In the evening of the 22d, when Sherman received Hooker's answer to a question sent him during the progress of the combat in the afternoon, and found the latter laboring under the conviction that the whole of Johnston's army was in his immediate front, he was naturally annoyed at so exaggerated a view of the situation. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 558.] Thomas received similar reports from Hooker and a call for reinforcements, and though he said he "thought at the time he was stampeded," [Footnote: _Id_., p. 559.] he sent to him a division from Howard's corps. The truth was that one brigade of Hooker's corps and one of Schofield's were the only ones that had suffered at all severely, the total list of less than 300 casualties being about equally divided between them. Hood had been repulsed with a loss of more than 1000. [Footnote: Atlanta, p. 113.] When to these circumstances are added those which have before been mentioned, [Footnote: _Ante_, pp. 258, 259.] we can understand how Sherman began to fear that, in the systematic flanking operations he had been carrying on, his army was losing the energetic aggressive character without which he could not profit decisively by the opportunities which might offer. [Footnote: See Sherman's personal letters to Halleck of July 9th, Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 91; to Grant of June 18th, _Id_., pt. iv. p. 507; and of July 12th, _Id_., pt. v. p. 123.] Adding still further the difficulty, amounting almost to an impossibility, of supplying the wing of the army most distant from the railroad, and the probability that Johnston's army was stretched into a line even thinner than his own, it will not seem strange that he concluded it was time to try whether a bold stroke would not break through the Confederate defences and rout his adversary. I am saying this from the standpoint of our own experience in the wooded and sparsely settled region we were operating in. From a European point of view, an aggressive policy of attack would be taken as a matter of course, and the only questions open for debate would be the tactical ones as to the method of making the assault and the points at which to deliver it. [Footnote: For a recent summary of the discussion of "Attack or Defence," see Letters and Essays of Captain F. N. Maude, R. E. (International Series), p. 70; also his "Cavalry and Infantry" (same series), p. 127, etc.]