It is of course obvious from the map that if French found Sherman
approaching from the South, he had only to follow westward the road up
which he had been charging at Allatoona all day and free himself from
danger in an hour. It would be of interest to see this dispatch of
French's and observe the hour when sent, but it is not forthcoming. The
hour of the reply is significant. It need not have taken a mounted man
three hours to get word to Stewart, then near a junction with Hood and to
Hood himself, less than 15 miles away. The reply, made at once, is written
at 8:15 p. m., and French's message must certainly have been sent later
than 4 p. m. French had probably been gone from Allatoona an hour or more
when he bethought him to send the request for a division to extricate him.
The facts are, that it was not until the night of Oct. 5th that the
nearest troops of Sherman's went into camp at Brushy Mountain, 11 miles
distant in an air line, and none reached Allatoona until the 7th.
But to return to French. It was really an immense pity that he should feel
obliged to leave just when he had but to put forth his hand to snatch the
prize; but then it would not do to have his division cut off from the
army, and on the whole it might be well to start, and if so, why not at
once?
So about 1:30 he says an order was sent to Sears and Cockerell to
withdraw. The ground was too rough to carry badly wounded men over it, so
that those who could not get away on their own feet had to be left.
The artillery, unable to operate effectively with the assaulting column
close up on the works, had already been in part ordered to take the road,
and after the assaulting troops had left, French went to the two regiments
who had supported it, and sent a battery to the block house at the railway
crossing of Allatoona Creek, fired fifty shots at it, knocked it about
the ears of the garrison, and setting fire to it, smoked them out and
marched them off as prisoners.
French's report of this affair, written a month later, from which the
above is condensed, is very interesting and dramatic, and regarded as a
literary composition, of no mean merit. He has certainly made the best of
a bad business, and if his facts do not quite tally with those of his
opponents, at least the discrepancies were not officially noticed at
headquarters, nor probably would a gloomier account of the affair have
been considered more inspiriting. Those rations would have been extremely
convenient, could they, or even a part of them, have been hauled away for
distribution among the hungry Confederates, and if that were
impracticable, it would have been at least a noble stroke to have
destroyed them. On this head French's report is silent; nor does he
endeavor to explain how it happened that so vital a part of his own
program was omitted. In effect, the play had been badly broken up by the
attentions of the gallery, and Hamlet had slipped out of it.
French is without excuse for his fear of Sherman's approach, baseless as
we know it to have been. Armstrong is responsible for despatches to him
suggesting it. All the same, the evidence is conclusive that French was
beaten, that he knew it, and that he had to withdraw quite independently
of Sherman's movements.
A Confederate historian, K. S. Bevier, writes as follows on this point:
"The men of French's Division had now become so much scattered that it was
impossible to gather a sufficient number to give any hope of successful
assault on the Fort."
What can wholly be pardoned to French is the unstinted commendation he
bestows on the gallantry of his men.
These poor fellows, ragged and hungry, with but a handful or two of
parched corn in their haversacks, had marched all day on the 3rd; had
worked all that night destroying the railroad; had worked and marched all
day on the 4th; had marched to Allatoona during that night, and had fought
nearly all day on the 5th. Nor is it forbidden to those who felt the vigor
of their dashing onset and the undaunted determination with which they
rallied again and again to the assault of the intrenchments, or who
witnessed the hand-to-hand encounters with sword and bayonet, with butts
of guns, and even with loose pieces of rock, to appreciate the intrepidity
and resolution with which they hung to their bloody and fruitless task.
Brave men may honor bravery the world over. We can in all sympathy and
common brotherhood say: "They were of our blood and race. Peace to their
ashes. Give us the like to stand side by side with us, and we could fear
no quarrel, were it with the whole round world."