Two Wars: An Autobiography of General Samuel G. French

Provisions

There were about one million rations of bread at Allatoona, and two million seven hundred thousand in Atlanta, and not two million seven hundred thousand in Allatoona as stated by Col. Ludlow. (Sherman's letter to Corse, page 134, Vol. 39.) The rations in Allatoona in no way affected the "march to the sea." They were ordered to Rome on the 11th, for use above. (See page 207.)

"I propose breaking up the railroad from Chattanooga and striking out with wagons… Until we can depopulate Georgia it is useless to occupy it… The utter destruction of the roads, houses, and people cripple their resources… I can make Georgia howl… I have eight thousand cattle and three million rations of bread." (Page 162, Vol. 39.)

The destruction of the stores at Allatoona, had it been done, would not have interfered with the "march to the sea."

The stores in Allatoona were in our possession, and they were not set on fire by our men because they wanted some themselves, and much was appropriated. But I had no knowledge of there being a large depot there until I withdrew Cockrell and Young; and while waiting for Sears I heard the men speak about them. On obtaining this information a party of men were sent there to burn them. It is a singular fact that only three matches could be found, and Gen. Cockrell had them, and when the party reached the stores the matches failed to ignite.

Gen. Sherman left Atlanta November 15, 1864, and arrived at Savannah on the 10th of December. He writes that he had sixty-five thousand men. To supply these men the twenty-seven days they were on the march would require one million seven hundred and fifty-five thousand rations. They averaged eight miles per day – for the distance is about two hundred and twenty miles. I have related to you how I made a march (with a large wagon train, through a desolate country, heavily laden) of ninety-six miles in fifty-two hours; and this without water.

This much vaunted "march to the sea" was a pleasure excursion, through a well-cultivated country, and is a mere bagatelle compared with that made by the Mormons from Illinois to Utah, or the many expeditions made overland to California during the gold excitement. The distance to California is ten times greater than the distance from Atlanta to Savannah.

Sherman boastfully writes that he "destroyed two hundred and sixty-five miles of railroad, carried off ten thousand mules, and countless slaves; that he did damage to the amount of $100,000,000. Of this, his army got $20,000,000, and the $80,000,000 was waste," as they went "looting" through Georgia.

But not content with this, when "this cruel war was over," he presented the delectable spectacle of "how we went thieving through Georgia" at the grand review of his army in Washington, by mounting his bummers on mules laden with chickens, ducks, geese, lambs, pigs, and other farm productions, unblushingly displayed, to cover up the concealed money, jewelry, and plate taken from the helpless women – to delight the President, to edify the loyal people, to gratify the hatred of the populace to the South, to popularize the thirst for plundering made by his troops, to be an object lesson to the present generation, to instill a broader view of moral right, to heighten modest sensibilities, to refine the delicate tastes of young ladies, to humiliate a conquered people; or wherefore was this unwise "Punch and Judy" show given?

During the revolutionary war, when the British fleet ascended the Potomac river, one ship sailed up to Mount Vernon – the residence of the arch rebel, Washington – and made a requisition for provisions which his agent filled. The English commander must have been a gentleman because he did not burn the dwelling, insult the family, nor commit robbery!!!

Gen. Bradley T. Johnston, in his life of Gen. J. E. Johnston, quotes that, "Abubekr in the year 634 gave his chiefs of the army of Syria orders as follows: 'Remember that you are always in the presence of God, on the verge of death, in the assurance of judgment and the hope of paradise. Avoid injustice and oppression… When you fight the battles of the Lord acquit yourselves like men, without turning your backs; but let not your victory be stained with the blood of women or children. Destroy no palm tree, nor burn any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such as you kill to eat. When you make any covenant or article, stand to it and be as good as your word. As you go on, you will find some religious persons who live retired in monasteries, and purpose themselves to serve God in that way. Let them alone, and neither kill them nor destroy their monasteries.'

"Judged by the laws given Moses on Sinai, or the teachings of Him who stilled the waves on Galilee, or the Koran, the principles of morality, or feelings of humanity; were not the gates of Paradise open to Abubekr?

