When Sherman came up and found the works on Peach Tree Creek abandoned, he thought Atlanta also had been evacuated, and he marched right up to within two miles of that city. Then after an all night circuit the Rebel attack was made upon his left and rear. For four hours the battle raged furiously. The Union lines were broken and some guns captured. Sherman watched the struggle from a point between Schofield and McPherson, John A. Logan and other officers performed prodigies of valor, and finally the Rebels were checked and driven back, leaving more than three thousand dead upon the field, together with other thousands of wounded and about one thousand prisoners. Their total loss must have been at least eight thousand, while Sherman's entire loss, in killed, wounded and prisoners, was 3,722. But in this battle almost in the outset the Union Army suffered an irreparable loss in the death of the gallant and accomplished McPherson, who was shot by Rebel skirmishers as he was hastening from Dodge's Corps to Blair's through the woods, _i.e._, the left flank of the army, to meet there the Rebel attack which first struck his rear. Who should succeed McPherson in command was a question that caused some perplexity. Logan succeeding to McPherson in the battle had done well, but was junior to several corps commanders, and had, as Sherman thought, some other disabilities, as a rivalry between him and Blair, and political aspirations. At last Sherman and Thomas agreed upon the appointment of General O. O. Howard, a choice which was promptly approved by the Government at Washington. This offended Hooker, Howard's senior in rank. He had aspired to succeed McPherson, and so at once asked to be relieved of the command of the Twentieth Corps. His wish, as before Gettysburg, was granted, and General Slocum came from Vicksburg to take his place. The 26th of July Sherman's army lay before Atlanta in this position: the Army of the Tennessee was at the left, the Army of the Ohio, under Schofield, came next; the Army of the Cumberland, under Thomas, completed the line at the right. This line was about five miles long, and strongly fortified. The cavalry and other minor detachments of the army were posted at the rear and at the flank.