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 25 Continuous Batt le T h e App r o a c h t o A t l a n t a , M a y – A u g u s t 1 8 6 4 The Guns of Resaca One week after the fight at Dug Gap, Chaplain Ames rode south to catch up with the regiment. The noise and motion he rode into west of Resaca told him a major battle was being fought just ahead. He could not penetrate the masses of wagons, artillery, and thousands of troops maneuvering for position and gave up trying. Next morning, he learned that the rebels had departed during the night and the Twenty-Ninth had gone after them. He rode across the battlefield, pausing to note the strength of the abandoned rebel forts, the signs of their hasty flight, and the many dead strewn about. A few days earlier, Gen. Joe Johnston had vacated Dalton and moved his army down to Resaca, the next stop on the railroad to Atlanta. Sherman’s plan was to pin Johnston against the river below Resaca and destroy him. He fitted his army into a line four miles long facing the impressive rebel entrenchments and a three-day battle was fought. Geary’s division had fought nobly on the final day, but Candy’s brigade, with the exception of some special work by the Fifth Ohio, had not been actively engaged, and the Twenty-Ninth Ohio not at all. On the first day, Gen. John Bell Hood was sent to attack the Federal left and roll up Sherman’s flank. Hooker got Brig. Gen. Alpheus Williams’s division up in time to blunt Hood’s attack and Geary’s division filed onto the firing line to lend their weight. Candy’s brigade came up last and did not get in on the glorious repulse. Generals Sherman, Thomas, and Hooker galloped up at eleven on the morning of the third day and paused to perfect their plans. Some of the Giddings Boys were standing near enough to overhear their discussion. Hooker was asked by either Thomas or Sherman how many men it would take to capture an earthen fort that stood in a salient in the rebel line. There were guns in this fort enfilading the Union lines. Hooker staggered his superiors by saying, “Geary’s division can, I think, carry that position if it can be done by anyone.”1 Geary’s boys trotted three-quarters of a mile through a narrow ravine and got into position for the attack. Ireland’s brigade descended the ridge with flags flying, crossed a boggy creek, and stepped out to take the rebel guns. It was a grand scene and everyone, participants and observers, waved their hats and cheered at the tops of their lungs. The Giddings Boys were safely positioned behind breastworks and piles of railroad ties to the left and rear and had a ringside seat to the rare sight of a full brigade attacking in narrow massed columns by regiments.2 Ireland’s boys and those of Brig. Gen. J. H. Hobart Ward’s brigade, of Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield’s division, got to the guns at about the same time, and Ireland’s boys stabbed the butt of their flagstaff t h e a p p r o a c h t o at l a n t a , m ay – a u g u s t 1 8 6 4 319 into the ground, staking their claim on it. There was little time to argue over bragging rights. The rebels still held their main line twenty yards to the rear of the fort and they began taking aim at the little fort, pinning the Federals to the ground. Geary ordered several regiments of Buschbeck’s brigade to cross the half mile of open ground and join the men hunkered down near the rebel guns. Geary’s hundreds were in danger of being cut off and destroyed, if the rebels elected to step out from behind their breastworks. Geary’s reaction was to send even more men out. The Fifth Ohio, of Candy’s brigade, and several regiments from his other brigades moved forward to pull the rebel guns into their lines. By late in the afternoon, Geary had half his command out there beyond supporting distance. The rebels launched a charge but were beaten back in a half hour’s worth of some of the most concentrated musket and cannon fire of the...

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