This text is part of:
[315]
up closely, pressed the Confederate skirmishers vigorously.
McPherson, overlapping Hood, captured prisoners of the Fortieth Alabama regiment.
Loring's skirmishers, being far in front and attacked by a line, were forced back.
Schofield, penetrating between Lost mountain and Gilgal church, where the line was held by skirmishers, put his artillery in position to take Hardee in reverse.
Mercer's Georgia brigade, near Gilgal church, by a strange oversight came near being cut off and captured.
As they made their escape, Olmstead's First volunteer regiment suffered considerable loss in killed and wounded.
On the night of the 16th, Johnston abandoned the Gilgal church and Lost mountain line with all the intrenchments, drawing Hardee's corps, his left, back behind Mud creek, the remainder of the line holding its ground.
This disposition made an angle at the junction of Hardee's right and Loring's left, and exposed the troops near the angle to an enfilade fire.
The Federal right approached Hardee's position, resisted by Jackson's cavalry division as well as 2,500 men could contend with 25,000.
Johnston set his engineer, Colonel Prestman, to preparing a new line (the third before Marietta), the famous one which included the crest of Kenesaw mountain.
On the 18th there was heavy skirmishing while the new line was being prepared.
On that day six companies of the Sixty-third Georgia charged and retook some abandoned rifle-pits, holding them all day against a heavy fire of infantry and artillery, and suffering considerable loss.
On the 19th, the Confederate army took the new position, which in its full extent, including the thin lines of cavalry on the flanks, formed a semi-circle about Marietta on the west and north.
Hood was massed on the north between the railroad at the foot of Kenesaw and the Canton road, Loring on the mountain, and Hardee south.
ward between the branches of Nose's creek.
Of Loring's
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.