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battery. In other words, exclusive of
the battery’s force, the regimental re
ports show 55 more than General
Corse’s report. Therefore counting
these and the art llerists and the offi
cers still not counted in four of the
regiments, his total force engaged must
have been at least 150 greater than he
reports, which would run his numbers
up to almost if not quite 2,100.
The fact that he was severely wound
ed in the battle, and compelled there
fore to depend altogether on his subor
dinates in compiling details for his
report no doubt explains this evident
inaccuracy.*
Now, beginning at the date of the
battle, for several years they variously
“estimated” the Confederate forces at
from 7,000 to 8,000 men. Even Gen
eral Corse,himself,reported the“ Texas”
brigade as being 1,900, strong, where
as it had only four of its regiments in
the action, viz: the 9th Texas, 10th
Texas, 14th Texas, and the 29th
North Carolina, of which one num
bered 138 men and officers, another
101, and the third “entered the fight
with eighty-seven guns.” The regi
mental report of the other is not attain
able; but allowing it to have had more
than any one of the others, the brigade
carried to the assault not more than ap
proximately 550 men. They next,
when they found that only French’s
division was engaged, came down to
“about 4,000 or 5,000 men,” and on
this stood firm. Driven by the figures
of official returns and other tacts, how
ever, from this claim, they have
settled down on a minimum of 3,386,
basing this final guess (as we shall have
to term it) on the report of the “aggre
gate present for duty” in French’s divi
sion September, 20, 1864. After this
date there was some skirmishing in
which French’s division participated,
besides which it is not stated that the
entire number was carried on the
Tennessee Campaign, as the army was
stripped of all but those able to march
and fight.
But it is officially known that on
May, 10 1864, before leaving Mississ
ippi, this division numbered 4,413 of
ficers and men, and when it joined Gen
eral J. E. Johnston, at Cassville, May
18, 1864, just after the battle at Rome,
this command was reported at 4,000.
The reports are not clear as to whether
any of the divi-iou was left in Mississ
ippi on garrison duty. The official re
ports,however, show that from the day
French joined Johnston, until the op
erations around Atlanta terminated,
his loss was 1,776 officers and men, re
ducing his number to less than 2,300
To this number, of course, it is fair to
add a reasonable percent for those who
recovered from their wounds and went
. back into service. Considering the
heavy losses at Kennesaw, Atlanta and
Lovejoy’s in the recent past, this num
ber was not more than, possibly, forty
percent. Adding these therefore, we
have as French’s total before the affairs
at and near Big Shanty, two days pre
ceding the expedition to Allatoona, 2-
758 officers and men.
Evidence that these figures are ap
proximately correct is found in the
official report of the “effective total
present” in French’s division, shown by
the Field Return of the Army of Tennes
see, Nov. 6,1864. This total was 1,999.
Now, if from 2,758 wc deduct 799, the
officially reported loss at Allatoona,
we have 1,959, which would only re-
It is to be regretted that General Corse’s of
ficial report was made while he was suffering from
a painful wound, and before certain facts were at
tainable by him. As it stands, it does an injustice
to that gallant and painstaking officer’s deserved
reputation for correctness and care.
The following error, lor instance, crept into the
report: “Large fires were discovered from the
Allatoona heights along the track toward Big Sha
nty ; in short, there remained no doubt of Hood s
entire army being near the railroad north of Ken
nesaw.”
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CONFEDERATES CAPTURING THE BLOCK HOUSE,
Al the Western & Atlantic Railroad Bridge over
the Allatoona Creek, October 5,1861.
quire that 40 of the 443 wounded and
234 missing at Allatoona be back at
their posts to make the 1,999. These
must be close to the actual figures,
since from Oct. 5 to Nov. 6, French’s
division was in no battle and only about
a couple of skirmishes,and its loss with
in those dates was therefore very
small.
But if we discard these facts and
concede the Federal claims that French
really had 3,386 in and around Alla
toona then 1,152 must have recovered
from their wounds or escaped from Fed
eral military prisons and rejoined the
division, because there was no ex
change of prisoners or recruiting*during
that period. This would allow not one
of the 1,059, who were wounded be
tween May 18 th and Sept. 20 th to have
died, or to have been retired from ser
vice by loss of limbs, etc., and 93 must
have escaped, as indicated, the first of
which alternatives is absurd and the
last improbable.
And none must have been sick and
none must have been killed or wound
ed from the fall of Atlanta until French
arrived before Allatoona, and none
must have been on any kind of detach
ed duty that day.
