Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
I gave the order to deploy as skirmishers, and at the command they went forward as steadily and in as good order as we had seen the old soldiers climb the face of the Kennesaw under fire." The train was quickly recaptured. Another incident occurred in the same locality, four miles west of Plum Creek, in July, 1867.
Jerome Searing, a private soldier of General Sherman's army, then confronting the enemy at and about Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, turned his back upon a small group of officers with whom he had been talking in low tones, stepped across a light line of earthworks, and disappeared in a forest. None of the men in line behind the works had said a word to him, nor had he so much as nodded to them in passing, but all who saw understood that this brave man had been intrusted with some perilous duty. Jerome Searing, though a private, did not serve in the ranks; he was detailed for service at division headquarters, being borne upon the rolls as an orderly. "Orderly" is a word covering a multitude of duties. An orderly may be a messenger, a clerk, an officer's servant anything. He may perform services for which no provision is made in orders and army regulations. Their nature may depend upon his aptitude, upon favor, upon accident. Private Searing, an incomparable marksman, young, hardy, intelligent and insensible to fear, was a scout. The general commanding his division was not content to obey orders blindly without knowing what was in his front, even when his command was not on detached service, but formed a fraction of the line of the army; nor was he satisfied to receive his knowledge of his vis-
"Bishop Polk" was ever a favorite with the army, and when any position was to be held, and it was known that "Bishop Polk" was there, we knew and felt that "all was well." On this Kennesaw line, near Golgotha Church, one evening about 4 o'clock, our Confederate line of battle and the Yankee line came in close proximity. If I mistake not, it was a dark, drizzly, rainy evening.
Our command had no causalities that day, but many Federals were buried in trenches in our front, their total loss officially reported in the assault was 2,500. Kennesaw was strongly entrenched, and held by Loring's and Hardee's corps, Loring on the right, opposite McPherson and Hardee on the left opposite Thomas.
He nodded familiarly to Kennesaw, and thought: "I'll slip by you to-morrow and make another raid on Hog Mountain, and compel that high-tempered girl to tell me what she means by troubling me so."
Falling back on June 15th, from the Pine mountain line, to the Kennesaw mountain line, to face Sherman, who was flanking to our left, the battery first took position close to the top of the main spur of the mountain, a little to the right and north of the top and entrenched along with a lot of infantry.
McPherson was directed to make a feint with his cavalry and one division of infantry on the left, but to make his real attack at a point south and west of Kennesaw. On the 25th Sherman visited our positions in person, and accompanied the active reconnoissances which we were making.
I have ever thought that is one reason why General Johnston fell back from this Kennesaw line, and I will say today, in 1882, that while we appreciated his sympathies and kindness toward us, yet we did not think hard of old Joe for having so little confidence in us at that time. A perfect hail of minnie balls was being continually poured into our head-logs the whole time we remained here.
All were ordered to intrench as rapidly and thoroughly as possible, for it was plain that we now commanded a short road to the railway in Johnston's rear, and that he must drive us out or abandon the Kennesaw line he had clung to so stubbornly. I had sent my aide, Mr. Lieutenant Coughlan was afterward killed in the heroic performance of duty at the battle of Franklin.
To the west, the Kennesaw Mountains made a splotch of black against the dark blue sky, and the houses and woods along the track were visible in the half light. The train gathered speed, then settled down to a steady pace. The smoke from the engine drifted back to them. The forward door of the car opened and the conductor entered.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking