Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/356

 was ordered to Mississippi, and he quickly assembled a force of 24,000 men. His orders to Pemberton were to leave Vicksburg and try and save his army. A diversion, he thought, to the northwest, and in conjunction with the troops he himself had assembled might reasonably be expected to succeed. When his orders were disregarded, Vicksburg and its garrison were doomed. Capitulation soon followed. In December, 1863, General Johnston .was ordered to take command of the Army of Tennessee, headquarters at Dalton, Ga. The spring following the Dalton-Atlanta campaign opened, and then blazed out the resplendent genius of this great commander. He had to an eminent degree the power of hurling large bodies of men against detachments of the opposing army—as Forrest would say, "Getting the most men there first." This is strategy. The limits of this paper preclude my going into detail; but contemporaneous history will, I think, show that General Sherman's army was nearly three times as large as that of the Army of Tennessee, and that he lost on that campaign as many men as we had all told. No one will venture to deny that, after deploying before our whole front, General Sherman had one, sometimes two, corps with which to threaten our communications and flank us out of position. We were flanked out of Northern Georgia, not whipped out of it. General Sherman is reported to have said he never picked up so much as a wheelbarrow on the retreat. At Resaca, General Johnston, surrounded by some thirty men, stationed himself at the side of a hill exposed to the enemy's sharpshooters. A ball of some kind took off the head of a man nearby and his brains were sprinkled over me. W r e all wanted safer quarters, but no man in that group had the temerity to suggest it. A most remarkable retreat. Every day a victory—from Dalton or Ringold to Atlanta, Resaca, Dallas, New Hope Church, Kennesaw, etc., would each make a thrilling chapter. I recall a single dramatic scene, when, with our horses saddled, we waited, General Hood saying he was flanked on the right. General Johnston, with an exclamation, said, "It is impossible," and sent General Mackall to ascertain the facts and report. That night, after the council of war, shared in by Generals Johnston, Polk, Hardee and Hood, had assembled and adjourned, I was