The Civil War in the West: Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi

12 Atlanta

213 fter a great deal of work to prepare his logistical support , Sherman was ready to set out against Johnston in the first week of May 1864. He faced sixty thousand Confederates in the Army of Tennessee, led by a careful commander in a rugged mountainous territory. Sherman moved the elements of his combined force, George Thomas ’s Army of the Cumberland (60,000), James McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee (30,000), and Major General John M. Schofield’s Army of the Ohio (10,000), to rendezvous near Dalton, Georgia. Johnston had planted his men there on Rocky Face Ridge, which towered some seven hundred feet high. “I do not want you to encounter field-­ works,” Sherman warned Schofield as the latter approached Dalton from the north, setting the tone of his operational strategy throughout most of the campaign. He had no intention of wasting manpower on unwise attacks; maneuver so as to threaten Johnston’s line of communications would be the modus operandi.1 While Thomas and Schofield pinned the Confederates in place, McPherson conducted a flanking march to turn Johnston’s left by moving through Snake Creek Gap and seizing the railroad at Resaca , several miles south of Dalton. The holding actions resulted in several sharp, small-­ scale fights by Thomas’s men, but those fights helped to divert attention away from the Army of the Tennessee. McPherson made it through the gap undetected but hesitated about moving on to Resaca, believing the place was more strongly held than expected. He knew that his own troops would be dangerously exposed to defeat in detail if Johnston managed to shift a large force his way before Sherman could react. McPherson opted for the safest course of action, retiring to the gap and digging in on May 10. “I regret beyond measure you did not break the railroad,” Sherman wrote him, “but I suppose it was impossible.” Nevertheless, the move persuaded Johnston to evacuate Dalton on the night of May 12.2 The Confederates fortified the high ground north and west of Resaca to protect Johnston’s supply line, and here occurred the first major battle of the campaign. Sherman launched large-­ scale 12 } Atlanta A 214 Atlanta attacks on May 14 and 15 to divert attention from an attempt to cross the Oostanaula River downstream from town and turn the enemy’s left flank once again. The Federal attacks were spirited and resulted in a couple of equally spirited Confederate attempts to find and turn Sherman’s left flank north of Resaca. By the evening of May 15, Johnston evacuated his position, again because of a successful effort to threaten his flank. The Confederates lost about three thousand men at Resaca while the Federals suffered four thousand casualties.3 Johnston did not make another stand for some distance because the terrain immediately south of the Oostanaula did not seem to provide a good defensive position. Not until the Confederates reached Cassville, about twenty-­ five miles south of Resaca, did Johnston offer battle. “You will now turn and march to meet his advancing columns,” he announced to his men on May 19. “Fully confiding in the conduct of the officers, the courage of the soldiers, I lead you to battle.” But when he started to move forward to strike one of Sherman’s advancing columns in detail, Federal cavalrymen appeared in an unexpected quarter and forced him to cancel his plans. Johnston instead retired to a 140-­ foot-­ tall ridge just south of town, but evacuated that strong post when Union artillery gained a crossfire on it and two of his three corps commanders said they could not hold their position. Whereas the rank and file had cheered when Johnston’s order announcing an attack was read to them earlier in the day, their spirits plummeted as the army evacuated Cassville on the night of May 19.4 The evacuation brought Sherman to the Etowah River, one of the major watercourses along his line of advance. He intended to change his operational mode somewhat by moving away from the railroad and shoving columns of troops across the densely wooded country south of the river to conduct a wide flank maneuver well to Johnston’s rear. He would take only limited rations along, hoping to find enough in the country to subsist his men for at least twenty days. As McPherson headed for the crossroads at Dallas, nearly twenty miles west of the railroad, Thomas advanced to his left and...