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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