Part 9

The night was very dark, and I proposed to Sergeant Orson Vanderhoef of our company, that if he and two others would volunteer to go with me we would go over to the hillside and bring off the body of Lieutenant Stedman. Ort. was made of the best of stuff, and with two others, as good, we started. Never saw I such a scene before. The old dead pine trees standing on the ridge had taken fire from the bursting shells and cast a weird and gloomy light over the battlefield. When we came to the old road we followed it up and soon came to the tree under which the body of the dead lieutenant lay. Some one had taken his saber that I so much wanted to send home to his only child, at that time a small boy, but we searched in vain for it. I never can forget the terrible sounds that filled our ears. When the wounded men discovered that some one was there they began such piteous appeals for help. "For God's sake can't you give me a drop of water?" "Can't you help me off the field, so I may not be captured?" The memory of that dread scene haunts me still, and I suppose will as long as I can turn in fond recollection to those brave men that were so ruthlessly sacrificed at the battle of New Hope Church. Would it not be the proper thing for General O. Howard (between his prayers) to explain why he left that hillside with its great number of wounded men to fall into the hands of a merciless enemy, when a good skirmish line could have held it, at least until the wounded could have been removed? I would not have propounded this inquiry had I not seen some of his war articles in a popular magazine. But I must return to my sad story. I said to Sergeant Vanderhoef that he and I would take the shoulders, and the others might divide the balance of the burden, as Ort. and I were a little the more muscular of the party. We had just stooped down to raise the body of our loved comrade when there rang out the silvery notes of a bugle, so clear and soft one might have mistaken it for some night bird's call. Ort. said: "Captain, what's that?" I said: "I guess that is some artillery call. It is certainly not an infantry call." Ort. said: "By G—d, it's the _rebel forward_, I've heard it many a time on picket, and we'd better be getting out of here pretty G—d d—d quick." Just at this instant a rebel skirmisher stepped into the old road, and the blaze of his musket went away past where we stood. I whispered to separate instantly, and away we went down the hill. The firing had now become general all along the line, telling the story only too plainly that the field, with all of its wealth of dead and wounded comrades, had been abandoned to the tender mercies of one of the most cruel enemies that ever fought a battle. Common humanity would have dictated that a fresh line should have been established on that field, and maintained there until the last wounded union soldier had been tenderly borne back to the field hospital. The only reason the rebels charged over that battlefield that night was because they knew no line of union skirmishers was there to oppose them, and they could plunder the brave dead and wounded without danger of molestation.

As soon as one was away from the light of the burning pines it was so dark one could not see a hand before him, and the first thing that I realized I was up to my neck in Picket's mill pond; but, being a Baptist, that did not astonish me to any alarming extent. I groped around in the darkness not knowing whether my wandering steps were bearing me into our lines or the rebels'. At length, about three o'clock a. m., I came upon a group of men and asked who they were. One replied they were General Howard and staff. I told them my name, rank, company and regiment, as well as brigade and division, and asked for directions. None of them could give any and I was about to leave when it occurred to me that was the corps commandant, and I, as an officer, had a duty to perform. I addressed the general, begging his pardon for the intrusion, and told him that I had been driven off the battlefield, and that there was not so much as a union picket between our lines and the rebels. You might have supposed that he thanked me for the information, and that he would have said "that he would have the matter looked into," but on the contrary his reply was: "There is not a word of truth in your story, sir. Go away from here, this is my headquarters." I went immediately away reflecting how it was possible for a man to be such a devout Christian and a corps commander, and still be so little of a gentleman.

When I found the regiment they were intrenching, and I worked with them until daylight, when we found our works faced to the rear. We soon put out a skirmish line, reformed our works, and this battle under the different names of Picket's Mills, Pumpkinvine creek and New Hope Church, was the last engagement in which our brigade took part on the rebel position known as Dallas.

In this battle of New Hope Church, just described in the poor way that a line officer has of seeing such a conflict, our regiment lost very heavily in officers and men. I see by a note I made at the time that the brigade in this action lost five hundred and sixty men. We remained in this position for a number of days, skirmishing and fighting, somewhere, almost constantly. It was at this position that we had the benefit of a lesson and example from the regular brigade. On this line the regulars joined us on the left. The rebel skirmish line ran along by the edge of a wood, while from our line to theirs the ground was open and comparatively level. To avoid losing men, we put our skirmishers out before daylight in the morning, avoiding any formal "guard mounting," and relieved them after dark at night. The regulars took the _regular regulation way_. At nine o'clock every morning they had "guard mounting," omitting no formality of the same. The rebel skirmish line, safe in their pits, firing into them all the time. The new line going out under fire, and the relieved one coming back under the same conditions. This occurred every morning as long as we remained in this position. I am not certain whether this fact ever came to the knowledge of the general officers or not, but the fact became so notorious that the men from all along our brigade were in the habit of coming in behind our works to witness the "_regular guard mounting_." They used to lose from two to five men every morning. The boys used to call it the "regular slaughter pen."

We remained in this position until the fifth of June, when we found that Sherman's flanking process had done its work and the rebels had abandoned their position, and we moved to the left to within three miles of Ackworth. From this time until we again struck the rebel position, the twenty-second of June, it was march, skirmish and intrench. This gave us but little rest, and the boys were looking haggard and careworn. This constant skirmishing, this no place of safety, this constant alarm, and night work on intrenchments, seemed to fatigue and wear out men more than fighting hard battles, followed by security and rest.

We had now pushed our line as far south as Marietta, a beautiful town, situated just north of the Chattahoochee river, and just south of Kennesaw mountain. This country of central Georgia is somewhat peculiar in its formation. There are no distinct mountain ranges south of the Allatoonas, but here and there a beautiful little mountain rises all alone above the surrounding country, that seems very much like table- land, though not level enough to bear that appellation. Among these solitary mountains, the names of which I remember, are Pine, where the rebel general, Bishop Polk, was killed before we reached our present position, Kennesaw mountain, Lost mountain and Stone mountain. All these little mountains were taken advantage of, as defensive positions, by the enemy; and here at Marietta the rebel line ran over the north side of Kennesaw, making an admirable position for its right flank. Here we forced our way very close to the enemy's works and in some places our works approached theirs to within two hundred feet, so that neither army could have a skirmish line beyond its works. When we were coming into this close position, the rebels made a charge and were repulsed with great slaughter; and their dead lay there unburied until after they abandoned this line. Some of us went over this portion of the line, and it was with difficulty that we picked our way among the rebel dead. I never saw the dead lie thicker, save at Chickamauga; and it took a strong man to stand the terrible stench that arose from that field in this almost tropical climate. I think this position of the enemy was the strongest of any we had encountered, and for the benefit of those that were not there I will describe these rebel works and defenses. In the first place there was the timber, the trees were felled and the tops turned outward, the small branches all trimmed off and the large ones sharpened. These trees, so trimmed, were placed contiguously to each other, and the buts staked down with heavy stakes driven deep into the ground. This first line of rebel defenses was about shoulder high to an ordinary man, and could only be cleared away by axmen. Their second line was constructed in this wise: A ditch was dug about four feet deep, pine poles from three to four inches in diameter were cut and sharpened to a point, set about four inches apart at an angle of about forty-five degrees, facing outward, and coming up about breast high. This ditch was filled with earth, and tamped solidly, then near the ground these sharpened stakes were woven together with withes. A more formidable defense could hardly be invented. Their third line of defense required more labor. They cut pine logs about twelve inches in diameter, and bored them through the center at right angles, with three inch augers; these holes were filled with pine poles six feet long sharpened at each end, and driven through the log just halfway. These logs were halved together and pinned, and the splices wrapped with telegraph wire, thus making a continuous line. This defense is what the French call _Chevauxdefrise_, and is just as formidable one side up as the other, and cannot be gotten over without axmen. Finally, the rifle pits, with head-logs thereon, leaving a space of about three inches, through which an infantryman could aim and fire in comparative safety, the head-logs fully protecting the head above the line of sight. These defenses were placed and constructed about fifteen rods apart, and all within the deadly range of the Enfield rifle with which our mother country had armed the confederacy; and a more accurate, longer range muzzle-loader was never invented. A portion of the enemy's line, with defenses just as I have described above, General Sherman tried to carry by assault the twenty-seventh day of June, and lost three thousand men in fifteen minutes, General Newton making the assault with the first division of the 4th corps. Our brigade was in position to support the assaulting columns and we saw the disastrous charge, but the charge failing we were not put in. Here the brave young General Harker was killed, while leading one of the assaulting columns. That the charge would fail was inevitable. A single line of battle of the enemy, armed as they were, inside of such defenses, could repulse any mass of men that could be sent against them. It would require a man without a musket and accouterments, armed with a good ax, from five to ten minutes to cut through these three outer lines of defenses, and the idea of assaulting such a position without first having these defenses cleared away, was entirely preposterous. It would have cost the killing or wounding of one thousand axmen to have cleared the way for a regimental front to charge. After the terrible disaster of the twenty-seventh of June, 1864, General Sherman came out in a long general order, which was in fact a very weak excuse for this disastrous blunder, and winding up in substance as follows: "My soldiers must learn that they must charge in all places, and that we cannot depend at all times upon flank movements."

I suffer no man, no old soldier, to stand before me in my admiration for the services rendered our country by that grand old hero, General W. T. Sherman, but in military life, like civil life, a man may be very valuable and great in one direction, and of very little value in another. That general was not developed during the war for the suppression of the rebellion, that could handle one hundred thousand men in such a fine manner, keeping them all in hand, like General Sherman. But when it came to fighting in a country the Atlanta campaign was fought over, with the defenses his army had to meet, his corps commanders, and his men generally, had very little confidence in his judgment. This feeling, that he knew was quite general, was the inspiration of the famous order that I have referred to before, issued after the battle of Kennesaw mountain, June 27th, 1864. I have it on the authority of Colonel Payne, that Generals Thomas, Logan, McPherson and others of his generals on the campaign, persuaded him out of many an assault he had ordered, that would have been as disastrous as that of Kennesaw mountain. But that any of them had the ability to do as well as he did I do not believe. General Thomas had the best of judgment in fighting a battle and what men could do and should attempt, but he would never have gotten his army there as Sherman did. Of course General Sherman never _admitted_ his mistake in ordering the assault at Kennesaw, but we all remember he never _repeated_ it during the remainder of the campaign.

In the position in front of Kennesaw we saw trees twelve inches in diameter cut completely off by the fire of musketry alone—simply bitten out, piece by piece, until the trees would fall. You can imagine about how much ammunition was expended?

On the third of July we found the rebels had again retired, and we followed up, passing through Marietta. We made a short stop near the Georgia State Military Institute. Some of us went up on one of the buildings and had a fine view of the surrounding country. We marched in all to the southward six miles this day, and turned in to get ready to celebrate the glorious fourth, to-morrow. The morning of the fourth opened with more than a national salute, and though we did not do much fighting there was plenty of cannonading on our right, and it was currently reported in camp that fifteen hundred prisoners had been captured, which caused "the day we celebrate" to be indeed a glorious fourth. The fifth we found the rebels had again abandoned their works in our front, and our regiment deployed as skirmishers, and held the advance of the division. We found, on the top of the hill that overlooks the Chattahoochee river, a "_butternut_" that had evidently tired of the southern confederacy, for, as Hood puts it, had "enlisted in the line." He had bent down a sapling, fastened a piece of bark around "his melancholy neck" and to the sapling, and then let go. He was one of those lank, lean rebels that had not flesh enough on his bones to even decay. He had dried up like a piece of beef, and was an elegant specimen of a confederate mummy. This item of news in time of peace would, undoubtedly, have furnished a sensational article for a Marietta paper, but the boys cut him down and the line moved on.

In the afternoon, as we approached the river, from the top of a high hill we saw Atlanta. It looked as good to us as the promised land did to Moses, as there we saw the end of this terribly exacting and fatiguing campaign. As we were driving the rebels down to the river, at the south side of an open field, the rebels erected rail barricades, from which it gave us some trouble to dislodge them. I thought by swinging the left of our line around we could "gobble them in," and not expose our center to their fire, protected as they were, and had sent word to that effect to Captain Raidaie, who had charge of that portion of the line. About this time General Tommy Wood, commander of our division, rode up, accompanied by one orderly. Without waiting for me to carry out my little strategy, or in fact consulting me at all, he at once ordered a charge. "Go in, brave boys." "Go in, brave boys." We, of course, drove the Johnnies from their rail barricade with the most perfect safety, as they put in all the time we were "double quicking" across the field, shooting at "Old Tommy;" fortunately the old general was in such a state of _spiritual exhilaration_ that he was in no danger of getting hurt. That night we drove the last rebel across the Chattahoochee river, and went into camp for several days.

We had been on the campaign sixty-three days. The enemy had been flanked out of four very strong positions, but nothing like a general engagement had been fought, nothing like a decisive battle had been won. Owing to the fact that where battles had been fought the enemy fought behind his works, on very advantageous ground, our losses must have been very much more severe than his. Our base of supplies was every day growing farther away, and our line of communications therewith requiring more men to guard. With the exception of the fact that we had run over some rebel territory, that we left in a condition to feed no more rebels, what had we gained.

The enemy during all these long weeks had been commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston. Of all the defensive officers, developed by the war on either side, I do not believe General Joseph E. Johnston had an equal. In the face of a vastly superior army, he had held four positions, fought many battles, and finally crossed the Chattahoochee river, and General Sherman had not been able to force him into a decisive engagement.

