morning. The pass was defensible from either side, and its possession was indispensable to the existence of our army at Atlanta. In addition to the natural defences of rock, it was fortified by two forts or bastioned earthworks, protected by palisades and rifle-pits.

swer.

General Corse had about thirteen hundred men to garrison this Thermopyla of the Georgian campaign. As he entered the defile, an army of thirty thousand troops were rushing upon him. Rapidly dispositions were made for battle. Just at sunrise, General French, who commanded the advance of Hood's army, sent in a demand for the surrender of the pass, "to avoid a needless effusion of blood." He gave five minutes for an anGeneral Corse, as he received the communication, coolly remarked, as if speaking to himself, "General French is either a fool, or thinks some one else one." He then replied, "We are prepared for the needless effusion of blood whenever it is agreeable to you." The moment the messenger returned, the tempest of war opened with its thunder-roar and its bolts of destruction. The rebels attacked on three sides at once. A detachment of the Thirty-ninth Iowa and the Seventh Illinois were in the rifle-pits west of the fort. By sheer force of numbers, the rebels gained a position on a ridge between the forts and these pits, thus isolating the little band, only a few of whom escaped back to the forts.

Fiercer and fiercer waxed the fight as the sun rose high in the heavens. The patriots fought like men determined to conquer or die. The rebels fought like men who had nothing to fear, every thing to gain, and who were certain of victory. In the rifle-pits the fight was terrific. General Corse commanded one of the two forts, General Tourtelotte the other. Every moment the battle increased in fury. Exasperation fired the hearts of the assailants. Massing his troops, French hurled them column after column upon the patriot band. About eleven o'clock, General Corse was wounded in the cheek. As he fell, fainting from loss of blood, he cried out, "Hold Allatoona." Colonel Rowett succeeded him in command, and the men still stood bravely at their guns. About noon, General Sherman signalled, from the top of Kenesaw Mountain, nearly fifteen miles distant: "Hold on to Allatoona to the last. I will help you."

For another hour the fight raged with unabated fury. In Colonel Rowett's fort the ammunition ran short. Reluctantly he ordered his men to cease firing. He intended thus to husband his fire, that every shot might doubly fulfil its mission upon the masses of the enemy rushing upon the guns. His troops thought he intended to surrender, and, as they still plied their guns, cried out, "Never, never!" Just then a bullet struck the gallant colonel, and he fell dead. General Corse, though suffering intense pain from his wound, again resumed command, and the patriots, their numbers every hour diminishing, fought on till two o'clock. The crisis of the battle then came.

A massive column of the rebels charged up the hill, against the palisades, loudly cheering as they ran. There was but one gun which could be brought to bear upon the foe. It was doubly shotted, and the gunner waited till the very powder should flash in the faces of the oncoming host. The infantry also withheld their fire until every bullet was sure to reach

its victim. The exultant host came surging on to within a few feet of the palisades, when there was a flash and a roar,

"And the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed."

The rebel line was fearfully shattered by that fire. The survivors staggered, recoiled, fled. The "effusion of blood" on both sides had been great, but not, on the part of the patriots, needless. Gloriously they had repulsed the foe. Triumphantly they held the pass. Notwithstanding every effort General Sherman had made to send them reënforcements, none could be forwarded to them until the next day.

Hood, thus repulsed at Allatoona, attempted, by a circuitous route, again to strike the railroad at Resaca, nearly forty miles farther north. He fell upon the pickets. For three hours they valiantly held their ground. Hood then sent in a demand for the surrender of the place, stating that if he were under the necessity of carrying it by assault, "no prisoners would be taken." Disgusted with the inhumanity of the summons, Colonel Weaver, who was in command, replied, "I can hold this post. If you want it, come and take it."

Hood responded to the challenge by a deadly fire of shot and shell. The battle raged with no decisive results until dark. About midnight Colonel Raum arrived with reënforcements, and assumed the command. With the earliest light the battle was renewed with equal desperation on both sides. Hood, finding all his efforts to carry the position unavailing, turned his attention to the destruction of the railroad. About six miles north of Resaca, on the railroad, there is a little town called Tilton. Here Colonel Archer was in command of two hundred and eighty men. Being fiercely attacked by the rebels, after a slight skirmish they retreated to a block-house, and refused to surrender, when called upon by a rebel officer, Stewart, who threatened them, in case of resistance, with no quarter.

The rebels opened upon the frail block-house with their artillery.. Every shot shook the house like a reed. For two hours the unequal contest continued. The brave little garrison fired twenty-five thousand rounds of ammunition, and only when the house was riddled with shot, and no longer tenable, did the gallant colonel consent to surrender. Everywhere the rebels found the patriots, no matter how greatly outnumbered, ready to fight. Dalton only was seized by them without resistance. This slight success, however, was of but little avail, since General Sherman was already thundering at their heels, eager to give Hood battle whenever he would stop long enough for a fight. The rebels found it discreet to retreat, through a gap in the mountain ridge, from the railroad line to Lafayette, about twenty miles southwest of Dalton. From that point he ingloriously continued his retreat forty miles farther west to the Tennessee River.

