Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/387

Rh retiring under heavy fire, and thought the troops had given way. The situation must be desperate indeed if Cranberry's Texans gave way, and Hardee at once rode into the line to rally the troops, but soon learned the true state of affairs. Granberry was hurt at the supposition that his troops would under circumstances give way and although the fire at that point was so hot that explanation and vindication might well have been postponed, he needs must have it out then and there, and said, with feeling and a just pride in his soldiers, "General, my men never fall back unless ordered back." And they justified their commander's confidence in them a moment later, by the coolness and intrepidity with which, cooperating with troops further to the right, they retook and held the line from which they had been withdrawn.

And it was next morning that the remainder of Govan's Arkansans sent a solemn delegation to Granberry's Texans to ascertain whether the latter had lost confidence in them. It is needless to add that the answer was satisfactory.

Atlanta had fallen, and the campaign was ended. In his account of these operations, General Hood claims that Sherman's forces were largely more than double his own (pages 224-227). He argues that the soldiers had had "practical demonstration" that troops protected by such entrenchments as were habitually used by both sides during that campaign, were equal to three times their number of assailants (137); and he shows that the enemy could never be caught without such works (184-190). As a matter of fact, he, with his inferior numbers, habitually attacked these superior forces protected by such entrenchments; and the logic of his premises, without attaching blame to the troops, is that there could be but one result. But he charges the result as a fault to others—to General Hardee, who, he says, disobeyed his orders, and the army, which he in effect says would not fight. Of the army I need not here speak; as to General Hardee, he speaks for himself when, in reply to General Hood's report, arrogating nothing to himself, claiming no infallibility, and shirking no just responsibility, he says, in the simple and manly language of a soldier: "That in the operations about Atlanta, I failed to accomplish all that General Hood thinks might have been accomplished, is a matter of regret; that I committed errors, is very possible; but that I failed in any instance to carry out, in good faith, his orders, I utterly deny." And these pages, both by what they prove and what they disprove, will have demonstrated the absence of all color of foundation in fact for any assertion to the contrary.