Today in History:

682 Series I Volume XXXVIII-I Serial 72 - The Atlanta Campaign Part I

Page 682 THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. Chapter L.

almost his entire company, together with a large number of men in the works supporting the battery. It being impossible to determine who was the captor of the Confederate general commanding, he is credited to the division at large. The rear lines and other portions of the captured line made repeated attempts to regain their position, but were in each instance repulsed. A volunteer artillery company was improvised from my ranks, and under the charge of Sergt. John Woods, One hundred and twenty-first Ohio, the captured guns were turned upon the enemy with great effect. The sergeant and his squad deserve special mention. This success compelled the abandonment of the line, and on the 2nd instant our skirmishers entered Jonesborough. At 11 o'clock the same day our forces occupied Atlanta.

The campaign has lasted four months. Fully three-fourths of that time this command has been under constant fire. We participated in the engagements at Tunnel Hill, Mill Creek Gap, Resaca, Rome, Kenesaw Mountain Marietta, Dallas, Peach Tree Creek, Atlanta, and Jonesborough. The list of our losses, herewith forwarded, will tell more plainly than words can the price our success has cost. Each regiment in my command has lost one or more of its filled officers. Colonel Van Vleck, Lieutenant-Colonel Shane, Major Yager, Major Lloyd, Captains Williams, Patrick, Clason, Hostetter, Lieutenant Platt, and hundreds of other pure patriots and devoted soldiers who began the campaign with us fill soldier's graves. The loss of such men is a national calamity; their fellow soldiers crown their graves with cypress and their memories with laurel. Your attention will be called and your aid asked in securing such public and substantial recognition of their services as is due some of the most meritorious officers and soldiers of my command.

I should be doing myself injustice in failing to speak of the gallant conduct and untiring devotion to duty of the following-named officers: Colonel H. B. Banning and Major A. B. Robinson, One hundred and twenty-first Ohio; Colonel John S. Pearce, Ninety-eighth Ohio; Lieutenant-Colonel Van Tassell, Thirty-fourth Illinois; Lieutenant-Colonel Vernon, Seventy-eighth Illinois, who succeeded Colonel Van Vleck, killed; Major G. Green, Seventy-eighth Illinois; Lieutenant Colonel D. B. Warner, One hundred and thirteenth Ohio; Major Sullivant and Captain Toland Jones, One hundred and thirteenth Ohio, successively commanding regiment. Captain John A. Norris and Captain David E. Roatch, Ninety-eighth Ohio, successively commanding regiment; these officers deserve the highest confidence of their superiors. My warmest thanks are due the officers of my staff for their uniform bravery on the field and zeal in the discharge of their respective duties: Major T. B. Williams, surgeon in chief; Captain J. S. Wilson, assistant adjutant-general; Captain J. Van Brimer, acting commissary of subsistence; Captain J. Swisher, acting assistant quartermaster; Captain G. H. Reynolds, provost-marshal; Lieutenant Wesley J. Williams, ordnance officer; Lieutenant W. C. Robinson, aide-de-camp; Captain Hiram J. Craft, acting assistant inspector-general.

The following is a tabular statement of the losses of my command during the campaign. Accompanying, and marked A,* please

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*Omitted.

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Page 682 THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. Chapter L.