By this time, General Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate Army of Tennessee had fallen back southward along the Western & Atlantic Railroad from Dalton to Resaca in northern Georgia. Johnston positioned his troops on a four-mile defensive line that curved from east to southeast (facing west and southwest):
- Lieutenant-General John Bell Hood’s corps held the right (east flank)
- Lieutenant-General William Hardee’s corps was on Hood’s left holding the center
- Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk’s corps held the left flank, which curved southeast.
Polk’s left was anchored on the Oostanaula River, where the Confederates controlled a railroad crossing and a pontoon bridge.
Major-General William T. Sherman’s three Federal armies probed the Confederate line on May 13 to assess its strength. Major-General George H. Thomas, commanding the Federal Army of the Cumberland, suggested that Sherman send Major-General James B. McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee across the Oostanaula to flank Johnston.
Sherman liked the idea, but the forces he sent to cross the river on the 14th had to wait for the arrival of a pontoon bridge. During that time, McPherson’s Federals pushed Polk’s Confederates off the high ground west of Resaca. According to Johnston, the Confederates “of Polk’s corps, from some unaccountable mistake, abandoned their ground,” thereby enabling McPherson to secure not only the crossing site but the railroad bridge.
Sherman next attacked the Confederate right-center with two divisions from Thomas’s army and two from Major-General John Schofield’s Army of the Ohio. The Federals were stopped by heavy artillery fire and pinned in a ravine near Camp Creek. Brigadier-General Henry M. Judah, commanding one of Schofield’s divisions, failed to adequately reconnoiter the ground beforehand or deploy artillery. Judah had been disciplined for poor conduct and drunkenness in the past, and Schofield finally removed him for “incompetency displayed in handling his division.”
Major-General Jacob D. Cox then led one of Schofield’s divisions in an attack farther toward the Confederate right. Cox later wrote:
“Each brigade was in two lines, and the artillery was left on the hither side of the valley to cover the movement and reply to the enemy’s cannonade. The skirmish line had been advanced to the edge of the woods on the far side, and kept the lead until we approached the Confederate trenches. We passed over two or three ridges and ravines, driving back the skirmishers of the enemy, and charged the line of earthworks on the crest of a higher ridge. Our men dropped fast as we went forward, but the line was carried and the Confederates broke from the next ridge in rear, some 200 yards away.”
But with the Federals to their right pinned at Camp Creek, Cox’s men faced “a galling artillery fire, as the ridge on which we were had its shoulder bare when it came out into the valley, whose curve gave the enemy an enfilading fire upon us.” Hood’s Confederates launched a vicious counterattack along the Dalton-Resaca road. However, Thomas’s Fourth Corps under Major-General Oliver O. Howard came up as night fell and stopped the Confederate advance.
Johnston ordered Hood to resume his assault and turn the Federal left at dawn. However, he received erroneous information that McPherson had crossed the Oostanaula near Calhoun and would soon turn the Confederate left. Johnston therefore canceled Hood’s attack and ordered his men to build a pontoon bridge upstream from Resaca. Sherman failed to recognize the importance of McPherson securing the high ground west of Resaca and did not follow up this advantage.
Sherman wrote of the action that took place the next day:
“During the 15th, without attempting to assault the fortified works, we pressed at all points, and the sound of cannon and musketry rose all day to the dignity of a battle. Toward evening McPherson moved his whole line of battle forward, till he had gained a ridge overlooking the town, from which his field-artillery could reach the railroad-bridge across the Oostenaula. The enemy made several attempts to drive him away, repeating the sallies several times, and extending them into the night; but in every instance he was repulsed with bloody loss.”
Johnston wrote that the Federals made several “vigorous assaults,” of which all “were repelled.” Federals on the left, reinforced by Major-General Joseph Hooker’s Twentieth Corps of Thomas’s army, advanced and clashed with Hood’s forces on the Confederate right. A ferocious battle ensued over four of Hood’s 12-pound Napoleon guns, which the Federals ultimately captured.
Meanwhile, Federals were laying two pontoon bridges over the Oostanaula a few miles below Resaca at Lay’s Ferry. McPherson’s Federals began crossing the river and turning east to threaten the railroad supply line below Johnston’s army. That night, Johnston’s Confederates crossed the Oostanaula and burned the railroad and pontoon bridges behind them. The army was across the river by dawn.
The fighting at Resaca produced 3,500 Federal casualties to the Confederates’ 2,600. Tactically, this was a Confederate victory, but Johnston’s withdrawal made this a strategic victory for Sherman. This continued the pattern of Johnston holding firm against direct assaults but falling back when the Federals threatened his flank. Confederates supportive of Johnston’s strategy claimed that his retreats were part of a larger plan to draw Sherman southward, away from his supply base. Sherman countered these claims:
“That Johnston had deliberately designed in advance to give up such strong positions as Dalton and Resaca, for the purpose of drawing us farther south, is simply absurd. Had he remained in Dalton another hour, it would have been his total defeat, and he only evacuated Resaca because his safety demanded it. The movement by us through Snake-Creek Gap was a total surprise to him. My army about doubled his in size, but he had all the advantages of natural positions, of artificial forts and roads, and of concentrated action. We were compelled to grope our way through forests, across mountains, with a large army, necessarily more or less dispersed.”
The Federals quickly set about pursuing the retreating Confederates on the 16th. The railroad bridge was rebuilt and Thomas’s army advanced in heavy rain on muddy roads to Calhoun, six miles down the railroad from Resaca. There they linked with McPherson’s army, with Schofield to their left. But before Sherman could concentrate his army, Johnston’s rear guard withdrew in the night toward Adairsville, 10 miles further down the railroad.
Bibliography
- Bailey, Ronald H., The Battles for Atlanta: Sherman Moves East. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983.
- Castel, Albert (Patricia L. Faust ed.), Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
- Davis, Jefferson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government: All Volumes. Heraklion Press, Kindle Edition 2013, 1889.
- Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
- Johnston, Joseph E., Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War. Sharpe Books, Kindle Edition, 2014.
- Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.
- McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford History of the United States Book 6, Oxford University Press (Kindle Edition), 1988.
- Sherman, William T., Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, Vol. I. New York: D. Appleton and Co. (Kindle Edition), 1889.