of railroads, its most important depot of supplies and the emporium of its richest granaries. The magazines were blown up, large amounts of stores destroyed, and Stewart's corps moved out, marching all night and joining Hardee's in the morning at Lovejoy's.

The next four days were occupied in trenches and were signalized by several losses in the Missouri Brigade, among whom was the gallant Kennerly, Captain in the First infantry, and the lamented McDowell, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Third infantry, who had been styled in the army the "young Napoleon." James Kelsey McDowell was only twentythree when he enlisted in the M. S. G. under Col. Rives. By merit alone he acquired the utmost confidence of his superior officers, was made the first Captain of Company C in the Third, in '62 was promoted Major, and on the death of Colonel Hubbell, succeeded him as Lieutenant-Colonel. A stranger at first, he soon commanded confidence; a strict disciplinarian, he ever received the meed of personal popularity with his men; modest and retiring in his manners, his rapid promotion was due alone to genuine merit and dauntless bravery. By his own regiment he was loved and mourned as a brother lost.

On the 7th of September, the Missouri Brigade performed a dashing feat. It was ordered down the railroad alone, to reconnoitre and ascertain the strength of the enemy in front and annoy Sherman's rear, who was retiring on Atlanta. They soon encountered several Federal regiments who were picketing that line. General Cockrell drove them two miles and over, recapturing Jonesboro, where Hardee had sustained his defeat, and throwing Sherman's whole army into a fright. The Brigade then deliberately marched back to the lines, leaving its skirmish force in the village, who held it until night and as coolly fell back to their regi

ments.

On the 12th of September, a truce of ten days was entered into and the campaign "from Rome to Atlanta" was ended. Says Warren:

"I feel proud of the part we have played in its stirring events. We deem it a special honor that the Missourians

alone were sent to harass the rear of the enemy's retreating column, and did it with pronounced success, and we of the skirmishers plume our feathers prodigiously that from our hands came the last blows of this campaign."

Thus writes Pollard in his Lost Cause, page 580:

"But this period of military inaction was to be employed in launching measures of the most extraordinary cruelty against the non-combatant people of Atlanta. General Sherman was the author of the sentiment, War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it,' which was caught up in the Northern newspapers as a bit of very sententious and elegant philosophy, when, in fact, denying, as it did, that war had any law of order or amelioration, it was a mere plagiarism from the bloody and detestable code of the savage.

"This extraordinary doctrine Sherman at once proceeded to put in practice by depopulating Atlanta, and driving from their homes thousands of helpless women and children. It was the most cruel and savage act of the war. Butler, the tyrant of New Orleans, had only banished registered enemies. Sherman issued a sweeping edict covering all of the inhabitants of a city, and driving them from their homes to wander as strangers, outcasts and exiles, and to subsist on charity.

"General Hood, while he received the exiles within his lines, took occasion to protest, writing to General Sherman himself of the measure his sinister mind had devised, 'It transcends in studied and ingenious cruelty all acts ever before brought to my attention in the dark. history of war.' "But all protests were unavailing. In vain the Mayor of Atlanta had pointed out to General Sherman that the country south of the city was crowded already with refugees, and without houses to accommodate the people, and that many had no other shelter but what they might find in churches and out-buildings; that among the exiles were many poor women in an advanced state of pregnancy; that the consequences would be woe, horror, and suffering, which could not be described by words."

Sherman was inexorable. He affected the belief that Atlanta might again be rendered formidable in the hands of the Confederates, and resolved, in his own words, "to wipe it out."

The old and decrepit were hunted from their homes; they were packed in railroad cars; tottering old age and

helpless youth were crowded together; wagons were filled with wrecks of household goods, and the trains having deposited their medley freight at Rough-and-Ready, the exiles were then left to shift for themselves.

All the wagons and ambulances of Hood's army were sent to that point to meet and assist the unfortunate exiles. On the 17th of September, the Missouri Brigade fasted for twenty-four hours; by an unanimous vote having instructed their commissary to devote that day's rations to the starving sufferers, being the first brigade of the forces. to make that generous sacrifice. What a contrast to Sherman !

CHAPTER XXV.

THE STORMING of Allatoona, OCTOBER 5TH, 1864 — Hood's MARCH TO TENNESSEE-PRICE'S "INVASION OF MISSOURI."

