USA > Georgia > Floyd County > Rome > A history of Rome and Floyd County, State of Georgia, United States of America; including numerous incidents of more than local interest, 1540-1922, Volume I > Part 23
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A VIEW OF ROME AFTER SHERMAN'S APPEARANCE IN 1864.
This picture was located in the Carnegie Library, and is one of the oldest in existence. If you will look carefully on the extreme left you will see that the covered wooden bridge which spans the Oostanaula has been brcken in half, probably by the retreating Con- federates. Its sides have been partially stripped of timbers.
On the right is a rudely-improvised bridgehead from which extends a pontoon bridge placed by Sherman's forces. Practically all the civilians were gone.
CHAPTER VI. Sherman's Movements as Told by Himself
I N DEFERENCE to the feelings and preferences of a large majority of readers, an effort was made to ob- tain a complete and accurate ac- count of the troop movements around Rome, written from the Southern viewpoint. Gen. Jos. E. Johnston's story was consulted, but it contained such a scanty ref- erence to Rome that it was con- sidered unavailable for the pur- pose. Other works that have fal- len under the notice of the author have likewise failed to satisfy the curiosity for details, hence the ac- count by Gen. Sherman is present- ed herewith, in the belief that the fairness and accuracy of it will commend it to all. The extracts are from the "Memoirs of Gen. Win. T. Sherman, Vol. II (D. Ap- pleton & Co., New York, N. Y., 1875).
On the 18th day of March, 1864, at Nashville, Tenn., I relieved Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, embracing the Departments of the Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee and Arkansas, commanded respectively by Maj. Gens. Schofield, Thomas, Mc- Pherson and Steele. General Grant was in the act of starting east to as- sume command of all the Armies of the United States, but more particu- larly to give direction in person to the Armies of the Potomac and James operating against Richmond.
down toward
. a part of its garrison, composed
In the early part of April I was much disturbed by a bold raid made by the rebel General Forrest between the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers. He reached the Ohio River at Padu- cah, but was handsomely repulsed by then swung Colonel Hicks. He Memphis, massacring wholly of negro troops. No doubt Forrest's men acted like a set of barbarians, shooting down the help- less negro garrison, but I am told that Forrest personally disclaims any active participation in the assault and that he stopped the firing as soon as
he could. I was told by hundreds of our men, who were at various times prisoners in Forrest's possession, that he was usually very kind to them.
Writing from Nashville head- quarters Apr. 10, 1864, Gen. Sher- man outlined to Gen. Grant at Washington some of the plans for his campaign against Atlanta, via Ringgold, Dalton, Resaca, Rome, Cartersville, Kingston, Allatoona and Marietta :
McPherson will have nine divisions of the Army of the Tennessee; if A. J. Smith gets here he will have full 30,- 000 of the best men in America. He will cross the Tennessee at Decatur and Whitesburg, march toward Rome and feel for Thomas. If Johnston falls behind the Coosa, then McPher- son will push for Rome, and if John- ston falls behind the Chattahoochee, as I believe he will, then McPherson will cross over and join Thomas.
On Apr. 28, Gen. Sherman re- moved his headquarters to Chatta- nooga, and on May 5 he took the field personally and marched with about 100,000 men into Georgia against Gen. Johnston, who re- treated from Dalton after a brief skirmish stand.
On May 11 the Federal com- mander, then at Tunnel Hill, Whit- field County, ordered Gen. McPher- son, in Sugar Valley, to anticipate Gen. Johnston's evacuation of Dal- ton by sending Gen. Garrard by Summerville to threaten Rome and that flank. Instead of taking the small Confederate garrison at Re- saca, Gordon County, Gen. Mc- Pherson fell back into a defensive position in Sugar Valley, on the Resaca side of Snake Creek Gap. Sherman continues :
Johnston, as I anticipated, had abandoned all his well-prepared de- fenses at Dalton and was found inside of Resaca with the bulk of his army, holding his divisions well in hand. acting purely on the defensive, and
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fighting well at all points of conflict. A complete line of entrenchments was found covering the place, and this was strongly manned at all points. On the 14th we closed in, enveloping the town on its north and west, and during the 15th we had a continual day of battle and skirmish. At the same time I caused two pontoon bridges to be laid across the Oostanaula river at Lay's Ferry, about three miles below the town, by which we could threaten Cal- houn, a station on the railroad seven miles below Resaca. I also dispatched Gen. Garrard with his cavalry di- vision down the Oostanaula by the Rome road, with orders to cross over, if possible, and to attack or threaten the railroad at any point below Cal- houn and above Kingston.