"Owing to the barbarities that were practiced by the English soldiers and sailors, and the refusal to exchange prisoners, Capt. John Paul Jones, when in command of the Continental ship, Ranger, on April 23, 1778, landed on the Isle of St. Mary, Scotland, with a small force and surrounded the house of the Earl of Shetland, to carry the earl away, and have him detained until through his means a general and fair exchange of prisoners, in Europe as well as in America, could be effected.

"The earl was not at home, and Jones permitted his men to take silverware from the castle as fair plunder and a just revenge for the acts of British sailors in America, who had not only looted the homes of the rich, but had driven off one cow and one pig of the laborer.

"The silver taken was of the real value of £500 pounds, but when sold for the benefit of the crew, Jones bought it and returned it (at his own expense) at a cost of £1,000 pounds, all told, to the noble lord." (Spear's "History of Our Navy," pages 142-148, Vol. I.)

Was not England fighting the colonies then in rebellion?

It is not I who charge Sherman with destroying cornfields, cutting down fruit trees, or "driving off one cow and one pig;" he himself boasts of having done it. If he did take the "one cow and the one pig," he kindly left the poor women their tears and their memory.

Sherman

The dispatches numbered 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, and 26, which I have given, will show Gen. Sherman's untiring efforts to save Allatoona, and to prevent my division from joining Hood. No. 26 shows that on the 4th his force went into camp at the foot of Little Kennesaw. Nos. 15 and 16 show that Stanley, with a part of the army of the Cumberland, was on Pine Mountain at 2:10 P.M. on the 5th. At that hour we were sitting under the shade of the trees at Allatoona, waiting for Sears's men, and on the ridge by the fortifications.

My diary, written on the spot, says we left with the wagons at 4:30 P.M. Next, we were detained an hour in capturing the blockhouse at the creek. If Stanley had moved promptly, he could have occupied the Dallas road, moving northwest, at some point many hours in advance of me. No. 17 informs Stanley: "I want to control the Sandtown road back to Allatoona." That is the road I marched over from the blockhouse to New Hope Church on the 5th, and morning of the 6th.

Sherman's cavalry was ordered several times to hold that road. They were two miles in advance of Kemp's Mill at 3:10 P.M. on the 5th (see No. 16), and not four miles from the road. We were then at Allatoona.

In Sherman's "Memoirs," Vol. II., page 147, you will find these words: "From Kennesaw I ordered the Twenty-Third Corps to march due west on the Burnt Hickory road, and to burn houses or piles of brush as it progressed to indicate the head of column, hoping to interpose this corps between Hood's main army at Dallas and the detachment then assailing Allatoona."

The rest of the army was directed straight to Allatoona, eighteen miles distant.

By the map, Allatoona (in a direct line) is thirteen miles from Kennesaw, ten miles from Pine Mountain, twelve miles from New Hope Church, eight miles from Big Shanty, eleven miles from Lost Mountain; and from Pine Mountain, where Gen. Stanley was on the 5th with part of the army of the Cumberland, to the road over which I passed on the 6th, it is only five miles. Also the cavalry that was at Kemp's Mill at 3:10 P.M. on the 5th was within five miles of the residence of Dr. Smith, where I encamped on the night of the 5th.

For these facts, read again the Federal dispatches that I have given. It is therefore manifest that only by tardy and cautious movements, or no movements, as Sherman ordered, arising from Hood's fighting qualities, they failed to place a powerful force across our road before I left the bridge across Allatoona creek or at any time on the 6th, the day following.

Sherman at first, or "for a time, attributed this result" (my withdrawing my troops) "to the effect of Gen. Cox's march" (see page 147, Vol. II., of his "Memoirs"), which, in truth, was mainly the cause; but he generously gave – however erroneously – all the credit to his lieutenant, with whom he was well pleased for "holding on" and "holding out" through faith in "his promises to come to his relief," and then complimented him in a general order that Corse must have felt as being a little ironical, save only as relates to "holding out" with a faith in Sherman which can be found in St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, where he writes that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Sherman's signal dispatches to Corse before and during the battle to "hold the fort," intended only for their encouragement, has now become a world-wide inspiration in the form of a gospel song written by the evangelist P. P. Bliss.

