During the month of May, Sherman had advanced his army, as he says,
"nearly a hundred miles of as difficult a country as was ever fought
over by civilized armies. The fighting was continuous, almost daily,
among trees and bushes, on ground where we could rarely see a hundred
yards ahead." Sherman had lost 9,299 men; nearly two thousand in killed
and missing, and over seven thousand wounded. The enemy's loss was a
little over half that number.
From June 10 to July 3 an almost constant battle was waged about Kenesaw
Mountain, with a loss on our side of nearly eight thousand, and the
Confederate loss considerably less.
An amusing remark came to Sherman's ear at Kenesaw. One of the
Confederate soldiers said to another, "Well, the Yanks will have to git
up and git now, for I heard General Johnston himself say that General
Wheeler had blown up the _tunnel_ near Dalton, and that the Yanks would
have to retreat, because they could get no more rations."
"Oh," said the listener, "don't you know that old Sherman carries a
_duplicate_ tunnel along?"
The enemy were constantly driven back towards Atlanta. On July 22 a
bloody battle was fought near Atlanta, usually called the Battle of
Atlanta, in which the brave General McPherson was killed in the hottest
of the fight when passing from one column to another. He rode into a
wood, and soon his horse returned, wounded, bleeding, and riderless. His
body was recovered, with his gauntlets on and boots outside his
pantaloons, but his pocket-book with his papers was gone. The spot where
he fell was soon retaken by our men, and the pocket-book and its
contents were found in the haversack of a prisoner of war, captured at
the time.
McPherson was only thirty-four years old, over six feet high,
universally beloved, and apparently destined for a great future. Sherman
could not look long upon the body. "Better start at once, and drive
carefully," said the bluff but tender-hearted general to McPherson's
staff, as he covered the body with the flag. It was taken home to Clyde,
Ohio, where it was received with great honor, and buried near his
mother's house in a small cemetery, part of which is the family orchard
where he played when a boy.
General John A. Logan took the command after the death of McPherson, and
fought bravely. The attack was made upon his line seven times, and seven
times repulsed.
Sherman was often in extreme danger. Once, when he, Logan, and a few
others were talking together, a minie-ball passed through Logan's
coat-sleeve, scratching the skin, and struck Colonel Taylor in the
breast. A memorandum-book saved his life. At another time a cannon-ball
passed over Sherman's shoulder and killed the horse of an orderly
behind. Another ball took off the head of a negro close by Sherman.
The month of July was an extremely hot one, but the soldiers had been
in almost constant conflict. Our loss in that month was about ten
thousand men, and that of the enemy perhaps greater by a few hundreds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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