General Sherman, having thus driven the rebel army not only from his lines of communication, but out of the State, dispatched General Thomas to take care of Hood, and returned to Atlanta. He now assembled his troops at Rome, Kingston, and Atlanta, and prepared for a march through. the heart of the State of Georgia, a distance of two hundred and ninety

one miles, to Savannah. The rebels were kept in entire ignorance respecting his destination. They knew not whether he intended to strike for Mobile, on the Gulf, or for Brunswick, Savannah, Charleston, or Wilming ton, on the coast. They were therefore compelled to make preparations on all these lines to resist his advance.

The patriot army which was to undertake this bold march amounted to about sixty thousand men. It consisted of four corps of infantry, two divisions of cavalry, four brigades of artillery, and two horse-batteries. The infantry corps were commanded by Generals Davis, Osterhaus, Blair, and Slocum. The cavalry was led by the chivalric Kilpatrick. One regiment of the cavalry deserves especial notice even among these heroic men, all of whom rendered themselves illustrious. It was the First Alabama. Colonel George E. Spencer organized this regiment in 1863. It was composed of the most distinguished men in the State. These pure patriots braved all obloquy and every danger, in their devotion to the National flag. A grateful country must ever hold them in affectionate remembrance. Their knowledge of the Southern country and of Southern sentiment was of much service during the eventful campaign.

The army moved in four columns. Major-General O. O. Howard led the right wing; Major-General Slocum the left. They took as little baggage as possible, intending mainly to subsist upon the country. That they might not be annoyed by a pursuing foe, they destroyed in their march railroads, bridges, and all public buildings and stores which could benefit the enemy. They also took with them, in their train, all beef cattle, horses, and mules, and all the able-bodied negroes who could be of service in the camp. General Sherman seemed to be endowed with those imperial powers which could alike grasp the most comprehensive combinations and superintend the minutest details. The rebels professed to be very jubilant over what they represented as a Quixotic adventure, which would lead to the annihilation of the patriot army. Derisively they announced that Sherman was marching his troops to the Paradise of Fools.

There are two railroads passing through the heart of this State. The Georgia Railroad connects Atlanta with Charleston, S. C., by the way of Augusta. The other, the Georgia Central, traverses the State about fifty miles farther south, and passes through Macon to Savannah. The army was to march in four parallel lines, in the general direction of these roads, sweeping a path about sixty miles broad through the State. The troops were not aware themselves of their destination, but were to meet at some point which General Sherman should afterwards designate. On the 13th, General Howard commenced the march with the right wing from Atlanta. General Slocum started the next day with his wing. General Sherman and staff soon followed, the general remarking, as he looked back upon Atlanta, "Let Hood go north; our business is down south."

The troops were to march about fifteen miles a day. Regular foraging parties were detailed to gather supplies. The other soldiers were not permitted to enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or to commit any trespass, save that they were to drive in the stock which they met on their line of march, and could gather from the fields such turnips, potatoes, and other

vegetables as they needed. No destruction of private property was permitted in districts where they did not encounter opposition. But where they were fired upon from the houses, or attacked by guerrillas, or found bridges burned, and other obstructions interposed to their march, the corps commanders were to enforce a punishment of devastation according to the measure of the offence.

As the troops commenced their march, all the public property in Atlanta, Rome, Kingston, Marietta, such as forts, arsenals, factories, which could serve the rebel armies, was committed to the flames. It was a sublime spectacle, as at night, the heavens, for miles around, were red with the blaze of this wide-spread conflagration. In that lovely clime it was a delicious season of the year. The rugged mountainous region they had left behind them; and now they entered upon a smooth, fertile, beautiful expanse, where marching was easy and food abundant, and where the charm of novelty ever met the eye. The splendid mansions of the wealthy planters, their wide-extended estates, luxuriantly cultivated by hundreds of negroes, the clustered cabins of the bondmen, the wretched abodes of the lank, sallow, half-starved poor whites, the exuberant welcome with which the whole colored population greeted them, the slight opposition which they encountered, and which they swept away as the horse sweeps the flies from his flanks, the prancing steeds, the banners, the music, the song-all these combined to render the march through the beautiful fields of Central Georgia one of the most picturesque and poetic in the annals of war.

An anxious mother wrote to her son, wishing for some details of the march. "For instance," she wrote, "tell me what you have to eat." He replied playfully: "As to food, we have beef, and mutton, and lamb, and veal, and pork, and turkeys, and chickens, and geese, and ducks, and sweet potatoes, and Irish potatoes, and turnips, and cabbages, and beets, and onions, and parsnips, and carrots, and milk, and butter, and honey, and sugar, and sirup, and wheat bread, and corn bread, &c., &c., &c.”

The patriot troops were in fine physical condition, and in jubilant spirits, and, having unbounded confidence in their chivalric leader, "took no care for the morrow." The rebels were completely baffled by Sherman's movements, and knew not where to gather their forces to meet the onset of his main column. The ubiquitous army were continually appearing in places where it was least expected, its movements being well guarded by detachments of cavalry. The planters had generally obeyed the order of the rebel Government, and had planted corn instead of cotton. For miles around the ripening ears waved their golden harvest in the breeze. General Howard marched down the Macon road, destroying the rail as he advanced, and without any difficulty scattering the rebel cavalry, who presented spirited but entirely ineffectual resistance to his march. His horsemen swept in all directions, striking the rebels with bewilderment and dismay. Leaving Macon on the right, the cavalry swept across to Gordon, where they found Wheeler's cavalry and Cobb's militia, five thousand in number, strongly posted behind breast works. The tempest of war instantly burst. It raged for three hours, when the rebels fled, leaving