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10
BATTLE OF ALLATOONA.
Continued from page 7.
General Sherman also refers as fol
lows to the same circumstances :
The telegraph wires had been cut above
Marietta, and learning that heavy masses of
infantry, artillery and cavalry had been seen
from Kennesaw (marching north), I inferred
that Allatoona was their objective point;
and on the 4th o' October I signalled from
Vining’s Station to Kennesaw, and from
Kennesaw to Allatoona, over the heads of
the enemy, a message for General Corse at
Rome,to hurry back to the assistai.ee of t e
garrison at Allatoona. Allatoona was held
by a small brigade, and commanded by
Lieutenant Colonel Touriellotte, my present
aide-de-camp. He had two small redoubts
on either sibe of the railroad, overlooking
the village of Allatoona, and the ware
houses, in which weie stored over a million
of rations of bread.
Reaching Kennesaw Mountain about 8
a. m of October sth (a beautiful day), I
had a superb view of the vast panorama’to
the north and west. Tothe southwest, about
Dallas, could be seen the smoke of camp
tires, indicating the presence of a large force
of the enemy, and the whole line of railroad
from Big Shanty up to Allatoona (full fif
teen miles) was marked by the fires of the
burning railroad. We could plainly see
the smoke of battle about Allatoona, and
hear the faint reverberation of the cannon.
From Kennesaw I ordered the Twenty
third Corps (General Cox) tomarch due
west on the Burnt Hickory road, and to
burn houses or piles of brush as it progress
ed, to indicate the head of the column,hop
ing to interpose this corps between Hood’s
main army at Dallas ahd the detachment
then assailing Allatoona. The rest of the
army was directed straight for Allatoona
northwest, distant eighteen miles. The sig
nal officer on Kennesaw reported that since
daylight he had failed to obtain any answer
to his call for Allatoona ; but, while I was
with him, he caught a faint glimpse of the
tell-tale flag through an embrasure and af
ter much time he made out these letters :
‘C,’ ‘R,’ ‘S,’ ‘E,’ ‘II,’ ‘E,’ ‘R,’ and trans
lated the message: —“Corse is here.” It
was a source of great relief, for it gave me
t assurance that General Cone had
received his orders, and that the place was
adequately garrisoned.
1 watched with painful suspense the in
dications ol the battle raging there, and was
dreadfully impatient at the slow progress of
the relieving column, whose ’ advance was
marked by the smokes which were made
acco ding to orders, but about 2 p. m. I no
ticed with satisfaction that the smoke of bat
tle about Allatoona grew less and less, and
ceased altogether about 4p. m. For a time
I attributed this result tothe effect of Gen
eral Cox’s march, but later in the afternoon
the signal flag announced the welcome tid
ings that the attack had been fairly repulsed,
but that General Corse was wounded. — Sher
man’s 11 Memoirs”, Vol. 11, page 147.
These quotations are introduced for
the purpose of calling attention here
to the fact that these signals “through
the sky,” which summoned brave men
to carnage and strife, curiously enough
became the inspiration of a gospel
song which, throughout Christendom,
is the rallying cry of the soldiers of
the army of the Prince of Peace ; as,
a few years after the war, the evan
gelist P. P. Bliss, to whom the circum
stances of the messages and the battle
were narrated, caught from them the
idea for the stirring words:
\ ~ *
' - /
■’
/ ''—'-_Z A ~ 7
- >
-'Jr ;
Ho! my comrades, see the signal
Waving in the sky !
Reinforcements now appearing,
Victory is nigh.
— ,
r- - .
ALLATOONA (SIGNAL) MOUNTAIN
AS SEEN FROM THE WESTERN & ATLANTIC RAILROAD
Chorus:
“Hold the fort; for I am coming !
Jesus signals still;
Wave the answer back to heaven,
“By thy grace we will! ”
See the glorious banner waving,
Hear the bugle blow,
In our Leader’s name we’ll triumph
Over every foe.
Fierce and long the battle rages,
But our help is near;
Onward comes our Great Commander,
“Cheer, my comrades cheer!”
He wrote this song on • the night
that he first heard the story, and sang
it in the Tabernacle in Chicago next
day. It was caught up by the voices
of thousands, and from that day to
this has been a standard gospel lyric.
***
Knowing that the only outlet he
then had would soon be closed to him,
General French at once ordered his
artillery to move promptly to the Alla
toona bridge, report to Colonel Adaire,
and hold it against Sherman’s advance
corps, retaining only one battery in
position at Allatoona.
This movement of the artillery to
keep open the only outlet from the
pocket into which he was so ignorantly
sent by General Hood, left still the
main question undecided whether,
with the sacrifices that would be made
in attaining it, the eclat and value of cap
turing the garrison were worth more to
the cause than to save the division from
the danger of its environments. With
all the lights before him General French
decided on the latter, and accordingly
General Sears was ordered to withdraw
his troops to the west end of the ridge.