During the 15th, without attempt- ing to assault the fortified works, we pressed at all points, and the sound of cannon and musketry rose all day to the dignity of a battle. Toward evening McPherson moved his whole line of battle forward, till he had gained a ridge overlooking the town, from which his field artillery could reach the railroad bridge across the Oostanaula. The enemy made several attempts to drive him away, but in every instance he was repulsed with bloody loss.
Hooker's Corps had also had some heavy and handsome fighting that aft- ernoon and night on the left, where the Dalton road entered the entrench- ments, capturing a 4-gun entrenched battery, with its men and guns; and generally all our men showed the finest fighting qualities. 'Howard's Corps had followed Johnston down from Dalton and was in line; Stoneman's Division of Cavalry had also got up, and was on the extreme left, beyond the Oostanaula. On the night of May 15 Johnston got his army across the bridges, set them on fire and we en- tered Resaca at daylight. Our loss up to that time was about 600 dead and 3,375 wounded.
That Johnston had deliberately de- signed in advance to give up such strong positions as Dalton and Resaca, for the purpose of drawing us farther South, is simply absurd. Had he re- mained in Dalton another hour it would have been his total defeat, and he only evacuated Resaca because his safety demanded it. The movement by us through Snake Creek Gap was a total surprise to him. My army about doubled his in size, but he had all the advantage of natural positions, of artificial forts and roads, and of
concentrated action. We were com- pelled to grope our way through for- ests, across mountains with a large army, necessarily more or less dis- persed.
Johnston having retreated, imme- diate pursuit was begun. A division of infantry (Jefferson C. Davis') was at once dispatched down the valley toward Rome, to support Garrard's Cavalry, and the whole army was or- dered to pursue-McPherson by Lay's Ferry, on the right, Thomas directly by the railroad, and Schofield by the left, by the old road that crossed the Oostanaula above Echota or Newtown. We hastily repaired the railroad bridge at Resaca, which had been par- tially burned, and built a temporary floating bridge out of timber and ma- terials found on the spot, so that Thomas got his advance corps over during the 16th, and marched as far as Calhoun, where he came into com- munication with McPherson's troops, which had crossed the Oostanaula at Lay's Ferry by our pontoon bridges previously laid. Inasmuch as the bridge at Resaca was overtaxed, Hooker's Twentieth Corps was also diverted to cross by the fords and ferries above Resaca, in the neighbor- hood of Echota.
On the 17th, toward evening, the head of Thomas' column, Newton's Di- vision, encountered the rear guard of Johnston's Army near Adairsville. I was near the head of the column at the time, trying to get a view of the position of the enemy from an eleva- tion in an open field. My party at- tracted the fire of a battery; a shell passed through the group of staff of- ficers and burst just beyond, which scattered us promptly. The next morning the enemy had disappeared, and our pursuit was continued to Kingston, which we reached during Sunday afternoon, the 19th.
From Resaca the railroad runs nearly due south, but at Kingston it makes junction with another railroad from Rome, and changes direction due east (west). At that time McPher- son's head of column was about four miles to the west of Kingston, at a country place called "Woodlawn;" Schofield and Hooker were on the di- rect roads leading from Newtown to Cassville, diagonal to the route fol- lowed by Thomas. Thomas' head of column, which had followed the coun- try roads alongside of the railroad, was about four miles east of Kingston, toward Cassville. About noon I got a message from him that he had found
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the enemy drawn up in line of battle on some extensive, open ground, about half-way between Kingston and Cass- ville, and that appearances indicated a willingness and preparation for bat- tle.
Hurriedly sending orders to Me- Pherson to resume the march, to hasten forward by roads leading to the south of Kingston, so as to leave for Thomas' troops and trains the use of the main road, and to come up on his right, I rode forward rapidly over some rough gravel hills, and about six miles from Kingston found Gen. Thomas with his troops deployed; but he reported that the enemy had fallen back in echelon of divisions, steadily and in superb order, into Cassville.
