Resaca to Allatoona Pass
By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved
Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the December 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.
Part 1 of this series examined the start of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign in the wake of General Ulysses S. Grant’s letter of April 4, 1864, which directed Sherman regarding the rebel Army of Tennessee: “to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.” In early May, Sherman instructed his three armies of maneuver to begin operations with John Schofield’s Army of the Ohio on the Union left, George Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland in the center, and James McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee on the right. Sherman endeavored to use his numerical advantage to outflank Confederate defenses on Rocky Face Ridge, and he succeeded in doing so.
Realizing he was being outflanked by the superior numbers of the combined Union armies, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston withdrew from strong positions at Rocky Face Ridge and Dalton and fell back to Resaca. By May 14, Johnston’s troops were again in robust defensive positions west of Resaca with John Bell Hood’s corps on the right, William Hardee’s corps in the center and Leonidas Polk’s corps on the left. Polk’s left flank was anchored on the Oostanaula River, and Hood’s right flank was on the Conasauga River. Camp Creek created a military obstacle across the Confederate front.
Sherman’s strategic plan in general was to use Thomas’s army to pin the Confederates in place while McPherson’s and Schofield’s armies ventured to outflank the rebels. Johnston was an excellent defensive strategist, and his plan was to make use of the rugged terrain of northern Georgia to neutralize the North’s superior numbers and hopefully strike and defeat, at some stage, an exposed and vulnerable portion of Sherman’s armies.
Shelby Foote in Volume III of his The Civil War, A Narrative describes General Sherman this way: “a violent-talking man whose bite at times measured up to his bark, and whose commitment was to total war…Tecumseh or ‘Cump’ to his family, he was Uncle Billy to his soldiers, one of whom called him ‘the most American-looking man I ever saw; tall an lank, not very erect, with hair like thatch, which he rubs up with his hands, a rusty beard trimmed close, a wrinkled face, sharp, prominent red nose, small, bright eyes, coarse red hands; black felt hat slouched over the eyes, dirty dickey with the points wilted down, black old fashioned stock, brown field officer’s coat with high collar and no shoulder straps, muddy trowsers…He carries his hands in his pockets, is very awkward in his gait and motions, talks continually and with immense rapidity.’ Such intensity often brought on a reaction in observers, including this one. ‘At his departure I felt it a relief and experienced almost an exhaustion after the excitement of his vigorous presence.’ All this, moreover, was by way of diversion, a spare time release of superabundant energy from an organism described by another associate as ‘boiling over with ideas, crammed full of feeling, discussing every subject and pronouncing on all.'” In short, Sherman was the ideal choice for Grant to run the important campaign into Georgia to “break up” the rebel army, “inflicting all the damage you can.”
North of Resaca Sherman’s troops came out of Snake Creek Gap and were ordered to close against Johnston’s defenses behind Camp Creek. However, in a discreet movement, Thomas Sweeny’s division of McPherson’s army ventured rightward, crossed the Oostanaula at Lay’s Ferry ford about four miles south of the Confederate left flank, and threatened the rebel supply line of the Western & Atlantic Railroad.
With that maneuver in progress, Sherman now wanted a set piece battle to pin and perhaps destroy the Southern army. His corps alignment from north to south was Howard, Schofield, Palmer, Hooker, and Logan. On the morning of the 14th, Palmer’s and Schofield’s corps struck the rebel Camp Creek position. In that attack, they were repulsed due to poor reconnaissance of the formidable strength and lines of the rebels, and the Union attacking force was thrown back after two divisional thrusts against the Confederate divisions of Cleburne, Hindman, and Bate. Accordingly, the Federals spent the rest of the day pulling up artillery to bombard the rebels.
On May 15, Howard’s corps struck Hindman’s and Stevenson’s divisions on the Confederate far right. In a typically aggressive mode, to relieve pressure on Hindman, Hood ordered the four-gun, 12-pound Napoleon “Cherokee Battery” to entrench into a salient in front of his infantry. In one of the highlights of the two-day battle, Union forces struck the battery before its guns were fully dug in and captured them in hand-to-hand combat, only to be chased out shortly thereafter by heavy rebel counterfire. Three further separate Union brigade assaults failed to capture the Napoleons. But after dusk and under cover of darkness, Union troops boldly advanced, secured the guns, and pulled them into their lines.
That night, Johnston realized his army was being outflanked by Sweeny’s Union division at Lay’s Ferry, so he ordered a withdrawal by the morning of the 16th over the Oostanaula River, which was followed soon thereafter by the Union forces. With casualties at about 2,800 for the South and 4,000 for the North, the Battle of Resaca was a tactical draw, but a strategic win for Sherman, since Johnston had to again retreat to protect his supply line – and to prevent his army from being cut off from Atlanta and thereby laying the city open to easy conquest. Having not bagged the rebels, Sherman was again upset. In Brian Holden Reid’s book The Scourge of War, the author states, “Despite the disappointments, Sherman had not been repulsed, and henceforward he would never relinquish the initiative and the usual impulse of a conquering army.”
James M. McPherson, in his famous book Battle Cry of Freedom, states what happened next: “Disengaging skillfully, the southerners withdrew down the tracks, paused briefly fifteen miles to the south for an aborted counterpunch (at Adairsville) against the pursuing Yankees, then continued another ten miles to Cassville, where they turned at bay. The rebels wrecked the railroad as they retreated, but Uncle Billy’s repair crews had it running again in hours and his troops remained well supplied. In twelve days of marching and fighting, Sherman had advanced halfway to Atlanta at a cost of only…five thousand casualties.”
Sherman approached Cassville in the now standard pattern with McPherson on the Union right, Thomas in the center, and Schofield on the left. Sherman recorded in his Memoirs, “I ordered General Thomas to push forward his deployed lines as rapidly as possible; and, as night was approaching, I ordered two field-batteries to close up at a gallop on some woods which lay between us and the town of Cassville. We could not see the town by reason of these woods, but a high range of hills just back of the town was visible over the tree-tops. On these hills could be seen fresh-made parapets and the movements of men, against whom I directed the artillery to fire at long range…During the night I had reports from McPherson, Hooker, and Schofield. The former was about five miles to my right rear…Schofield was about six miles north, and Hooker between us, within two miles.”
Awaiting them were Hood’s and Polk’s corps on the Confederate right facing the Union troops that had advanced more rapidly than the rest of Sherman’s armies. Johnston perceived a potentially serious Union blunder in the form of the six-mile gap that Sherman described in his Memoirs and which beckoned for Hood’s aggressiveness. Johnston, thinking this was finally his opportunity to piecemeal defeat a portion of the Union armies, gave the order on May 19 to all his troops: “You will now turn and march to meet his advancing columns…I lead you to battle.” McPherson wrote that “confidence soon gave way to dismay. Alarmed by reports that the enemy had worked around to his flank, Hood pulled back and called off the attack. The Union threat turned out to have been only a cavalry detachment. But the opportunity was gone.”
Handcuffed by a suddenly unaggressive Hood, Johnston concluded that he had no choice but to retreat further back another ten miles to a stout preconstructed defensive line overlooking the Western & Atlantic Railroad and the Etowah River at Allatoona Pass. Embarrassed by negative press reports in Southern papers due to the constant retreating and now in retreat once more, Johnston’s corps commanders, particularly Hood who was fingered by Johnston’s chief of staff as the culprit for the latest retreat, fell into internecine recriminations which erupted especially between the rebel corps commanders and Johnston.
Part 3 continues with Uncle Billy’s next orders as he grows ever nearer to the Southern gem of Atlanta.
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Related link:
Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, Part 1