Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIX. Some reflections on loss of Atlanta--President Davis visits camp--Ordered by General Jackson to take command disabled horses and men--Ordered to reinforce General Tyler at West Point--Orders and letter from General Jackson--Ordered to Mississippi with my command--Incidents of the march--Sick in hospital and leave of absence--At home again--Met a gold bug on the road. The fall of Atlanta was the second great disaster to the confederate arms in the west, east of the Mississippi river, and second only in its results to the loss of Vicksburg. General Hood indeed says: "I was not so much pained by the fall of Atlanta as by the recurrence of retreat, which I full well knew would demoralize the army and renew desertions." It was not so much the retreat which would demoralize the army as it was the loss of Atlanta, for everywhere through the confederacy when its loss was known, it discouraged the people, and this could not be concealed from the army, and the effect naturally was to demoralize those in the army who were not actuated by the highest motives of patriotism, and the sternest purpose to fight it out to the end. Many such there were, and those of the "baser sort" who composed the deserters, ought not to have been considered, and were comparatively few. An orderly retreat from Atlanta without loss of stores or munitions of war, would in itself have been a disaster, but not an overwhelming one, for we would have had the army, with its morale preserved, and Sherman's march to the sea would have been impossible. The army had in fact been cut in two, and exposed to an attack from the two army corps of the federals at Jonesboro, as it passed on its way to Lovejoy station, near which General Hardee had intrenched his corps, and...