The Chattahoochee was a fordable stream. On the eighth, some miles above the grey entrenchments, Sherman crossed over two army corps. On the ninth, the Army of Tennessee crossed the Chattahoochee, and took up position behind Peach Tree Creek, a bold affluent of that river. The ground was rough, seamed with ravines. It was high and convex to the foe. Behind it was a fortified town, fit base for a culminating battle. “About the middle of June,” says Joseph E. Johnston, “Captain Grant, of the Engineers, was instructed to strengthen the fortifications of Atlanta materially, on the side toward Peach Tree Creek, by the addition of redoubts and by converting barbette into embrasure batteries. I also obtained promise of seven seacoast rifles from General D.H. Maury, to be mounted on that front. Colonel Presstman was instructed to join Captain Grant with his subordinates, in this work of strengthening the defences of Atlanta, especially between the Augusta and Marietta roads, as the enemy was approaching on that side. For the same reason a position on the high ground looking down into the valley of Peach Tree Creek was selected for the army, from which it might engage the enemy if he should expose himself in the passage of the stream. The position of each division was marked and pointed out to its staff officers.” “And,” says the Federal General Howard, “Johnston had planned to attack Sherman at Peach Tree Creek, expecting just such a division between our wings as we made.” For a week Sherman made feints and demonstrations. The end of that time found the two armies actually confronted. Behind the two there had fallen into the abyss of time seventy days of hard and skilful fencing. Each had felt the rapier point, but no vital spot had been reached. Each had lost blood; thousands lay quiet forever in the dark woods and by the creeks of that hundred and twenty miles. Each had been at odd times reinforced; the accession in strength had covered the loss. On the last day of June the Federal “effective strength for offensive purposes” is given as one hundred and six thousand, nine hundred and seventy men. On the same day Johnston’s effective strength is given as fifty-four thousand and eighty-five men. General Sherman states that throughout the campaign he knew his numbers to be double those of Johnston. He could afford to lose two to one without disturbing the relative strength of the armies. On the evening of the seventeenth of July there was delivered to the commander of the Army of Tennessee a telegram from Richmond. It read,—