Allowing him an hour and half to do
this, Cockrell and Young were instruct
ed to begin to withdraw from the south
and east fronts at 1.30 p. m. ; to come
out by small squads, or individually,
as the entanglements would not permit
it being done otherwise; also that the
few men remaining to the last should
keep the heads of the enemy under
cover to the end.
General French and Major Sanders
confirm the fact that suc'h were the
orders. General Cockrell says also
that such was the manner of withdrawal,
and the following extract from Colonel
Tourtellotte’s report shows that he no
ticed how it was carried out:
The rebels n oved forward with boldness
and perseverance, and at length when they
did withdraw, at about three p. rn., they had
been so broken in the contest that they
withdrew as individualsand not as organiza
tions.
Yes, from the nature of the ground
their line was quite considerably bro
ken, but, as General Corse says, in a
quotation shown later on in this article,
“filling every hole and trench, seeking
shelter behind every stump and log
THE KENNESAW GAZETTE.
that lay within musket range of the
fort,” they were “completely enfilading
our ditches and rendering it almost im
practicable for a man to expose his per
son about the parapet.” Furthermore,
so closely had the Confederates gotten
up to the main fort that General French
says he bad to stop the firing of his
artillery upon it because the close prox
imity of his soldiers to it put them in
danger from the explosion of shells fired
at the railroad cut.
Major Sanders writes: “The troops
were withdrawn from in front of
Allatoona with absolute freedom and
personal safety.”
Captain R. F. Kolb, who command
ed Storrs’ battalion of artillery in this
battle, writes: “I withdrew my artil
lery from Allatoona about 4 o’clock in
the evening, and the Federals made no
attempt to follow us.”
One of the leading officers of Cock
rell’s command states that when the brig
ade began withdrawing General Cock
rell gathered some men and put them
on an elevation west of the star fort
and had them to keep up a constant
fire with cheering, so as to prevent the
Federals from seeing the withdrawal
of the rest. Some of the Federals claim
that about 2 30 p. m the Confederates
made a final attempt to take the fort
but were repulsed. This Confederate
diversion doubtless caused this erro
neous report by the Federals.
The troops concentrated on the ridge
west of the fort, about five hundred
yards from it, and there sat down un
molested, in view of the works, until
nearly three p. m., when they started
for the Allatoona bridge. They remain
ed on the ridge that length of time to
await the arrival of Sears’ men from
the works east of the railroad. These
had a long circuitous route to march.
Nearly all the wounded had been re
moved from around the works to a
shade on the west end of the ridge,
where they were from necessity left in
charge of medical officers, because they
could not be carried ov6r the rough,
mountainous ridges, a mile distant to
the ambulances. Besides, the few am
bulances were already filled with the
wounded that had made their way to
them without aid.
From Federal prisoners it first be
came known that General Corse had
: rrived during the night from Rome,
with five regiments to reinforce the
garrison, and that he was in command
of the troops.
As has already been stated, General
French had never received General
Corse’s reply to his summons to sur
render, and consequently neither he
nor a man in his command knew that
any reinforcements bad reached Tour
tellotte. They had been pressing the
assault until about noon with the be
lief that they were fighting about nine
hundred men, which was the number
the young ladies at Acwyrth gave
them the previous evening. It goes
without saying that they had been
giving the supposed nine hundred
credit for doing some extraordinary
fighting. Allowing General Corse the
meed of praise to which he is undoubt
edly entitled for the resolute spirit
which inspired his defiant reply to the
summons to surrender, which was
meant for another, it must, in view of
all the facts as established, be said that
although it “reads pretty in history,”
yet history cannot truthfully be writ
ten to the effect that it had any bear
ing whatever on the actions of the
Confederate commander and his men,
for not one of them ever saw or heard
of it until after the war, when they
read it in “history.”
It was while resting there on the
ridge in front of the fort, awaiting the
arrival of Sears’ men, that General
French also heard the men talking
about the great amount of provisions
in store at the depot, and he asked
why they had not set fire to them.
The answer was that they expected
to soon be in possession of them and to
appropriate what was needed of them
for their own use. However, some of
the men had helped themselves liberal
ly to such as they could put on. The
last shot that was fired by the Feder
als, for instance, killed a soldier who
was walking back and forward but a
few steps from General French and
staff, proudly displaying a pair of
splendid new boots which he had got
ten in the store house and put on.
As all the troops had been with
drawn from the south and west' side
General French then called for a par
ty of volunteers to go and fire the
buildings containing the stores; but
when they came to the matter of pro
viding means to do it, it was found
that no one had any matches except
General Cockrell, who had three in
his vest pocket.
The volunteers reached the stores,
but the matches failed to ignite, and
thus the stores were not burned. It
may be remarked that Major Wiley
Abercrombie and Captain E. T. Free
man, of French’s staff, went among
the troops and sought diligently of all
of them for matches, declaring that at
any and every risk they would burn
the stores; but they could procure
none. Such was the poverty among
the troops for the necessaries of life.
General French even at that time
did not know that this was a great de
pot of supplies for Sherman’s entire
army. He supposed it was merely a
full amount for the garrison and to
