[
123]
and struck it in flank and rear while a portion of it was in motion,
General Sherman continues:
The enemy was, therefore, enabled, under cover of the forest, to approach quite near before he was discovered; indeed, his skirmish line had worked through the timber and got into the field to the rear of Giles A. Smith's division of the Seventeenth Corps unseen, had captured Murray's battery of regular artillery, moving through these woods entirely unguarded, and had got possession of several of the hospital camps.
The right of this rebel line struck Dodge's troops in motion; but, fortunately, this corps (Sixteenth) had only to halt, face to the left, and was in line of battle; and this corps not only held in check the enemy, but drove him back through the woods.
About the same time this same force had struck General Giles A. Smith's left flank, doubled it back, captured four guns in position and the party engaged in building the very battery, which was the special object of McPherson's visit to me, and almost enveloped the entire left flank.
The men, however, were skillful and brave, and fought for a time with their backs to Atlanta.
They gradually fell back, compressing their own line, and gaining strength by making junction with Leggett's division of the Seventeenth Corps, well and strongly posted on the hill.
One or two brigades of the Fifteenth Corps, ordered by McPherson, came rapidly across the open field to the rear, from the direction of the railroad, filled up the gap from Blair's new left to the head of Dodge's column-now facing to the general left-thus forming a strong left flank at right angles to the original line of battle.
The enemy attacked, boldly and repeatedly, the whole of this flank, but met an equally fierce resistance, and on that ground a bloody battle raged from little after noon till into the night. * * * *
‘I rode over the whole of it’ (the field) ‘the next day, and it bore the marks of a bloody conflict.
The enemy had retired during the night inside of Atlanta, and we remained master of the situation outside.
I purposely allowed the Army of the Tennessee’ [then in the hands of three political generals] ‘to fight this battle almost unaided, save by demonstrations on the part of Generals Schofield and Thomas against the fortified lines to their immediate fronts, and by detaching, as described, one of Schofield's brigades to Decatur, because I knew that the attacking force could only be a part of Hood's army, and that, if any assistance were rendered by either of the other armies, the Army of the Tennessee would be jealous.
Nobly did they do their work that day, and terrible was the slaughter done to our enemy, though at sad cost to ourselves.’
In reporting upon the battle to
General Halleck,
General Sherman telegraphed:
‘McPherson's sudden death, and Logan succeeding to the command, as it were, in the midst of battle, made some confusion on our extreme left; but it ’
