On December 16, 1863, I directed General Joseph E. Johnston to transfer the command of the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana to General Polk, and to proceed to Dalton, Ga., and there assume command of the Army of the Tennessee, representing at that date an effective force of 43,094 men. My information led me to believe that the condition of that army was satisfactory in all that constitutes efficiency — that the men were eager for an opportunity to retrieve the loss of prestige sustained in the disastrous battle of Missionary Ridge. I was also informed that the enemy’s forces were weaker than at any time since that battle, and especially deficient in cavalry, artillery, and train horses. The Federal army occupied Chattanooga, Bridgeport, and Stevenson, with a detached force at Knoxville. I desired that prompt and vigorous measures should be taken to enable our troops to begin active operations against the enemy as early as practicable, not only because it was important to guard against the injurious results to the morale of the troops which always attend a prolonged season of inactivity, but because, also, the recovery of the territory in Tennessee and Kentucky which we had been forced to abandon, and on the supplies of which the proper subsistence of our armies mainly depended, imperatively demanded an onward movement. I believed that by a rapid concentration of our troops between the scattered forces of the enemy, without attempting to capture his intrenched positions, we could compel him to accept battle in the open field, and that, should we fail to draw him out of his intrenchments, we could move upon his line of communication. I repeatedly urged on General Johnston, both by letter and by officers of my staff, the importance of a prompt aggressive movement.
General Johnston cordially approved of an aggressive movement, and notified me of his purpose to make it as soon as reinforcements and supplies then on the way should reach him. He did not approve of the proposed advance into Tennessee, but preferred to stand on the defensive until strengthened; “to watch, prepare, and strike” as soon as possible. He declared his purpose, as soon as reinforced, to advance to Ringgold, attack there, and, if successful, to strike at Cleveland, cut the railroad, control the river, isolate East Tennessee, and consequently force his antagonist to give battle on this side of the Tennessee River. Simultaneously with this movement, and to aid it, General Johnston proposed that a large cavalry force should be sent to Middle Tennessee, in the rear of the enemy. By these operations he believed that the Federal army would be forced to evacuate the Tennessee Valley, when an advance into the heart of the State would be safely practicable.
The irreparable loss of time in making any forward movement having allowed the combinations which rendered an advance across the Tennessee River no longer practicable, I took prompt measures to enable General Johnston to carry out immediately his own proposition, to strike first at Ringgold and then at Cleveland, proposing that General Buckner should threaten Knoxville, General Forrest advance into and threaten Middle Tennessee, and General Roddy hold the enemy in Northern Alabama. This movement might have been successful if it had been promptly executed, although it held out no such promise as did the plan of advance before the enemy had had time to make his combinations. General Johnston’s belief that General Grant would be ready to assume the offensive before he could be prepared to do so, proved too well founded; while his purpose that we should take the initiative if the Federal army did not attack, was never carried out.
On May 2, 1864, Johnston discovered that the enemy was advancing against him under the command of General Sherman; and two days later it was reported that he had reached Ringgold, about fifteen miles north of Dalton, in considerable force.
According to official returns the effective strength of General Johnston’s army, including Polk’s command, then en route, was not less than 68,620 men of all arms, excluding from this estimate the thousands of men employed on extra duty, amounting, as General Hood states, to 10,000 when he assumed command.
No effort was spared by the Government to enable Johnston to repulse the hostile advance and assume the offensive. Almost all the available military strength of the South and West, in men and supplies, was pressed forward to him. The supplies of the commissary, quartermaster, and ordnance departments of his army were represented as ample and suitably located. The troops were eager to advance, and confident in their power to achieve victory and recover the territory they had lost. Their position warranted the confidence of successful resistance at least. Long mountain ranges, penetrated by few and difficult roads and paths, and deep and wide rivers, seemed to render our position one which could not be turned, and from which we could not be dislodged; while that of the enemy was manifestly perilous, as he was dependent for his supplies upon a single line of railroad from Nashville. Both the country and the Government shared the hope that a decisive victory would soon be won in the mountains of Georgia, which would free the South and West from invasion, open to our occupation and the support of our armies the productive territory of Tennessee and Kentucky, and so recruit our army in the West as to render it impracticable for the enemy to accumulate additional forces in Virginia.
On May 6th the Confederate army was in position in and around Dalton, in daily expectation of an attack from Sherman’s whole force. No attack was made. On the evening of the 12th of May Johnston withdrew his troops and fell back on Resaca, eighteen miles south of Dalton, a strong position on a peninsula formed by the junction of two rivers, and further fortified by continuous rifle-pits and earthworks; but he soon abandoned it and withdrew toward Adairsville, thirteen miles south on the railroad. General Johnston, not finding the narrow valley north of Adairsville to be as advantageous as he had hoped, again ordered a further retreat to Cassville, seventeen miles further south, where he announced his intention to do battle with the enemy at Kingston. He supposed that the enemy would divide his forces into two columns before reaching Kingston; and as that point would be the place of their greatest distance from each other, he proposed to assail them there. The battle was announced in orders to each regiment.
But the Federal army, instead of dividing, united for the purpose of attacking our forces. Johnston thereupon ordered another retreat (May 19th) beyond Etowah.
The next stand of our army was at Allatoona, in the Etowah Mountains, south of the river of that name; but the rapid extension of the Federal army, threatening Marietta, was deemed to necessitate the evacuation of that strong position.
Engagements with the enemy at New Hope Church (May 27th and 28th), although distinguished by many acts of gallantry, did not result in any advantage to our army.
Falling back slowly, General Johnston made his next stand in that mountainous country that lies between Acworth and Marietta. Here the greatest blow to the country that had been felt since Albert Sidney Johnston fell at Shiloh, and Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville, was experienced, in the death of that noble Christian and soldier, General Polk. On June 14th he was killed by a shot from a Federal battery on Pine Mountain, as he was reconnoitering near the Confederate outposts.
On June 18th, heavy rain having so swollen Nose’s Creek as to render it impassable, the Federal army, under cover of this stream, extended its lines several miles beyond Johnston’s left flank, causing a further retrograde movement by a portion of his force. For several days brisk fighting occurred at various points of our line. A cavalry attack on Wheeler’s cavalry on the 20th, and a general assault on the Confederate position on the 27th, were handsomely repulsed. On July 5th General Johnston deemed it necessary to abandon his position at Kenesaw; and on the 9th, General Sherman having thrown two corps across the Chattahoochee on the previous day, the Confederate army crossed that river and established itself two miles in the rear.
Thus from Dalton to Resaca, from Resaca to Adairsville, from Adairsville to Allatoona (involving by the evacuation of Kingston the loss of Rome, with its valuable mills, foundries, and large quantities of military stores), from Allatoona to Kenesaw, from Kenesaw to the Chattahoochee, and then to Atlanta — retreat followed retreat during seventy-four days of anxious hope and bitter disappointment, until at last the Army of Tennessee fell back within the fortifications of Atlanta. The Federal army soon occupied the arc of a circle extending from the railroad between Atlanta and the Chattahoochee River to some miles south of the Georgia Railroad (from Atlanta to Augusta) in a direction north and northeast of Atlanta. We had suffered a disastrous loss of territory.