VISIT TO RESACA--1912.
May 14th found us after a tiresome night's march at Resaca, from which
point I again write you.
Here today and on the morrow was fought the first battle of magnitude in
the great hundred and twenty days' battle of the celebrated Georgia
campaign from Dalton to Atlanta. I say hundred and twenty days' battle,
which may seem a little far-fetched, but which is almost literally true,
for there was not a day or night, yes scarcely an hour, that we did not
hear the crack of a rifle or roar of a cannon. Their sounds were our
lullaby, sleeping or waking--to their music we slept, by their
thunderings we were awakened, and to the accompanying call of the bugle
we responded on the morning of May 14 to engage in the death grapple
with Sherman's well clothed, well fed and thoroughly rested veterans--a
matter "of Greek meeting Greek again." Sherman had pushed down the West
side of Rockyface Mountain and through Snake Creek Gap the day and night
before in an effort to cut Johnston's communications and take him in the
rear. But we had been doing some marching and digging, too, and when
Sherman's columns four or five deep debouched from their positions--a
long, heavily wooded ridge--into the narrow valley, on the East side of
which we had constructed rifle pits, he found us ready to receive his
gay and awe-inspiring columns, who moved in perfect step, with banners
flying and bands playing, as though he expected to charm us.
The eagerness of our own men could scarcely be restrained until they had
reached the point to which our orders had been given, seventy-five to
eighty yards, when our lines opened almost simultaneously a deadly and
murderous fire from both infantry and double-shotted artillery, that
flesh and blood could not withstand. Retiring in disorder to their
original position in the woods, they rallied and reformed, while their
artillery was busy playing upon our batteries, from which they received
no response whatever, a mystery at the time to many of us, but which we
understood a little later on when they again moved down to the attack,
to be met in the same manner with both infantry and artillery, and with
similar results. Three times during the morning and early afternoon were
these attacks made upon our lines, with the same results. It was a
veritable picnic for the Confederates and was the second time in the
history of the war, up to this time, that we had presented such a
glorious opportunity, protected as we were by earthworks, with clear and
open ground in front. Had Sherman continued this business during the
entire day (as we hoped he would) the campaign would have ended right
here, as we had not called into requisition any of our reserve force.
The principal part of the afternoon was spent by the artillery--after
the infantry had gotten enough of it--on both sides pounding away at
each other in a lively and entertaining fashion.
Some daring and courageous deeds were performed by the Federal officers
and men on this occasion, the recollection of which is refreshing and
exhilarating to the writer, but for want of time I shall be compelled to
pass over. However, one instance, I will relate as being somewhat
interesting to Kentuckians as showing the home spirit and natural
feeling existing between them as Kentuckians, although now engaged in
the deadly breach. That night some of our boys of the Fourth Kentucky
learned from inquiry of our "friends" in our front that we were
confronting the Federal Fourth Kentucky (Colonel Tom Croxton), whereupon
a bantering of epithets and compliments was at once begun and exchanged
in a very amusing and interesting way. I listened to the colloquy with
great interest and amusement, which was conducted on our side by
Lieutenant Horace Watts, who was a noted wit and humorist. But I regret
that I have forgotten the name of his interrogator, whom I recall,
however, was from Vanceburg, Ky.
That night was spent in strengthening our works and preparing for the
work of the morrow, which work we well knew was coming. When morning
came the appearance of Old Sol was greeted with a signal from a battery
immediately in our front, which had been stationed there during the
night and protected by substantial and elaborate earthworks. The shots
from this battery were directed against Hotchkiss' battalion of
artillery, and which the Fourth Kentucky Infantry was supporting. The
enemy's guns from every part of the line kept up a continuous fire
throughout the entire day and was the greatest open field bombardment of
the war. We were much amused at the manner of firing of the battery in
our front, which was done by bugle signal, the meaning of which our men
soon learned, for a moment later our works would be pierced by their
shells and when they exploded threw high in the air a cloud of dirt and
smoke from the embankment that almost covered us up. At intervals of
about every five or ten minutes the bugle's "whe-whee-deedle-dee-dee"
told us of the crash that was coming and almost lifted our scalps and
rendered some of us deaf for weeks. Had the day been an hour longer we
would have been compelled to abandon our works, for the embankments were
almost leveled and the trenches filled.
Two of Hotchkiss' guns were cut down and had to be abandoned, and but
for the fact that they had been run back beyond the crest, not a
splinter of them would have been left.
Our batteries did not fire a gun that day, having been ordered to
withhold their fire in anticipation of another attack by the enemy's
infantry. This day's work was a very clever ruse of Sherman's and
demonstrated the cunning of that wily general, for while he was thus
entertaining us with the main part of his army, especially his
artillery, like the sly old fox that he was, he was planning our
undoing by sending down the river to our rear Dodge's Corps to fall on
our rear and cut our communications and intercept our retreat.
Had his plan been expedited by Dodge, as it might have been, it would
surely have been "all day" with us poor devils of Confederates. It was
certainly a "close shave," for which we were all very thankful. But we
here on the 14th enjoyed the "picnic" for which we Orphans paid most
dearly on the 28th at Dallas, and which I shall describe in another
place. War, it seems from my experience and observation, may be
described as a dreadful and costly game of "tit-for-tat."
The losses sustained by the Orphans in this engagement at Resaca were
insignificant compared with that inflicted upon the enemy in their
front. There is not a single recognizable object here save the ground
where we fought, from the fact that we arrived here in the night and
took our departure in the night. The narrow valley and the long extended
ridge in its front and the spur occupied by Hotchkiss and the Fourth
Kentucky, is all that I see to remind me of the two days of "pride, pomp
and circumstance of glorious war." But how's this, we fighting behind
entrenchments and the enemy in the open, four or five lines deep?
"Our loss was 2,747, and his (Johnson's) 2,800. I fought offensively and
he defensively, aided by earthwork parapets."--[General Sherman's
statement.] There must have been some bad shooting on this occasion--the
advantages all on one side, but results so nearly even.
Today, May 16 (1912), marks the forty-eighth anniversary of this
important event, and finds me on the ground. Here, as at other places
previously mentioned and described, things came back to me and I see
them being reenacted. I was accompanied on this inspection by an old
comrade (J. H. Norton), who lost an arm at Chancellorsville, and who has
lived here in Resaca almost all his life and who was at home at the
time, having been discharged on account of the loss of his arm, and who
assisted in burying the dead, and he pooh-poohed Sherman's statement as
to relative losses. Another old comrade, who is a merchant in the town,
told me that he had bought over a hundred thousand pounds of minnie
balls picked up on the ground where the battle was fought. I saw a
three-bushel box full in his store today. How many poor devils were
killed by these would be impossible to tell. They have a neat little
cemetery near the town, in which there are nine Kentuckians
(Confederates) buried, some of whose names I have copied.