Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/384

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When the text is compared with the date, tenor and effect of the dispatches quoted above, and it is remembered that they were written and sent before the result at Jonesboro' was known, the context furnishes its own commentary.

Now, according to the text, the arrival of Howard's army at Jonesboro' on the 30th of August was the signal for general battle. Sherman's position was known, and his purposes and movements anticipated, and thereupon a concerted offensive movement of the entire army was begun, whereby Sherman was to be struck in flank and driven down Flint river and the West Point railroad, while the cavalry (which, by the way, except a small body with Hardee at Jonesboro' and another near Rough-and-Ready, was absent on a raid in North Georgia and Tennessee) was to hold in check the army corps of the enemy stationed at the railroad bridge over the Chattahoochee.

Then, according to the dispatches, one written at 6 P. M. August 31st, and the duplicate later, Hardee was to protect Macon and communications in rear, and Lee's corps and Reynolds' brigade, and all troops which could be spared from Hardee's corps, were to be withdrawn to Atlanta to defend that place from an apprehended attack by Sherman's army; which army, with Howard's three corps already at Jonesboro' on the 30th, had, on the morning of the 31st, struck the railroad at Rough-and-Ready, and at two points between there and Jonesboro', with orders "to turn straight for Jonesboro'," and was now concentrated on Hardee in the vicinity of Jonesboro'.

In obedience to these orders, Lee's corps was withdrawn and sent to Atlanta; and Hardee, with three divisions and a small body of cavalry, and encumbered by the ordnance and subsistence trains of the entire army, was left to confront Sherman's army. The new