In all this defensive retreat General Johnston had not lost property to the value of a cracker box. While the country we had so far advanced over had been most favorable to a defensive campaign, nevertheless, I doubt if the history of the world can furnish another example of so well executed defensive work, as that conducted by General Joseph E. Johnston, from Ringgold to the Chattahoochee river. But fortunately for the right treason is not always associated with great ability. If the civil administration of the confederacy had been conducted as ably as the military, with all of its mistakes and blunders, the outcome would have been a matter of grave doubt. But fortunately for the Union and the cause of humanity, Mr. Jefferson Davis, the president of the confederacy, had not the ability to appreciate the services of one so able as the general that had so successfully opposed General Sherman on the Atlanta campaign. Generals Johnston and Sherman were both educated at our military academy at West Point, and were classmates. Each knew the other very well; and it was the plan of General Johnston, knowing the impetuosity of General Sherman, to destroy the union army by suffering it to continually give him battle behind his impregnable works, and from which continual mistakes General Sherman's able lieutenants had saved him (to which I have referred heretofore). General Johnston well knew, from the start, that he could not cope with the union army in an open field engagement, and he had planned to have so reduced Sherman's army, by the time he had reached and crossed the Chattahoochee river, that the two armies would be on something like equal terms as to men, and a more aggressive mode of warfare on the part of the rebel forces would give better promise of success. But after the confederate army had crossed the Chattahoochee river, the civil authorities at Richmond became alarmed. The president of the confederacy being the inspiration of the dissatisfaction that existed against General Sherman's heroic opponent, General Johnston was removed and General Hood placed in command of the rebel forces, and the sequel will show with what success. Had General Johnston been supported by the civil authorities at Richmond, as the good (or bad rather) of the confederate cause demanded, in my humble judgment, the music and sentiment of "Marching through Georgia," that so much amused the grand old general in his declining years, would never have been written. But I must stop this generalizing and return to the details of my narrative.

July 10th, 1864, again found us on the march to the left, and we moved in that direction about seven miles to near the headquarters of the 23d Corps, and on the twelfth, again struck tents, and moved down to the river, crossing the same on a canvas-boat pontoon bridge, and went into camp much nearer Atlanta than ever before. The next day we were again on the move, but only made a short distance and went into camp, and remained in camp until the seventeenth, when our brigade went to the river above, drove the Johnnies away, and saw one of General Sherman's pontoon companies put a bridge across the Chattahoochee river in just one hour and a quarter, and the 14th Army Corps commenced crossing. The next day we broke camp and started in the direction of Atlanta, General Newton's division taking the lead. We found nothing but skirmishers before us, who seemed entirely willing to fall back as fast as we came on. The next day, the nineteenth, we moved up to Peach Tree creek, and we found that a different commander was in charge of the rebels, for they attacked the 20th Corps with great spirit. But it did not seem to take the heroes of Lookout mountain long in an open field fight to do the Johnnies, as they seemed to be very glad to get away from them. This battle of Peach Tree creek was the first of Hood's battles, and in this he was very badly punished. Our regiment was not engaged more than in heavy skirmishing, but our captain, Sherburn B. Eaton, was badly, and in fact very dangerously, wounded. He was serving on staff duty at division headquarters at the time. The captain recovered from his wound, but not sufficiently to permit of his returning to the service. Captain Eaton was our first adjutant, and was as prompt an one as ever read orders on dress parade. He was a very scholarly gentleman, and from him we learned much; and if I remember correctly he learned some things from us. Some of us country boys, on the start, thought our adjutant a little stylish; but we found him brave in action, and that, like charity, covers a multitude of other seeming defects in a soldier.

General Sam. Beatty's brigade of our division captured a large number of men, and among them a number of officers. Though the burden of the battle of Peach Tree creek fell on Hooker's Corps, many other organizations bore quite important parts in the same. On the whole, we were all highly pleased with the change in the rebel commanders, and hoped he would keep up his present tactics. This open-field-battle business was just what we wanted, and had been praying for all summer, and only hoped Corporal Hood would indulge in them to excess.

On the twentieth of July we marched to the left, our division supporting the first division to within three miles of Decatur, and within four miles of Atlanta. Very heavy skirmishing in front, and McPherson reported within two miles of Atlanta. Hood charged Newton's division and Hooker's Corps, and was repulsed with great loss.

The twenty-first we broke camp very early, moved to the right, crossed the Peach Tree creek, moved to the front, and put up good works.