Sherman had hope of reinforcements sufficient at least to make good his losses on the march which he was about to undertake, while Johnston perfectly knew that he could hope for no reinforcement at all. Sherman had lines of communication over which he could bring to his army 130 carloads of provisions each day. Johnston's men sometimes had scanty rations, and sometimes none at all. He had no secure source of supply in any quarter, as was usually the case with Confederate armies at this period of the war. Lee's army had received a ration of three quarters of a pound of uncooked flour to each man at Spottsylvania just before the movement from that point, and it was three days later--three days of hard fighting and hard marching--before the majority of them received any other rations whatsoever. Johnston's army was similarly starved during the campaign of Atlanta. On the fifth of May, 1864, at precisely the same time when Grant moved into the Wilderness, Sherman set out on his march to Atlanta. With the true instinct of a fighting commander, he had stripped himself and his army of all encumbering baggage and other superfluities. He had no tent, even for himself. And he boasted in after years that he changed his underclothes only once between Chattanooga and Atlanta. He required all his officers, high and low, except General Thomas, whose health was impaired, to follow his own example of unencumbered movement. The distance from Chattanooga to Atlanta, as the crow flies, is almost exactly a hundred miles. Johnston's position at Dalton was about fifteen miles southeast of Chattanooga. The country is a hilly and broken one, traversed by many streams which afford good defensive positions to a retiring army, as do also the various gaps among the hills which must be crossed by an army advancing offensively. Johnston was strongly fortified at Dalton and Sherman, not venturing to assail him in his works there, sent McPherson to make a détour, and strike the Confederate lines of communication at Resaca, ten miles or so farther south. There McPherson found Johnston's men behind earthworks, and wisely or unwisely shrank from attacking them in their defenses. If he could have carried the works at Resaca Johnston's position would have been one of extremest danger from which he could escape only by fighting on all sides at once, and forcing his way through opposing lines, strongly posted and well fortified. But in McPherson's judgment an attack at that point with such force as he had with him was unadvisable. He therefore refrained from attack, and fell back to a secure position in the hills to await the approach of reinforcements. Sherman promptly moved to McPherson's position, only to find that Johnston had also retired from Dalton to Resaca, and had concentrated his entire army there in a strong defensive position.