Mr. Joseph M. Brown writes that "the circumstances of the messages and the battle being narrated to the evangelist, he caught from them the idea for the stirring words:

Ho! my comrades, see the signalWaving in the sky!Reënforcements now appearing,Victory is nigh.Chorus.– Hold the fort, for I am coming!Jesus signals still;Wave the answer back to heaven:"By thy grace we will!"

"He wrote this song on the night that he first heard the story, and sung it in the Tabernacle in Chicago next day. It was caught up by the voices of thousands, and from that day to this has been a standard gospel lyric."

HOOD

On the afternoon of October 4, 1864, when I was at Big Shanty, on the railroad near Kennesaw, Gen. A. P. Stewart, my corps commander, handed to me two orders from Gen. Hood. The first one is dated October 4, 7:30 A.M., and the second at 11:30 A.M. These two orders may be found in my official report of the battle of Allatoona on a preceding page.

The purport of these two orders is: that I will take my division to Allatoona and fill up the deep cut there (a photograph of a part of this cut is here given), and then go on to the Etowah river bridge and burn it, if possible; and thence march to New Hope Church by taking roads running south to New Hope Church, and join my corps there; the destruction of the bridge being the more important duty; and I was expected to join the army on the 6th.

If this cut be critically examined, it will be perceived that the order to "fill it up" in an hour or so, and then go on to the bridge, does not evince a profound knowledge of engineering. A little boy builds sand forts and castles on the seashore with wooden paddles, and believes he is a Vauban or an Inigo Jones.31 He knew we had but a few spades, and directed Gen. Stewart to borrow for me tools from Gen. Armstrong; and he had none.

In 1880, sixteen years after he wrote those orders, Gen. Hood published a work called "Advance and Retreat," in which the following words are written (page 257):

"I had received information – and Gen. Shoupe records the same in his diary – that the enemy had in store, at Allatoona, large supplies which were guarded by two or three regiments. As one of the main objects of the campaign was to deprive the enemy of provisions, Maj. Gen. French was ordered to move with his division, to capture the garrison, if practicable, and gain possession of the supplies. Accordingly on the 5th, at 10 A.M., after a refusal to surrender, he attacked the Federal forces at Allatoona, and succeeded in capturing a portion of the works; at that juncture he received intelligence that large reënforcements were advancing in support of the enemy, and, fearing he would be cut off from the main body of the army, he retired and abandoned the attempt. Maj. L. Perot, adjutant of Ector's Brigade, had informed me by letter that our troops were in possession of these stores during several hours, and could easily have destroyed them. If this assertion be correct, I presume Maj. Gen. French forbade their destruction, in the conviction of his ability to successfully remove them for the use of the Confederate army."

Now, if any intelligent person will carefully scrutinize the orders given me, and then ponder over what Hood published, he can arrive at no other conclusion than that the account published is erroneous. They cannot both be true!

And further, when I made my official report I copied my orders that he gave me, and I stated in my report: "It would appear, however, from these orders, that the general in chief was not aware that the pass was fortified and garrisoned that I was sent to have filled up."

This report was, by Gen. Stewart, delivered to Gen. Hood, and by him forwarded to the War Department in Richmond; thence it went to the War Department in Washington. And although I therein state that Hood had no knowledge of the place being garrisoned, or fortified, he forwarded it without comment. He could not do otherwise. There were the originals copied in his own order book.

"Gain possession of the supplies!" under all the environments, is only a vague expression of a glittering generality and signifies nothing particular, and is a mere platitude and nothing more. What was I to do with them? Bring them away? remove them without a wagon, when about six hundred were required!

But let us suppose that Hood actually did know that Allatoona was fortified, garrisoned, and a depot for army rations. If so, then he should have imparted to either Gen. Stewart or me that information.

Again: Gen. Hood having declared that the main object of the campaign was "to deprive the enemy of provisions," here was the desired opportunity; nay, more – to appropriate them to his own use. He wrote the first order to me at 7:30 A.M. on the 4th. At that time I was at Big Shanty, Walthall at Moon's, and Loring at Acworth, only two hours' (daylight) march from Allatoona!

Now I ask in the name of common sense, Can it be possible that, with Gen. Stewart's army corps so near those much needed army supplies, he should order Gen. Stewart's Corps to remain there close by them "till late in the evening," and then march him away and order me, the most distant, to go there and "take possession of them?"

