Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/371

Rh three or three and a half hours of darkness, to make the detour of eighteen miles by way of Cobb's mill, Decatur and back to the rear of the enemy near Atlanta. And it needs but to put two and two together to demonstrate that the movement to and through Decatur, as General Hardee says it was, had been abandoned.

On the other hand, General Hardee's statement of the plan of attack, as finally determined upon, is confirmed by the real condition of the troops, by the actual distances involved, by the respective positions of the opposing forces, by the time when the movement was to begin, and the hour at which General Hood says it was expected the attack could be made. It is likewise confirmed by General Hood in the text itself; for, while unaccountably confusing positions and distances, in speaking of reaching McPherson's left flank by a march "to or beyond Decatur," he shows that it was the left flank which Hardee was to turn and strike; and that Cheatham, from the Atlanta side, was to take up the movement along that line from (his) right to left, "as soon as Hardee succeeded in forcing back or throwing into confusion the Federal left" (177). The extreme Federal left, as we have seen, and as is further shown by General Blair's letter, quoted by General Hood at page 188, and by the Federal maps of the battlefield, rested at a point some five miles southwest of Decatur; and from the point where Hardee halted and turned, to move on the rear of McPherson's left flank, every step towards Decatur would have been a step away from and not towards the rear of McPherson's left.

The plan of attack, as finally adopted, was by Hardee faithfully, vigorously and successfully carried out. He swung out of Atlanta, and making the necessary detour, crossed Entrenchment creek at Cobb's mill, reached the road leading thence to Decatur, and moving out on it to the proper point, turned and advanced upon the rear of the enemy's left flank. The advance was from a position selected and determined upon as the most advantageous for that purpose, in a council held shortly after daybreak between Generals Hardee and Wheeler, at which several of the division commanders were also present, upon information of the enemy's location with respect to that position, as reported by Wheeler's scouts and confirmed by citizens whom General Wheeler brought to General Hardee for that purpose. General Wheeler recalls, as one of the incidents of this council, that a citizen who had said there was no obstacle between us and the enemy, admitted on cross-examination that a portion