July. |
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| The fortifications around Atlanta.1 |
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well-appointed cavalry, on the 10th,
pushed rapidly southward crossed the Coosa at the Ten Islands, fought and defeated General Clanton, and passing through Talladega, reached the railway twenty-five miles west of Opelika on the 16th, and broke it up to the latter place.
He also destroyed several miles of the track of branch railways.
Then, turning northward, he reached Marietta on the 22d, with a loss, during the raid, of only about thirty men.
On the 20th, the armies had all closed in, converging toward Atlanta.
At about four o'clock that day, the Confederates, under Hood, sallied swiftly from their works in heavy force, and struck Hooker's corps, Newton's division of Howard's corps, and Johnson's division of Palmer's corps.
The blow was so gallantly received, and vigorously returned, that the assailants.
were repulsed and driven back to their intrenchments.
Hooker's corps.
being uncovered, and on mostly open ground, suffered most severely.
The entire National loss in the combat was fifteen hundred men. Sherman estimated Hood's entire loss at not less than five thousand men. He left five. hundred dead on the field, one thousand severely wounded, many prisoners, and several battle-flags.
The 21st was spent by Sherman in reconnoitering the Confederate intrenched position on the south side of Peachtree Creek, during which Brigadier-General L. Greathouse (formerly Colonel of the Forty-Eighth Illinois); was killed.
On the following morning it was found that the Confederates had abandoned those heights, and Sherman supposed that movement to be preliminary to the evacuation of Atlanta.
With that impression, the troops pressed eagerly toward the town in lines forming a narrowing semicircle, when, at an average distance.
of two miles from the Court-House they were confronted by an inner line of intrenchments, much stronger than the first, behind which were swarming the Confederate hosts.
This line consisted of well-armed redoubts, connecting intrenchments,
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