Had he known what he says he did, undoubtedly he would have ordered, at daylight on the 4th, every available wagon to Acworth, and (instead of the utterly impractical one of putting a mountain in a deep cut) ordered Gen. Stewart with his three divisions to Allatoona in all haste. Loring could have reached Allatoona by 11 a.m. on the 4th, and the others soon after. The battle would have been fought on the 4th, and before the arrival of Corse at midnight. No! for the want of information, this was not to be.

And so I went all alone into the land occupied by the enemy, and Gen. Hood moved farther and farther away, leaving me isolated beyond all support or assistance.

Gen. Hood could not have had a good knowledge of the topography of the country, because when my dispatch to Stewart – that I would withdraw from Allatoona to avoid being shut up in a cul de sac– was received Hood tells Stewart that he does not understand "how Gen. French could be cut off, as he should have moved directly away from the railroad to the west." (Page 791, War Records, Vol. 39.) I am quite sure Gen. Armstrong, when (at 9 A.M.) he sent me his dispatch, also sent a copy of it to Gen. Stewart or Hood, because Hood at 1:15 P.M. tells Armstrong he "must prevent my being surprised, and enable me to get out safely."

I will state here again that it was about noon on the 4th, when some citizens, living on the line of the railroad above, remarked that we "could not tear up the track to Allatoona, because that place was fortified and garrisoned, and that it was a depot for supplies." Therefore it was that Gen. Stewart and myself, in discussing the order, were convinced that Hood did not know the condition of affairs at Allatoona, and at my request he gave me some additional artillery; and so there is ample evidence that Hood had no knowledge that the enemy occupied the Allatoona Pass.

Gen. Hood was indeed a brave man, if not a courageous one, and he couched his lance at the enemy wherever he met him, whether in the guise of a windmill or the helmet of Mambrino; but at last, in after days, he went over to the enemy, for on page 257 of his volume he writes: "Gen. Corse won my admiration by his gallant resistance, and not without reason the Federal commander complimented this officer, through a general order, for his handsome conduct in the defense of Allatoona!"

It is a pertinent question to ask from what source Gen. Hood derived his information. If he had read Gen. Corse's report, he would have discovered that his men would not expose themselves enough to fire over the parapet, and that they merely "held out" for the hourly promised assistance, etc., as I have narrated. Is it pleasing to learn from his pen his rapturous love for the Federals and contempt for the Confederates and his standard of admiration? Mine is different; and I am free to state that it was the Confederates with whom I was present, who by their death, by their gallantry and perseverance won my admiration. And this is no reflection on the enemy they met. Hood's want of admiration for the soldiers he commanded in 1864 and 1865 is the highest meed to their intelligence.

"by their painful service,

The extreme danger, and the drops of blood

Shed,"

Perhaps it was natural, in after years, that Gen. Hood should select some Federal officer on whom to bestow his admiration, and when they passed in review before him Gen. Corse was awarded this honor. I trow he must have forgotten Col. Clark R. Weaver, U. S. A.

Seven days after Allatoona, Gen. Hood with his entire army was at Resaca. It was garrisoned by about five hundred men commanded by Col. Weaver. Hood summoned Weaver to surrender in unmistakable terms, ending as follows:

If the place is carried by assault, no prisoners will be taken.

Most respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. B. Hood, General.

To this Col. Weaver replied:

In my opinion I can hold this post. If you want it, come and take it.

Clark R. Weaver, Com'd'g Officer.

(See Sherman's "Memoirs," Vol. II., page 155.)

Nevertheless, on page 257, "Advance and Retreat," Hood writes, "Gen. Corse won my admiration by his gallant resistance," etc., and further on – page 326 of his book – he writes, "The information I received that the enemy was moving to cut me off proved to be false," which is refuted by the arrival of reënforcements as I have stated, and Sherman's dispatches that I have given.

It is singular that so many laudatory statements should have been made by Gen. J. M. Corse and admirers about the battle of Allatoona, which were not necessary to sustain his character as a soldier.

