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Maj.-Gen. P. R. Cleburne.
A Biography,
BY MAJOR CALHOUN BENHAM.
CHAPTER XIX.
After the Battle of 22d of July.
On the afternoon of the 30th of
August Cleburne was moved to a point
south of the West Point Railroad.
Here he commenced to throw up
works, but was soon arrested by an
order to move to Jonesboro, a town
about twenty miles south of Atlanta
on the. Macon railroad —our only re
maining line of communication, now
threatened by Sherman. When within
three or four miles of that place the
head of his column came up with
Brown’s command halted in the road
—that officer having gone ahead to
learn if the road was clear in advance.
He had already sent forward a recon
noitering party for that purpose, about
which, owing to the length of their
absence, he was anxious. Cleburne
and his stall rode on and overtook him
just in time to
RECEIVE A VULLEY
from the enemy’s picket, occupying a
bridge over which the road we were
to follow passed. The enemy’s hold
ing our road to Jonesboro entailed the
necessity of abandoning it to take
another immediately skirting the
Macon railroad. We found a side
road, leading in the right direction
for this purpose, about the head of
Brown’s column where it had been
halted. Major Dixon, Cleburne’s in
spector general, was seut to a station
a brigade in advance, between the
mouth of this side road and the bridge
occupied by the enemy’s pickets, with
orders to maintain the position until
we had got away. Owing to the
length of the column drawn out by
the fatigue of the men, this was a long
operation; we had to bring the whole
of the column to the sideroad. The
time spent in doing so was most
anxious to Cleburne. The enemy was
close at hand on the road we were
leaving, and but a low wooded ridge
separated us from a large body of
Sherman’s army, who were also moving
upon Jonesboro by a conveying road.
It seemed
THE SLOWEST MARCH
I ever saw ; the men dragged them
selves along, constantly recurring halts
protracted it. I trembled for the
division. If the enemy had attacked,
he might have captured all of our
artillery and trains. We were fortu
nate enough, however, to reach the
road skirting the railroad, and got into
Jonesboro by morning—August 31st,
where we found the rest of Hardee’s
Corps and Lee’s Corps —Hood remain
ing with Stewart’s Corps in Atlanta
upwards of twenty miles away.
Battle of Jonesboro, Aug. 31st.
At Jom sboro Hardee was in com
mand. Worn out by the march as
they were, the division was thrown
upon the line of battle. It was fornu d
just west of the railroad and town, and
substantially parallel with the railroad.
Hardee’s Corps under Cleburne on the
left, Lee’s Corps on the right. Con
fronting us were four corps of the
enemy under Sherman in person.
WE WERE TO ATTACK.
We moved to the advance. It was
afternoon. Hardee’s Corps found
no.hing in its fiont, but dismounted
cavalry which were brushed away by
the skirmisher- 1 . Lee’s Corps, however,
on the right encountered the enemy
in force, strongly entrenched, with all
the adjuncts of abatis and tangle.
Cleburne was ordered to change direc
tion and prepare to move upon
enemy’s right. When about to execute
the movement he was recalled.
WE DID NOT FIGHT.
I think it was well we did not. The
enemy was superior in numbers and
p isition. Unless the flank attack at
one time contemplated by Hardee had
given us great advantage, we must (
h ive failed and been cruelly cut up. |
But my information as to the probable
results of the flank attack is so slight
that it should perhaps forbid the ex
pression of an opinion.
In the approach to the enemy’s
works we suffered considerable loss.
During the night two additional
corps joined the force in our front,
making six in all, one corps of Sher
man’s being behind to observe Atlanta.
On our part, during the night, Lee
moved by Gen. Hood’^ orders in the
direction of Atlanta so as to form
a junction with him. He was now
evacuating that place. We could hear
distinctly at Jonesboro the explosion
of the ordnance stores which were
destroyed there as he left.
Battle of Jonesboro, Sept. Ist.
