Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

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[505] through Snake Creek Gap toward Resaca, and Schofield constantly pressing his heavy skirmish lines from Red Clay toward Dalton, to unveil from that northern side Johnston's half-concealed intrenchments.

A couple of miles away to my right, southward, on May 9th, the Twentieth Corps, under Hooker, had hard fighting indeed. Fifty men were killed and a large number wounded. My personal friend, Lieutenant Colonel McIlvain, Sixty-fourth Ohio, was killed here. Every regimental commander in this hard struggle was wounded. The Fourteenth Corps also, under Palmer, nearer to us, had its own brisk work.

From this command, the Sixty-sixth Illinois kept working forward by the side of the dangerous gap, drawing fire, and driving in the enemy's outer lines. The soldiers finally obtained shelter, without being able to get farther forward, within speaking distance of their foes. One enterprising corporal made a bargain with some Confederates who were throwing heavy bowlders from above, that if they would refrain from their bothersome work, he would read to them the President's famous amnesty proclamation. He did so, and comparative quiet was kept during this strange entertainment.

On May 8th General Newton, with my second division, had managed, after working up some two miles north of the gap, to push a small force up the slope, and then, taking the defenders by a rush drove them along southward on the ridge until he had succeeded in capturing from the Confederates at least one-third of the ridge. Here he established a signal station. He next tried, but in vain, to seize and capture a Confederate signal party, which he deemed too actively talking by the busy use of their flags.