I have before me a book of nearly five hundred pages, written by F. Y. Hedley, adjutant of the Thirty-Second Illinois Regiment, which is entitled "Pen Pictures of Everyday Life in Gen. Sherman's Army, from Atlanta to the Close of the War." This includes the battle of Allatoona, and as he makes the story to be palatable to the tastes of those who enjoy the marvelous, at the expense of the Confederate soldiers and myself, I feel obliged to expose more of the legerdemain used to deceive the public by juggling tricks.

I will state that on page 219 there is a facsimile of my summons to the commanding officer of the garrison to surrender. It was sent, as I have stated, because it was then supposed that the garrison was small in numbers. It reads:

Around Allatoona, October 5, 8:15 A.M., 1864.

Commanding Officer U. S. Forces, Allatoona:

Sir: I have placed the forces under my command in such positions that you are surrounded; and to avoid a needless effusion of blood, I call on you to surrender your forces at once, and unconditionally. Five minutes will be allowed you to decide. Should you accede to this, you will be treated in the most honorable manner as prisoners of war.

I have the honor to be very respectfully yours,

S. G. French,Major General Commanding Forces C. S.

On the same leaf is a facsimile of Gen. Corse's reply to my note, and it reads:

Headquarters Fourth Division, }Fifteenth Army Corps, 8:30 A.M., October 5, 1864. }

Maj. Gen. G. S. French, C. S. A.:

Your communication demanding surrender of my command I acknowledge receipt of, and respectfully reply that we are prepared for the "needless effusion of blood" whenever it is agreeable to you.

I am very respectfully, your obedient servant,

John M. Corse,Major General Commanding Forces U. S.

Let us investigate this matter.

The facsimile of my letter is true, no doubt about that; but we have also the facsimile of the reply made by Corse which was sent me, and by me never received; and in the face of that Corse "declared he never knew that I did not receive it, or that it was not delivered to Maj. Sanders, the bearer of the flag of truce," until so informed by Joseph M. Brown, whose guest he was when he came to Atlanta with the artist De Thulstrup to have the battle painted; and he further told him: "I took the note (French's) and read it. It made me mad, because from what I could see of his forces, and what I knew of mine, I believed that I had about as big a force as he; hence considered the summons a superfluous piece of bravado. I sat down on a log, and pulling my notebook out of my pocket, wrote the reply across the face of one of the pages, which I tore out and handed to my staff officer with instructions to take it back to the bearer of the summons."

Not finding Maj. Sanders, of course he returned in a few minutes and gave Corse the note.

Next William Ludlow (now a general in the United States army), in his address to the Michigan Commandery, Loyal Legion, at Detroit, on April 2, 1891 (page 20), says: "Corse did reply; he wrote his answer on the top of a neighboring stump."

Then Hedley (page 223) says of Corse: "His every pound of flesh and blood was that of a hero: his eye flashed as if lighted with a Promethean spark; and his chest swelled with angry defiance to the hideous threat implied in the summons to surrender! 'Capt. Flint,' said he, 'answer this!' so Capt. Flint seated himself upon a tree stump and wrote the reply."

I care not who wrote the reply to my note; I only desire to know who kept it concealed for over twenty years, and then produced it, and, together with mine, authoritatively gave them to Hedley to photograph and publish side by side.

If Corse had it hid away, or knew where it was, then he must have been mistaken when he declared to Joseph M. Brown that he never knew that I had not received it. Besides, that I received no reply was reported officially and well known.

As regards the "hideous threat implied" in my note, it has been left to the hero of Allatoona to discover it for the first time, although the like and similar expressions have been used by many commanders in the years long past, and escaped the critical acumen of those to whom they were sent to find an implied threat therein.

No one except Ludlow, so far as I am aware, has ever published that Maj. Sanders was fired on by Corse's soldiers when approaching under a flag of truce. I made it known on an inclosure in my official report.

Adjutant Hedley says "the heroic defense of Allatoona is almost as famous as the 'charge of the Light Brigade,' and far more momentous in its results."

There was nothing momentous pending on it. It was Hood's ignorance of the enemy's position that caused the battle; it should never have been made. We had nothing to gain; we would not remain there, nor had I any means to carry stores away with me. It is well known what Hood ordered us to do: "fill up the Allatoona cut, and burn the bridge over the Etowah river," and join him on the 6th.