The next day, Sept. Ist, six corps
now looking in upon our isolated single
one, Hardee moved his command a
little to the right so as to occupy the
position held by Lee’s Corps the day
before. As already stated that posi
tion was less than a half mile west on
the Macon and Atlanta railway, and
l.iy substantially parallel to the road.
The morning was spent perfecting the
works. Quite early in the day signs
of movement on the enemy’s part were
plainly visible from our position.
About mid-day his columns began
to march in the prolongation of his left.
Much speculation was indulged in as
to his object. One of two things was
manifest,
HE WAS GOING TO ATLANTA,
which he now knew was evacuated,
or he was going aroupd our right flank.
The latter was Hardee’s opinion. It
was an unpromising prospect, out
numbered six to one, and to be struck
on the flank where we had no works,
and no men to put in them if we had
had, unless we stripped the line
already traced, upon which a force
as large as our own would doubtless
move. What was to be done?
FIGHT ? OR RETREAT ?
Hardee had no election. The wounded
of the day before were still in Jones
boro ; he bad been unable to get trans
portation to send them to the rear;
all cur wagon trains were there; beside
Hood, with Stewart and Lee was
already distant. It would be danger
ous to go farther from him. Hardee
MUST FIGHT FOR TIME
if for nothing else. By midnight
everything could be got away. His
decision was made as soon as the
enemy was seen to be in motion.
A retired line was traced from a
point near the right of the line of the
morning, the existing line running
easterly at nearly right angles across
the railroad. . This line was at once
occupied by as many troops as we
dared transfer from the main line, and
the men set to work to improvise the
best defences possible.
Cleburne’s division was placed at
the angle,
Lowrey on the main line; Granbury
next him, on the retired line, Govan
on Granbury’s right; Lewis’ Ken
tuckians held the line between Govan’s
right and the railroad. Hardee, mean
while, by a peisonal reconnoisance
with a force of cavalry, verified the
opinion that the enemy intended to
strike his right flank.
THE KENNESAW GAZETTE.
Our position was a sorry one. Our
whole retired line was not a half mile
in length and to the east of the road
it ran directly towards a hill, about
fifty feet high, which we could not
avoid and had no troops to hold, and
which it was plain the enemy, if he
extended far enough to the right on
the retired front before it grew dark,
would discover and occupy with
artillery, taking the retired line in
enfilade, and the main line in reverse.
BAD AS THE POSITION WAS,
however, we were committed to its
defense. A necessity which left no
alternative, was upon us.
Hardee and his cavalry under Jack
son was driven in by the enemy’s
cavalry. When the afternoon was
well advanced, his infantry was upon
us. His first blow fell upon the retired
line between the angle formed by it
and the main line and the railroad.
Fortunately
THE ATTACK PROGRESSED SLOWLY
towards the right of the retired line,
a circumstance which had happened
in our favor before in this campaign
at the battle of Picket’s Mill, the 27th
of May. No very serious advance was
made upon the main line.
At the point of contact, where
Govan and Granbury joined behind
their rude works, —logs and unfinished
trenches, —the battle was the heaviest.
Here the enemy attacked in five or six
lines; and there was an open field at
the point. Moving with volume and
power, like succeeding waves,
THE MASSES OF BLUE CAME ON,
confident, too, as the sea, but only to
be broken in turn against the moveless
palisade of our living front. Our im
perfect works were of little use to us.
But they still came, the will directing
that mighty flood, constant to its pur
pose, moving it unremittingly on.
It was more than man could do to
resist it long; death had no apprecia
ble effect upon those exhaustless
masses.
THE GROUND WAS STREWN WITH DEAD,
its entire color changed, it was car
peted with blue. The dike was broken.
