previous next
[26]

The letter which I wrote that day from the field of battle was as follows:

Major General W. T. Sherman, Commanding Military Division of the Mississippi.
General: The corps of Hood attacked us to-day at 11.30 A. M. on the right of my line, mainly opposite the Fifteenth Corps, with lines extending beyond my right flank. The assaults were pertinaciously kept up for four hours, with scarcely any intermission, and were invariably repulsed. The enemy's dead lay thickly on our front. We took several stands of colors and quite a number of prisoners. General Logan bore the brunt of the battle, and his command acquitted itself nobly. Generals Blair and Dodge weakened their lines to the lowest limits in order to extend his flank and reinforce him at any point. Our casualties were small, owing to the fact that we had just covered ourselves with rough barricades. Some of Polk's (Stewart's) command was engaged in the last assaults. I will make a more specific report as soon as I can get the requisite returns from the different commands.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, O. O. Howard, Major General.

There is one letter that I find in the public records which I have never seen till now. I shall prize it as I do the “thanks of Congress.” It is from Sherman, addressed to Schofield the evening of that memorable day. It reads:

General Howard's conduct to-day had an excellent effect on his command. After the firing had ceased, he walked the line, and the men gathered about him in the most affectionate manner, and he at once gained their hearts and their confidence. I deem this a perfect restoration to confidence in themselves and the leader of that army.

Baker and Taylor. 1908.

Tufts University provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: