Chapter 9:
There was no military movement made by Sherman, from the time he began the Atlanta campaign till the end of the war, which brought such severe criticism upon him from the armies which he commanded as the assault upon Kenesaw Mountain. By the almost universal verdict along the lines, it was adjudged an utterly needless move, and so an inexcusable slaughter. Before the assault he had Thomas, with sixty thousand men, in front of the enemy's center. That enemy was not over forty-five thousand strong, and he had Schofield and McPherson, with over thirty-five thousand, to operate on the flank, and force the evacuation of Kenesaw without a battle, exactly as was done a few days after the assault. And these three armies, which had been fighting for three years, did not appreciate then, and have never appreciated Sherman's reasons for hurling two of them against an impregnable mountain, which were mainly, as he wrote, to teach his own army that it was sometimes necessary to assault fortified lines, and show the enemy that, on occasion, ‘he would assault, and that boldly.’ And it cost over two thousand veterans killed and wounded to teach those who survived such a lesson as this! Those who read Sherman's Memoirs from the stand-point of the three armies then operating under him, will naturally look for his account of Kenesaw, and all material points are hereby given in full:
During the 24th and 25th of June, General Schofield extended his right