I knew that the roads by which Gens. Hooker and Schofield were ap- proaching would lead them to a sem- inary near Cassville, and that it was all-important to secure the point of junction of these roads with the main road along which we were marching. Therefore, I ordered Gen. Thomas to push forward his deployed lines as rapidly as possible, and as night was approaching, I ordered two field bat- teries to close up at a gallop on some woods which lay between us and the town of Cassville. We could not see the town by reason of these woods, but a high range of hills just back of the town was visible over the tree tops. On these hills could be seen fresh- made parapets and the movement of men, against whom I directed the ar- tillery to fire at long range.
The stout resistance made by the enemy along our whole front of a couple of miles indicated a purpose to fight at Cassville, and as the night was closing in, Gen. Thomas and I were together, along with our skirmish lines near the seminary, on the edge of the town, where musket bullets from the enemy were cutting the leaves of the trees pretty thickly about us. We went back to the bat- tery, where we passed the night on the ground.
*The wonderful cave visited in 1835 by John Howard Payne. Col. Mark A. Hardin, mem- ber of Morgan's Cavalry, had bought it in 1861, and with several hundreds of slaves work- ing, had sent quantities of nitre to Knoxville to make gunpowder for the Confederate Army. He refused an offer of $100,000 for the cave, and shortly afterward, it was seized by the Confederate Government, which was in charge when Gen. Sherman captured it. Authority : Miss Virginia Hardin, of Atlanta. It is said this cave's tributaries extend several miles. and that they have never been thoroughly explored. The place is visited yearly by thousands, nota- bly hy the Boy Scouts.
During the night I had reports from McPherson, Hooker and Schofield. The former was about five miles to my right rear, near the "nitre caves;" ** Schofield was about six miles north and Hooker between us, within two miles. All were ordered to close down on Cassville at daylight, and to attack the enemy wherever found. Skirmish- ing was kept up all night, but when day broke the next morning, May 20th, the enemy was gone, and our cavalry was sent in pursuit. These reported him beyond the Etowah Riv- er. We were then well in advance of our railroad trains, so I determined to pause a few days to repair the rail- road.
Nearly all the people of the coun- try seemed to have fled with John- ston's Army, vet some few families remained, and from one of them I pro- cured a copy of an order which John- ston had made at Adairsville in which he recited that he had retreated as far as strategy required, and that his army must be prepared for battle at Cassville. The newspapers of the South, many of which we found, were loud in denunciation of Johnston's falling back before us without a se- rious battle, simply resisting by his
COL. THOMAS W. ALEXANDER, once Mayor of Rome, in the uniform he wore as a Con- federate Army officer.
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skirmish line and rear guard. But his friends proclaimed that it was all strategic, that he was deliberately drawing us farther and farther into the meshes, farther and farther away from our base of supplies, and that in due season he would not only halt for battle, but assume the bold offen- sive.
Of course it was to my interest to bring him to battle as soon as possi- ble, when our numerical superiority was at the greatest; for he was pick- ing up his detachments as he fell back, whereas I was compelled to make similar and stronger detachments to repair the railroads as we advanced, and to guard them. I found at Cass- ville many evidences of preparation for a grand battle, among them a long line of fresh entrenchments on the hill beyond the town, extending nearly three miles to the south, em- bracing the railroad crossing. I was also convinced that the whole of Polk's corps had joined Johnston from Mis- sissippi, and that he had in hand three full corps, viz., Hood's, Polk's and Har- dee's, numbering about 60,000 men, and could not then imagine why he had declined battle, and did not learn the real reason till after the war was over, and then from Gen. Johnston himself.
In the autumn of 1865, when in command of the Military Division of the Missouri, I went from St. Louis to Little Rock, Ark., and afterward to Memphis. Taking a steamer for Cairo, I found as fellow passengers Gens. Johnston and Frank Blair. We were, of course, on the most friendly terms, and on our way up we talked over our battles again, played cards, and questioned each other as to par- ticular parts of our mutual conduct in the game of war. I told Johnston that I had seen his order of prepara- tion, in the nature of an address to his army, announcing his purpose to retreat no more, but to accept battle at Cassville. He answered that such was his purpose; that he had left Hardee's corps in the open fields to check Thomas and gain time for his formations on the ridge, just behind Cassville; and it was this corps that Gen. Thomas had seen deployed, and whose handsome movement in retreat he had reported in such complimenta- ry terms. Johnston described how he had placed Hood's Corps on the right, Polk's in the center and Hardee's on the left. He said he had ridden over the ground, given to each corps com- mander his position and orders to
throw up parapets during the night; that he was with Hardee on his ex- treme left as the night closed in, and as Hardee's troops fell back to the position assigned them for the intend- ed battle of the next day; and that after giving Hardee some general in- structions he and his staff rode back to Cassville. As he entered the town, or village, he met Gens. Hood and Polk. Hood inquired of him if he had had anything to eat, and he said no, that he was both hungry and tired, when Hood invited him to go and share a supper which had been prepared for him at a house close by.
