The further retreat.
After skirmishing for a while at
Adairsville, the army being drawn up in line of battle on a range of hills south of the
Oothcaloga Valley,
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General Johnston, at dusk on the 16th, fell back to
Cassville, where he remained till the 19th.
An order from
General Johnston was that day read to the troops, to the effect that ‘the army would retreat no further, but would meet and fight the enemy at this place.’
It was heard with the greatest delight by the troops, and excited general enthusiasm.
In the afternoon, the men were ordered to prepare entrenchments, which they did under the heavy fire of the enemy.
To the chagrin of all, that very night at 10 o'clock an order came to fall back.
This sudden change of intention was at that time a mystery, but in his official report
General Johnston has stated the cause.
General Hood had said that he could not hold his part of the line;
General Polk that he did not think he could hold his; while
Hardee, who held the weakest part of the whole line, was of the opinion that he could hold his.
On the morning of the 20th the line of retreat was taken up across the
Etowah river to Alatoona, and thence to New Hope Church, near
Dallas.
On the 25th the enemy moved up and charged the greater part of the line, but were repulsed with heavy loss at every point.
The Third Maryland was not engaged till late in the evening, when it did terrible execution in the enemy's ranks, itself having but two men slightly wounded.
Again on the 27th, the enemy charged our right wing, and the Third Maryland was ordered to open upon them.
A heavy fire was kept up for about an hour with telling effect.
This was evident from the fact that the enemy's shots were continually rising; this was a sure sign that they were becoming excited.
The elevating screw of a cannon is depressed by the impact upon it of the breech at the moment of firing, with the effect, of course, of elevating the muzzle, and causing the shot to rise higher and higher.
The screw should be run up after each discharge of the piece-something that in the tumult of battle a gunner might easily forget.
During this artillery duel, a shell from the enemy exploded in a building immediately in the rear of the battery, and but a few paces from it, and set the building on fire.
There was danger of the fire communicating with the ammunition, therefore, it was absolutely necessary to extinguish it to make the position of the Third Maryland at all tenable.
Private W. J. Lewis, of
Lieutenant Ritter's section, volunteered to bring water from a branch, two hundred yards in front of the line, to put out the fire.
He was exposed to a heavy fire from the enemy, but returned unharmed, and accomplished his object.
The building was saved, and the position held by the Third Maryland.
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On the 29th the battery was ordered to the right, near where
Granberry's Texas brigade repulsed the enemy on the 27th.
About 1 o'clock in the morning of the 30th,
Captain Rowan ordered
Lieutenant Ritter to go with the officer of the day to the picket line, to get the range of a working party of the enemy, about six hundred yards in front of his position.
They went within a hundred yards of this party, near enough to hear the men speak, but not to distinguish their words.
As they returned to the battery,
Lieutenant Ritter marked the trees with his eye that he might be certain of the range.
He called the cannoneers, who were asleep, to the guns, and opened upon the intruders, who ceased working, and did not return to that place again.
It was a calm, starlight night, no breeze was stirring, and the booming of the
Napoleon guns was echoed and re-echoed among the distant hills.
The infantry, who lay in the ditches, were aroused from their slumbers by the sudden firing, and sprang up at once along the line, muskets in hand, and ready for action.
On the 31st,
Corporal Thomas Jones was killed by a random picket shot, and
Private A. Lee wounded by the same ball.
These men belonged to first detachment of the battery, the same that had suffered so severely at the
battle of Resaca.
The body of
Corporal Jones was buried on a small ridge three hundred yards in rear of the line, and
Lieutenant Ritter cut his name on a small piece of board, and placed it at the head of the grave.
Early in the afternoon of the same day,
Lieutenant Ritter went to a spring about a hundred yards in front of the line, to get some water.
While there, he concluded to wash his feet, and took a seat on a stone, near the bank below the spring, and pulled off his left boot and sock.
Very soon he heard a minnie ball pass over his head and strike the bank behind him. He paid no attention to it, thinking it was a random shot, but a second, third and fourth one came, striking the bank about the same place; but the last one came so very near his head that he concluded to beat a retreat, being convinced that a picket in a tree top, not far distant, was taking deliberate aim at him.
When, on the 4th of June, the
New Hope line was abandoned for the
Lost Mountain line, and that afterwards for the Noonday Valley line, the Third Maryland took part in every movement.
On the 22d, at
Marietta, the battery was ordered out on the field with
General Stevenson's division, to charge the right wing of the enemy's line.
It was placed on a hill half a mile from the
Federal force, there to await further orders; but it was not sent forward.
Stevenson's
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division was repulsed, with the loss of a thousand men killed and wounded.
The
Maryland battery lost none, though under a severe artillery fire the whole time.
On the night of the 4th of July the battalion was ordered to the
Chattahoochee river; thence on the 9th to within eight miles of
Atlanta, on the Green's Ferry road; thence to Mill Creek road, where, on the 20th, an attack was made by the enemy, which was repulsed.
General Johnston had been superseded by
General Hood on the 14th of July.
This was much regretted by the line officers and the rank and file of the army.