Furthermore, even yet we must de
duct from the assault Colonel Adaire’s
regiment (the 4th Mississippi) and the
force manning the one piece of artillery
which was left the night before at the
Allatoona creek railroad bridge to re
duce the block house; and the two reg
iments (39th North Carolina and 32d
Texas) which were left under the com
mand of Colonel Andrews to support
the battery on the hill nearly 1,000
yards south of the fort, not a man of
whom, General French informs the
writer, and as the official reports show,
fired a musket during the entire engage
ment, except that 40 men with their
officers, under Colonel Coleman, were
deployed as skirmishers to divert to
the south the attention of the Federals
on the ridge east of the railroad, while
the main assault was being made on
the north and west.
Furthermore still, we must bear in
mind that when the conflict opened the
Confederate line of battle, formed out
side of musket range of thefortifications,
* The Missouri brigade received no reinforce
ments. because M ssouri was in possession of
the Federate during 1864, and the lexas brigade
conld get none because of the Federal gunboat
patrol of the Mississippi Biver.
THE KENNESAW GAZETTE.
extended from the railroad on the south
along the south front of the ridge at
least a quarter of a mile, thence over
the ridge to the valley on the north,
thence along the northern front to the
railroad and across it and more than a
quarter of a mile further, fronting and
partly flanking the fort on the eastern
end of the ridge where Tourtellotte re
mained. Their line therefore was at
first, in some parts, a very thin one, at
least a mile or more in length, spread
overground broken by cross ridges
and ravines, while the Federals, al
most equal to them in numbers,
were within close proximity to and
easy supporting distance of each
other, the utmost length of their line
being less than six hundred yards, on
the top of the steep ridge, behind works
from four and one half to fifteen feet
high, in front of which was a thick
timber entanglement and other formid
able obstacles, and armed with repeat
ing rifles and artillery. Yet the equal
number of Confederates drove them
from point to point of defense and cow
ed them so completely at times that it
was difficult, by their own officers’ testi
mony, to get them to show their heads
above their parapets.
The only addition we can possibly
find to General French’s numbers was
that with Myrick’s battery, which Gen
eral btewart added to his command the
evening before. These we will estimate,
as we did the force manning Corse’s
battery, viz: possibly sixty or more
men.
Finally, as bearing on this point,
Cockrell’s Missouri brigade, which con
sisted of four (consolidated) regiments,
was put down by the Confederates as
having about one thousand men, *and
its losses in the battle, in killed, wound
ed and missing, are reported at 246. At
the battle of Franklin, Nov. 30th, it
went into action with 696 officers and
men. As it met no losses of consequence
in the skirmishes between these dates
the figures given for its strength at Alla
toona seem surely approximately
confirmed by those of the later dates.
It is therefore just to say that the
fight was between an assaulting force
of certainly materially less than 2,500
<■ General Cockrell says in reference to his
numbers :
“I know I had less than 1.000 officers and men,
all told, in my brigade at Allatoona.”
Confederates * armed with Belgian
muskets, on aline of bastioned re
doubts defended by 2,100 men, armed
with rilles of the most approved pat
tern ; and if any one will read Gener
al W. T. Sherman’s “Memoirs” and
General J. D. Cox’s “Atlanta,” and
the reports of other Federal generals,
he will see that the statement is made,
over and over again, that one man be
hind such entrenchments as the two
armies threw up during the Atlanta
campaign was equal to four or five
men in the assaulting party.
For instance, General Cox, in refer
ring to Cleburne’s magnificent repulse
of Howard at Pickett’s Mill, May 27,
1864, says:
Since the office of breastworks is to give
the de.ense an advantage by holding the as
sailant under lire from which the defenders
are covered, the relative strength of the
two is so changed that it is within bounds
to say that such works as were constantly
built by the contending forces in Georgia
made one man in the trench fully equal to
three or four in the assault. Eacn party
learned to act upon this, and in all the
later operations of the campaign the com
manders held their troops responsible for
making it practically good. The boasts,
on either side, that a brigade or division
repulsed three or four that attacked it,
must always be read with this understand
ing. 2Vte troops in the works would be proven
to be inferior to their assailants i] they did not
repulse a force several times greater than their
own. —(Cox's “Atlanta," page 80.)
This is very good, but'justice re
quires, iu passing here, that it be
stated that these remarks about fortifi
cations do not apply in the instance
cited, inasmuch as Cleburne in this
battle had no entrenchments whatev
er. As the Federals came up they
yelled to the Confederates, “Oh, yes,
you, we’ve caught you outside
your head-logs this time I ” It was a
stand-up and knock-down fight in the
open forest, between one division of
Confederates and two divisions and a
brigade of Federals, and Cleburne re
pulsed Howard very badly.
Again, excusing the failure of the
assault on Kennesaw Mountain, June
27, 1864, General Cox writes :
Each of the opposing armies had tried
the same experiment, and each in turn had
found that with the veteran soldiersnow ar-
<• In his official report of this battle, dated Nov.
5, 1864, General French says: “After leaving out
the three regiments that formed no part of the
assaulting force, 1 had but a little over 2,000
men.”
All tlie evidence seems to sustain this state
ment.
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