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  Battle for the Macon & Western For almost a month after the engagement at Ezra Church and the failure of the McCook-Stoneman raid, the opposing armies remained in relatively stable positions about Atlanta. Their parallel sets of heavily fortified trenches and artillery positions began on the east side of Atlanta, near Decatur, curved around to the north and west, and then stretched south along the city’s western side. Hood’s fortifications stood between Sherman’s forces and the railroads connecting Atlanta to East Point and thence to West Point, Montgomery, and Mobile to the southwest and Macon to the south. Those lines—especially the Macon & Western (), which one Union soldier called “the great feeder of the Rebel army”—were Hood’s lifeline to the Confederacy. So long as he could fend Sherman off from at least one of them, he and his army could remain in Atlanta. (By August the Confederates had repaired most of the damage Rousseau had done to the railroad to Montgomery, but owing to that line’s proximity to the Federal forces, they no longer made heavy use of it.) In the first week of August Sherman sought to extend the right of his army group to the south to sever the Confederate rail lines. When he found that the Army of the Tennessee on his extreme right could stretch its lines no farther, the Federal commander moved Schofield’s Army of the Ohio from its old position on the Yankee left northeast of Atlanta to the right end of the Union line. Only Northern cavalrymen remained in the works east of Atlanta. Sherman hoped that Schofield would be able to reach the railroad somewhere near East Point, about six miles southwest of Atlanta (a little farther as the railroad ran). Since the Atlanta & West Battle for the Macon & Western  Point () and the Macon & Western used the same track from Atlanta as far as East Point, cutting the line north of East Point would break both railroads. If the Federals got south of East Point, they would first reach the West Point line and then have to move overland several miles to the south and east to seize the road to Macon. By August  Schofield had worked his way to the heavily wooded terrain along the north fork of Utoy Creek, about two miles southwest of Ezra Church and some four miles north-northwest of East Point. He was probing for the West Point Railroad, and to ensure success, Sherman ordered John M. Palmer and the XIV Corps to the Union right to support his efforts. Palmer had instructions to report to Schofield and to act as part of his force. The combination of Schofield and Palmer would put about twenty-five thousand Yankees in position where, Sherman hoped, they could overwhelm any Rebel force in the area and cut the railroad. In making this shift, Sherman ran into a problem. Palmer believed he outranked Schofield. Like many officers, he resented being subject to the orders of a “junior.” (Both held commissions as major general with date of rank November , . The matter was complicated because Schofield’s original appointment as major general expired in March , and he had been reappointed with his old date of rank.) Palmer’s pique may also have stemmed in part from the fact that he was exhausted, had come to resent what he saw as the arrogance of professional officers, had long since tired of the war, and simply wanted to go home. He may well have been seeking an excuse to leave the army. Whatever his motives, Palmer, on August , sent word to Schofield that he expected to receive orders only through Thomas, his commanding officer. “I will not obey either General Sherman’s [direct] orders or yours as they violate my self-respect,” Palmer informed Schofield. (In Palmer’s defense, we should note that Thomas had told him that Sherman did not intend to give Schofield command over the XIV Corps. Palmer’s foolishness during active operations, however, deserves severe censure.) Even when Sherman personally pleaded with—and then bluntly ordered —Palmer to “report to and receive orders from General Schofield,” he refused. He would do no more than merely relay instructions from Schofield to his division commanders. Those officers, not surprisingly, exhibited little enthusiasm for executing the directives they received. On August  Sherman ruled that Schofield was senior to...

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