Govan, with two or three hundred
men, was taken in the trenches where
he stood. But no panic seized those
troops. They were not of the material
for panic. Though their line had
never been broken, they had been so
schooled in battle as to loose their
head at no disaster. The break was
not propagated. Falling back from
the immediate right of the break, and
mingling with Lewis’ Kentuckians,
and from the left of it mingling with
Granbury’s Texans —both brigades
with their exposed flank already ex
tricated and their lines adroitly retired,
they
SHOOK THEMSELVES CLEAR OF THE
RUSHING THRONG
so as to bring their pieces to bear and
with their new comrades poured in
a right oblique and left oblique fire
upon the enemy in the break before
which the shunned and helpless mass
dropped like beasts in a battle.
In a moment Capt. I. A. Buck,
one of Cleburne’s adjutant generals,
wounded and bleeding, reported the
status at the break. Hardee asked
Cleburne if he had an officer to guide
a brigade —the last disposable one
—to charge the opening. Cleburne
replied,
“yes! all of us will go;”
and with his staff around him con
ducted the little band and its gallant
leader to their position. There find
ing the effective fire the Texans and
Kentuckians and Arkansans were
pouring upon the break, they con-
nected flanks with them, poured in a
direct fire and
WELDED THE LINE TOGETHER.
The integrity of the line was re
established, the enemy’s advance was
arrested.
Fortunately, while this was going
on, the assaults still further to the
right were constantly repulsed; and
and more fortunately yet, the artillery,
dilatory at the best and delayed by
these repulses,-which as apprehended,
had occupied the hill abutting upon
the extreme right of the general retired
line, failed in its attempt to enfilade
on j- ccount of the smoke which hung
low upon the ground.
PROVIDENCE BEFRIENDED US IN THIS.
Never before had I seen a smoky
battle field. As it was this artillery
kept up an incessant fire feeling for
our retired line; this fire struck about
the main line taking it in reverse,
doing, however, but little execution.
Govan and his Arkansans, Gran
bury and his Texans, Lewis and his
Kentuckians cannot be too much ad
mired for their
FIRM AND DAZZLING COURAGE
in executing the manoeuvre of retiring
their respective flanks next the break
in Govan’s line and holding the posi
tion. The little band of Kentuckians,
now wasted by the wild ravages of
war from a full brigade to a mere
handful —they were not enough for
a battalion —sustained the reputation
of their proud and noble common
wealth as they had done on every field
—whose pride is fixed forever in one
such noble hour of manhood —you may
decimate —shed any proportion of the
blood of such, it will be of no avail.
“THE ASPIRING BLOOD OF THE LANCAS-
TER WILL NOT SINK IN THE GROUND.”
Cleburne’s Division will never forget
who stood upon their flank that day.
The troops upon the right of the
railroad fought like the staunch and
tried veterans they too were. With
out works, certainly with none of
much use to them, they resisted every
assault which was made upon their
front like iron clads.
Hardee’s Corps was known to be a
good one, but the
MOST GLORIOUS HOUR IN ITS CAREER
was when bruised and bleeding and
mutilated it sternly held at bay six
times its numbers that afternoon at
Jonesboro. Brave deeds like these
make men. You may subjugate them;
you may humiliate such men as these;
you may strip them of their birth
right; you may degrade their richest
franchise, and your own, by sharing it
"With the incapable slave; you may
trample upon their every flower of
sovereignty; can you crush out of the
heart the memory of deeds like this?
You can never curb the lofty spirit in
them.
At the same time other batteries
were at work so that the space behind
the angle of the line was a net-work of
crossing fire, but no enfilade was ob
tained upon us, and where our works
would not resist artillery the inlantry
attacks screened us from it. It was
very nearly dark when the enemy
broke Govan’s line. The enemy’s bat
tle achieved no more and night put a
stop to the combat. Upon
HARDEE’s CONDUCT OF THIS BATTLE
nothing is to be said save that he did -
the best under his conditions; of Sher
man’s management this observation is
to be made: If he had attacked our
main line earnestly with one corps
simultaneously with his attack upon
our retired line, deferring his advance
until he had completed his entire de
ployment on the retired line, he would
have overlapped both flanks and en-