N the twenty-first of September, 1864, the Army of Tennessee was moved from Lovejoy Station north to Palmetto, on the West Point and Atl ta railroad, and the inauguration of the new campaign was signalized by a review and a speech from President Davis. "Soldiers!" he exclaimed, "in giving you a new commander I have chosen one who has struck in the cause of the Confederacy an honest if not a successful blow."

This was very unfavorably received by the army and the people. It would not do to impugn the honor, fidelity or honesty of General Joe Johnston-they were above suspicion or taint-his escutcheon was unsullied-the remark, to say the least of it, was very unfortunate as well as uncalled for.

Hood's divided army gradually gathered together and moved northward upon converging roads, but nothing of special interest occurred until they approached the

region of the Allatoona mountains, when French's division was detached to attack and capture the town of that name. The place was strongly fortified and held by the enemy in considerable force. On the summit of the mountain he had perched himself in three forts, with a formidable line of intrenchments around each. The fortifications extended along the crest, at a distance from each other of a hundred yards or more, with slight undulations of the ground between, and were constructed in a regular line. The country was rough and broken, covered with a growth chiefly of stunted timber, interspersed with pine, which grew large and towering. Within three hundred yards of the works the trees had been felled but not cleared up, and a very brushy and tangled space was left for some distance near the intrenchments. Lieutenant Warren gives the following account of "the storming of Allatoona's bloody heights," on the fifth day of October, 1864:

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'After marching all night for over twelve miles, and at a rapid pace, the head of our column emerged from a sheltering ravine just as the first faint gleams of daylight appeared, displaying to our eyes, as we deployed along the ridge, the 'work' that was before us. Three forts, guarding Allatoona pass, stood out in bold relief on the opposite hill, within musket shot.

"Our line was quickly formed. As I looked across the intervening space to the bristling forts, and viewed the rugged mountain side, with the interminable abattis that lay between, and then cast my eye along our slender line, I thought to myself, 'there will be hot work here if those regiments are made up of resolute men.'

"Everything being ready, a messenger was sent in to demand a surrender. The officer passed down our front, and we watched the point where he disappeared over the hill with peculiar interest. We had not long to wait; as he passed us in returning, one of the boys asked:

Is it surrender or fight, Major?'

"Fight,' was the laconic reply.

"Caniff ordered the company to throw off everything but accoutrements. Our example was imitated by the rest of the regiment. A command to 'load at will' was followed in a few minutes by the bugle call to 'forward.'

"Our skirmishers, under Lieutenant Lamb, charged and

drove in the enemy's skirmish line. As we advanced we could see the gallant Lieutenant and his little band sheltering themselves as best they could just below the fort. The brave fellow was killed before we came up. When we reached the abattis our advance was momentarily checked. By the time our line had made its way through the network of fallen timber all our organization was gone. Companies and regiments were thoroughly mixed up. The first works we reached were carried with a rush. Some prisoners were captured, but most of the garrison fled to the next fort, where the fighting was much more desperate."

Our men were met with a murderous fire of all arms, but pressed on to the fortifications; the color-bearer, Harry DeJarnette, of the Second regiment, was shot down-fortunately only wounded, and living yet to be an editor in Little Rock-but the fallen colors were raised immediately and planted upon the works. The battle now raged fiercely and, considering the number of combatants, was one of the bloodiest and most desperate of the war. The Federals stood their ground, and with fiery impetuosity our boys rushed upon them with the bayonet. The furious strife lasted for twenty minutes, during which the bayonet was the chief weapon used, and at the expiration of that time the fort was in our possession.

Sergeant John M. Ragland, of the First and Fourth infantry, captured the flag of an Iowa regiment on the breastworks, waved it in defiance at the enemy and carried it safely away. For this heroic act he was appointed to convey the captured banners to Richmond and was duly promoted. Lieutenant Gillispie, of the Third and Fifth, broke his sword in a cut at a Federal soldier, whom he forced to surrender, and a number of prisoners were captured.

While this fighting occurred, Sears was charging the other fort, but had not succeeded in taking it. A general attack was now made upon that point; this, however, proved to be much the strongest fortification of the three-in fact, it was almost impregnable and was well and stubbornly defended. The "boys" advanced bravely and held their ground for sometime at the very mouths of the cannon, but the resistance was such that they could not carry the works,