpatrick's cavalry on the right of the Army of the Tennessee, also made a crossing this morning and attempted to push their way to the railroad. While advancing with this object in view, the rebel infantry attacked him, and forced him back after a severe struggle. Infantry supports were sent up, and the enemy checked. Kilpatrick's loss was about one hundred. His assault proved that the enemy were in heavy force around Jonesboroa. and intrenched.

We learn that Hardee's and Lee's corps commenced