That Fourth of July Sherman was exultant. He did not believe the enemy would make another stand that side of the Chattahoochee. But Howard thought otherwise, and soon proved, by sending out a double line of skirmishers, that he was right. Johnston had intrenched himself strongly, and threatened to dispute Sherman's further progress toward Atlanta. Schofield made a strong demonstration across a neighboring ferry, however, and Johnston soon fell back to the Chattahoochee bridge, Thomas following closely. The river was deep and swift, but Sherman determined to cross it. Schofield went over first, near the mouth of South Creek; then McPherson further up at Roswell; Thomas built a bridge at Power's Ferry and crossed over, nearest of all to the Rebel lines; and thus, by July 9th, they had crossed the river at three points and commanded three good roads to Atlanta. And the Rebel position was once more turned. Forthwith Johnston hurried across the river, burning the bridges behind him. "At Smyrna," says General Howard, "Atlanta was in plain sight. Johnston had bothered us long. He had repelled direct assaults with success except, perhaps, at Muddy Creek where Baird and Harker had ditched and covered their men, in the open, at one of his angles, and then had run squarely over his barricades. But Sherman, by that unceasing flanking operation of his, persistently undertaken and accomplished, while Hooker, Palmer, and Howard were hammering away at the centre motes, which had no approaches and no drawbridges, and now at last pressed Johnston back, back across the Etowah and across the Chattahoochee. Johnston had planned a final terrible blow for him at Peach Tree, when, fortunately for Sherman and his army, Jefferson Davis, favoring, as he claimed, the indications of Providence, relieved the able Johnston from command, and put in charge the hardy but rash Hood. He at once, as was expected, took the offensive. He came on, as at Gettysburg, from the close wood into the valley, to welcome us in his charming way, several miles out from Atlanta. His blows were so sudden and his onslaught so swift, that at first it disturbed Hooker's breathing, made Williams talk fast, and Geary suspend his favorite Kansas stories and tales of the Mexican war. In the language of the football men, the Unions for a few hours, 'had a hard tussle.' They lost heavily, but managed to keep on the Atlanta side of the Peach Tree. Newton planted his big cross, made of soldiers, at the east end of Thomas's line, and Newton, though no doubt badly terrified, was as always, too obstinate to go back. Thomas's modesty put in additional reserve batteries and kept pieces of iron rattling among the chaparral and alders of those low-land intervales. So Thomas and Newton preserved that weak left flank from capture. Hood had put forth his tremendous energy, but was baffled and turned back to his cover within the fortified lines of Atlanta."