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[292]

As it actually turned out, Sherman's march was much delayed, and ended at the position assigned him a day late, owing to the fact that he male the mistake of encumbering his columns by the division wagon-trains. It also turned out that he halted, after recrossing to the south side of the river, to fortify, instead of proceeding at once to the attack, and that when he did attack, instead of carrying the enemy's flanking intrenchments, he was not only repulsed, but never succeeded in capturing them, or in actually turning or taking in reverse the enemy's line. In other words, an impasse took place from the first, and was never dissolved by any effort on the part of Sherman or Howard. It was thought at the time, and was afterwards claimed in the reports of both Sherman and Grant, that Sherman's movement had been met by a counter movement of many troops from other parts of the enemy's line, but a subsequent examination of the Confederate reports shows that Bragg, after Sherman made his lodgement on the south side of the river, drew no troops from his centre or left to strengthen his right. Dana fell into this error at the time as did the rest, but this did not affect his mind nor his report further than to relieve Sherman from blame for the repulse of his attacks front the first to the end of the action. No one can read the despatches without becoming convinced that Generals Grant and Thomas, as well as the staff-officers, including Dana, who were present with them on Orchard Knoll, thought on the second clay of the battle that Bragg was moving troops to his right against Sherman, and it was to prevent an overwhelming concentration of the enemy on that flank that Grant first mildly suggested that the time had come, and an hour later positively ordered Thomas to make a diversion from his front in Sheridan's favor by advancing his line against the enemy's rifle-pits at the foot of Missionary Ridge.

It should be remembered that all the marching and

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