“Johnston will then have to retreat below Resaca, or we shall interpose between him and Georgia.”
This signal sentence from a telegraph Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman sent to Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck in Washington City identified the basic premise of how the Atlanta Campaign would unfold. Sherman continually maneuvered his armies in an attempt to get between the Confederate Army of Tennessee and Atlanta. (The Southern force, charged with defending the city, also drew their supplies and reinforcements from there.)
Sherman’s Confederate adversary, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, countered every move, skillfully pulling back his troops to avoid being flanked — though every “retrograde” movement by the defenders would bring the Federals that much closer to Atlanta.
After the rain ended on May 10, Federal forces began moving from the Rocky Face Ridge line south toward Resaca. Johnston and his army remained in Dalton — unaware, at least initially, of Sherman’s flanking movements. Gaining almost a full day ushering his armies toward Resaca should have enabled Sherman to gain control of the region virtually uncontested. Yet he did not.
During the mid-afternoon of May 12, Johnston wrote a dispatch to Gen. Samuel Cooper in Richmond, saying he was convinced the Federal army was now “in motion for Calhoun or some point on the Oostanaula. I will follow the movement.”
A flurry of messages flew throughout the Army of Tennessee during the balance of the day, as Johnston and his subordinates — Lt. Gens. Leonidas Polk, William J. Hardee and John Bell Hood and Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler — took action to move their soldiers to Resaca.
Once in position, the Johnston’s troops established a defensive line, which stretched from their left, anchored on the Oostanaula River, to the right flank on the Conasuga River. Polk held the Confederate left, Hardee the center, and Hood the right; the blue aligned opposite the gray, with Maj. Gens. George Thomas on the left, John Schofield in the center and James McPherson anchoring the right. Camp Creek ran between the opposing forces.
Skirmishing around Resaca began May 13, as each side deployed troops to feel the position and strength of the other. Fighting began in earnest the next day, and the various Federal advances met repulse. Johnston sensed an opportunity on his right and ordered Hood to attack. While the “Gallant Hood” advanced, on the Confederate left, near the Oostanaula, Federal Brig. Gen. Thomas Sweeny’s XVI Corps attempted to secure a stronghold on the far side of the river. Sweeny effected a crossing at Lay’s Ferry, but arriving Southern troops forced him back across the Oostanaula. Hood’s attack eventually stalled, as darkness and Northern reinforcements arrived.
Regrouping for yet another attempt to turn the left flank of Johnston’s army, Sherman issued a second order for Sweeny to cross the Oostanaula and hold. Sweeny succeeded on his second attempt, and Johnston’s position at Resaca proved no longer tenable. The Confederate chieftain in Georgia ordered a withdrawal, under cover of darkness, to Calhoun. Johnston then moved to Adairsville. There, he failed to find a position offering advantageous terrain for his army and soon was on the move again. Leaving Adairsville, the Army of Tennessee made another retrograde movement, to Cassville.
One of the Confederate soldiers at Resaca wrote a letter to his father describing the battle, and made a bold prediction of future activity in the campaign. “I think it will be a close race between us and the Yanks to Atlanta. I think surely this fight will be the last hard fight we will have.” An Illinois soldier noted of the action at Resaca , “Brave men were falling on every hand. This was one of the days that will occupy a conspicuous page in our country’s history.” Sherman and Johnston both suffered around 2,800 casualties at Resaca, and the fighting inched ever closer to Atlanta.
Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author and lecturer. He can be contacted at: www.civilwarhistorian.net
For a list of Civil War 150th anniversary commemorative events in North Georgia, go to: http://bit.ly/1rToUhR and for prior Shaffer columns and other coverage, go to Civil War: 1864 in the AJC, http://www.ajc.com/s/opinion/
