The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed.

[336] ground by fighting, unless the driving in of a few skirmishers can be called so. The Southern army was never, during this part of the campaign, driven from a position by fighting, or the fear of it; only by danger to its communications, by the extension of the strongly intrenched lines, which the enemy's greatly superior numbers enabled him to make and man. The positions gained on the 21st, near the south end of Kenesaw, and on a hill near, were outside of our position --not occupied by our line, and if at all, only by pickets, and General Sherman was deceived by reports of efforts to retake them and night attacks, which were never made by our troops. If the Confederate troops were so incessantly beaten, it is unaccountable that they were permitted to remain before Marietta four weeks, and then shifted their ground only to avoid losing their communications. The attack on Hooker and Schofield on the 22d, was made against orders by General Hood with Stevenson's Division, supported by Hindman's. It was defeated by intrenched artillery. But the troops held the ground they gained long enough to remove their dead and wounded. On the 25th, an attack like this was made on Stevenson's Division by the troops that had repulsed it 6n the 22d, and they were repelled with as heavy a loss as they had inflicted then. But this affair escapes General Sherman's notice.

Pages 60 and 61: The description of the attack on the Confederate army on the 27th of June, prepared from the 24th, and the statement of the Federal loss, contrast strangely: “About 9 A. M. of the day appointed the troops moved to the assault, and all along our lines for ten miles a furious fire of artillery and musketry was kept up. At all points the enemy met us with determined courage, and in great force. * * * By half-past 11 the assault was over, and had failed.” The statement of loss was twenty-five hundred killed and wounded. According to this, an army of Americans, inured to war, was defeated by a loss of but two and a half per cent. It is incredible. General Sherman's subordinates must have imposed upon him. It is equally incredible that another army of American veterans, as completely protected as men using arms can be, could strike but two and a half per cent. of men exposed to their muskets and cannon, in seven lines at least, in two hours and a half. The writer has seen American soldiers, not inured to war, win a field with a loss ten times greater proportionally.

Page 70: The Confederates are accused of burning their pontoon bridges after crossing the Chattahoochee. They did not commit that folly.

On the 17th, it was reported that the Federal army was on the