At the supper they discussed the chances of the impending battle, when Hood spoke of the ground assigned to him as being enfiladed by our (Union) artillery, which Johnston disputed, when Gen. Polk chimed in with the remark that Gen. Hood was right; that the cannon shots fired by us at nightfall had enfiladed their gen- eral line of battle, and for this reason he feared they could not hold their men. Gen. Johnston was surprised at this, for he understood Gen. Hood to be one of those who professed to crit- icize his strategy, contending that, in- stead of retreating, he should have risked a battle. Gen. Johnston said he was provoked, accused them of having been in conference, with be- ing beaten before battle, and added that he was unwilling to engage in a critical battle with an army so su- perior to his own in numbers, with two of his three corps commanders dissatisfied with the ground and posi- tions assigned them. He then and there made up his mind to retreat still far- ther South, to put the Etowah River and the Allatoona Range between us; and he at once gave orders to resume the retrograde movement.
This was my recollection of the sub- stance of the conversation, of which I made no note at the time; but at a meeting of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland some years after, at Cleveland, O., about 1868, in a short after-dinner speech I related this con- versation, and it got into print. Sub- sequently, in the spring of 1870, when I was at New Orleans, en route for Texas, Gen. Hood called to see me at the St. Charles Hotel, explained that he had seen my speech reprint- ed in the newspapers and gave me his version of the same event. He stated that he had argued against fighting the battle purely on the defensive, but had asked Gen. Johnston to permit him with his own corps and part of Polk's
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to quit their lines and to march rapid- ly to attack and overwhelm Schofield, who was known to be separated from Thomas by an interval of nearly five miles, claiming that he could have de- feated Schofield and got back to his position in time to meet Gen. Thomas' attack in front. He also stated that he had contended with Johnston for the "offensive-defensive" game, instead of the pure "defensive," as proposed by Gen. Johnston; and he said it was at this time that Gen. Johnston had taken offense, and that it was for this reason that he had ordered the retreat that night. As subsequent events es- tranged these two officers, it is very natural they should now differ on this point; but it was sufficient for us that the rebel army did retreat that night, leaving us masters of all the country above the Etowah River.
For the purposes of rest, to give time for the repair of the railroads and to replenish supplies, we lay by some few days in that quarter-Scho- field with Stoneman's cavalry holding the ground at Cassville Depot, at Cartersville, and the Etowah Bridge; Thomas holding his ground near Cass- ville, and McPherson that near King- ston. The officer intrusted with the repair of the railroads was Col. W. W. Wright, a railroad engineer, who, with about 2,000 men, was so indus- trious and skillful that the bridge at Resaca was rebuilt in three days, and ears loaded with stores came forward to Kingston on the 24th. The tele- graph also brought us the news of the desperate and bloody battles of the Wilderness, in Virginia, and that Gen. Grant was pushing his operations against Lee with terrifie energy. I was therefore resolved to give my enemy no rest.
In early days, 1844, when a lieu- tenant of the Third Artillery, I had been sent from Charleston, S. C., to Marietta, Ga., to assist Inspector Gen- eral Churchill to take testimony con- cerning certain losses of horses and accoutrements by the Georgia Volun- teers during the Florida War; and after completing the work at Marietta we transferred our party over to Bellefonte, Ala. I had ridden the dis- tance on horseback, and had noted well the topography of the country, espe- cially that about Kennesaw, Allatoona and the Etowah River. On that oc- casion I had stopped some days with a Colonel Tumlin,* to see some remark- able Indian mounds on the Etowah River, usually called the "Hightower."
