The losses of the command were distressingly large. Of the two thousand men, First brigade, Second division, Twenty-third army corps, who went that day into action, between four hundred and fifty and five hundred were killed and wounded in fifteen minutes. In that brigade the Third regiment Tennessee lost one hundred and twenty-five: the Sixth Tennessee regiment was strangely preserved, its losses being only thirty. The subsequent movements of Gen. Sherman’s army resulted in the evacuation of Dalton by Gen. Johnson, and during the night of May 15th, his forces around Resaca were withdrawn. The Confederate army, being forced from its first stronghold of resistance in the Georgia campaign, on the next day moved southward. The bloody battle of Resaca has been thought to be interesting to Tennesseeans from the fact that in it “the valor of Tennessee soldiers on both sides was displayed, was fully tested and found equal to the emergency.”[56] At that date, the siege of Knoxville was fully numbered with the things of the past, and the possession of East Tennessee by the United States army had all the permanence possible in the circumstances. The country however, was in a sad condition. It had been the previous year, not only disquieted but impoverished, and in the winter of 1863-’64 there began an unexampled flood of immigration into the town from adjoining and eastern counties. It consisted not only of needy white people. Everywhere the negroes upon obtaining their freedom during the war, manifested a strong inclination for town life. On this occasion that disposition was sharpened by the hope of finding not only refuge from harm but necessary food. At first the stream of new, homeless, hungry population was small, but as confidence in the security and certainty of rest which Knoxville offered and of finding there the sufficient nourishment which could not be had at home increased, the tide of immigrants rose higher. It filled vacant tenements, and flowed into the rooms of the University buildings not already occupied by soldiers. The refugees came into town on railroad trains and lay all night on the uncovered depot platform, exposed to the inclemencies of the weather. The question which humanity as well as Christianity prompted was, what should be done with and for them. The calamity had many and deep sources, and threatened to grow with the lapse of time. It would inevitably be fed more and more from the large impoverishment that extended over a wide region, and for which there seemed to be no remedy. Its evil results, thus brought home to the very doors of the people of Knoxville, might be overcome in their present magnitude; but how should they be met in the future when full grown in size? The only feasible method was to send forth supplies from there to meet and overcome it. The sole yet fatal objection to such a plan was the absence of means to carry it into effect.