the men escaped to the bushes. Hardee also captured two other guns on the extreme left flank, that were left on the ground as General Giles A. Smith drew off his men. About four P. M. there was a lull, during which the enemy advanced on the railway and the main Decatur road, and suddenly assailed a regiment which, with a section of guns, had been thrown forward as a picket, moved rapidly forward, and broke through our lines at that point. The force on this part of the line had been materially weakened by the withdrawal of Colonel Martin's brigade, sent by General Logan's orders to the extreme left, and Lightburn's brigade fell back in some disorder about four hundred yards, to a position held by it the night before, leaving the enemy for a time in possession of two batteries, including a valuable 20-pounder Parrott battery of four guns, and separating the two divisions of the Fifteenth Corps, which were on the right and left of the railway. Being in person close by the spot, and appreciating the vast importance of the connection at that point, Sherman ordered several batteries of Schofield's army to be moved to a position commanding the interval by a left-flank fire, and ordered an incessant fire of shells on the enemy within sight, and in the woods beyond to prevent his re-enforcing. Orders were also sent to General Logan to cause the Fifteenth Corps to regain its lost ground at any cost, and to General Woods, supported by General Schofield, to use his division and sweep the parapet down from where he held it until he saved the batteries and recovered the lost ground. With soldierly instinct, Logan had anticipated these orders, and was already in motion. The whole was executed in superb style, our men and the enemy at times fighting across the narrow parapet; but at last the enemy gave way, and the Fifteenth Corps regained its position and all the guns except the two advanced ones, which were out of view, and had been removed by the enemy within his main work. With this terminated the battle of the 22d, which cost us 3,722 officers and men in killed, wounded, and prisoners.

But among the dead was one whose loss no numbers can fitly represent. The accomplished, the brave, the noble McPherson had fallen!

The Army of the Tennessee had lost its commander, every man in its ranks a friend, America a great soldier, and humanity a bright ornament.

CHAPTER XVII.

ATLANTA WON.

On the 23d, General Garrard, with his division of cavalry, returned from the expedition sent to Covington to break up the Augusta railway, and reported that, with the loss of only two men, he had succeeded in accomplishing that object, in such a manner as to render the road useless to the enemy during the pending operations, having effectually destroyed the large bridges across the Ulcofauhachee and Yellow rivers, which are branches of the Ocmulgee.

The Macon railway, running at first almost due south, was now the only line by which the Confederate army in Atlanta could receive the supplies requisite to maintain the defence of the place. The problem before Sherman was to reach that road. Schofield and Thomas had closed well up, holding the enemy behind his inner intrenchments, and Logan, with the Army of the Tennessee temporarily under his command, was ordered to prepare to vacate the position on the left of the line and move by the right to the opposite flank, below Proctor's Creek, while General Schofield should extend up to and cover the Augusta road. General Rousseau, who had arrived from his expedition to Opelika, bringing about two thousand good cavalry, of course fatigued with its long and rapid march, was ordered to relieve General Stoneman in the duty of guarding the river near Sandtown, below the mouth of Utoy Creek. Stoneman was then transferred to the extreme left of the line, and placed in command of his own division and Garrard's, numbering in all about five thousand effective troopers. The new cavalry brought by General Rousseau, and which was