I therefore knew that the Allatoona Pass was very strong, would be hard to force, and resolved not even to at- tempt it, but to turn the position by moving from Kingston to Marietta via Dallas; accordingly, I made orders on May 20 to get ready for the march to begin on the 23d. The army of the Cumberland was ordered to march for Dallas, by Euharlee and Stiles- boro; Davis's Division, then at Rome, by Van Wert; the Army of the Ohio to keep on the left of Thomas, by a place called Burnt Hickory; and the Army of the Tennessee to march for a position a little to the South, so as to be on the right of the general army when grouped about Dallas. The move- ment contemplated leaving our rail- road, and to depend for 20 days on the contents of our wagons; and as the country was very obscure, mostly in a state of nature, densely wooded and with few roads, our movements were necessarily slow. We crossed the Etowah by several bridges and fords, and took as many roads as pos- sible, keeping up communication by eross-roads, or by couriers through the woods. I personally joined Gen. Thomas, who had the center, and was consequently the main column, or "col- umn of direction." The several col- umns followed generally the Valley of the Euharlee, a tributary coming into the Etowah from the South, and grad- ually crossed over a ridge of moun- tains, parts of which had been work- ed over for gold, and were conse- quently full of paths and unused wagon roads or tracks.
A "cavalry picket" of the enemy at Burnt Hickory was captured and had on his person an order from Gen. Johnston, dated at Allatoona, which showed that he had detected my pur- pose of turning his position, and it accordingly became necessary to use great caution, lest some of the minor columns should fall into ambush, but, luckily, the enemy was not much more familiar with that part of the coun- try than we were. On the other side of the Allatoona Range, the Pumpkin- Vine Creek, also a tributary of the Etowah, flowed north and west; Dal- las, the point aimed at, was a small town on the other, or east side of this creek, and was a point of concentra- tion of a great many roads that led in every direction. Its possession would be a threat to Marietta and Atlanta, but I could not then venture to at- tempt either, till I had regained use of the railroad, at least as far down as its debouch from the Allateona
*Lewis Tumlin.
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A HISTORY OF ROME AND FLOYD COUNTY
Range of mountains. Therefore, the movement was chiefly designed to com- pel Johnston to give up Allatoona.
In his description of the "drawn battle" of New Hope Church at Dallas, Paulding County, May 26, Gen. Sherman notes that Gen. Jef- ferson C. Davis' Federal Garrison or Division of the Fourteenth Ar- my Corps had left Rome and come to his assistance. He says he or- dered Gen. Hooker to capture the New Hope position the night of the 25th, if possible, and goes on :
The woods were so dense and the resistance so spirited that Hooker could not carry the position, though the battle was noisy and prolonged far into the night. From the bloody fighting there for the next week it was called by the soldiers "Hell-Hole." The night was pitch-dark, it rained hard and the convergence of our col- umns toward Dallas produced much confusion. I am sure similar confusion existed in the army opposed to us, for we were all mixed up. I slept on the ground without cover, alongside of & log, got little sleep, resolved at day- light to renew the battle. The battle was renewed, and without success. A continual battle was in progress by strong skirmish lines taking advan- tage of every species of cover, and both parties fortifying each night by rifle-trenches, with head-logs. Occ :. sionally one party or the other would make a dash in the nature of a sally, but usually it sustained a repulse with great loss of life. I visited personally all parts of cur lines nearly every day, was constantly within musket range, and though the fire of mus- ketry and cannon resounded day and night along the whole line, I rarely saw a dozen of the enemy at one time, and these were always skirmish- ers, dodging from tree to tree, or be- hind logs on the ground, or who oc- casionally showed their heads above the hastily-constructed but remark. ably strong rifle-trenches. On the oc- casion of my visit to McPherson on the 30th of May, while standing with a group of officers, among whom were Gens. McPherson, Logan and Barry, and Col. Taylor, my former chief of artillery, a Minie ball passed through Logan's coat sleeve, scratching the skin, and struck Col. Taylor square in the breast; luckily, he had in his pocket a famous memorandum book in which he kept a sort of diary, about which we used to joke him a good deal;
its thickness saved his life, breaking the force of the ball.
Next are chronicled the bat- tles before the fall of Atlanta, Sept. 2, 1864. Gen. Johnston had now been succeeded in command in Georgia by Gen. John B. Hood, and Hood led Sherman a merry chase back toward Rome and over a considerable part of the terri- tory that had been traversed on the drive down. Atlanta was or- dered evacuated by the civilian population, and in reply to pro- tests, Gen. . Sherman wrote Gen. H. W. Halleck, chief of staff, at Washington :
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