do any of the things prohibited without taking the test oath was made an offence punishable by fine or imprisonment. Frank Blair, the creator of the Republican party in Missouri and a corps commander in the Union army, attempted to vote. When the election judges demanded that he take the test oath he refused, saying, • if I take that oath I commit perjury. I fought four years to destroy the Confederacy and would fight four years more if necessary. I never sympathized with the Confederacy, but I did sympathize with my kin, friends, and neighbors who were in the Con

federacy." Therefore the judges would not let him vote, and he sued the judges to verify the constitutionality of the test oath. The radical circuit and supreme courts of Missouri held the law to be unconstitutional and contrary to the genius of our institutions. Thousands of preachers and others were indicted and punished under this test oath. Finally Blair, disgusted with such performances, left the Republican party and put the Democratic party on its feet again, and it has been dominant in the State ever since, with the exception perhaps of one or two elections.*

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As we have seen, Grant had taken supreme command of the armies of the United States, and as he had concluded to give his personal attention to the Army of the Potomac he left the southern and western part of the field of operations in the hands of General W. T. Sherman, who on March 12 was placed in command of the military division of the Mississippi comprising the Departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Ten

nessee, and the Arkansas. General J. B. McPherson was assigned to the command of the Army of the Tennessee; General Thomas was in command of the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga; and General Schofield of the Army of the Ohio at Knoxville. By a subsequent order in April Hooker was placed in command of the 11th and 12th consolidated corps;

*The South in the Building of the Nation, vol. iii., pp. 237-238; Carr, Missouri, p. 368.

General Howard was assigned to the command of the 4th corps; and General Schofield to the 23d corps.

Next to Richmond, Atlanta, Sherman's objective point, was the most important centre of Confederate military operations. Owing to its admirably protected situation the city had been chosen at the outset as a great military depot of supplies and materials and a vast workshop for the purposes of war, an important reason being that Atlanta was one of the chief railroad centres in the Confederate States. Northerly ran the Western and Atlantic Railroad to Chattanooga; southwesterly the Atlanta, West Point and Montgomery Railroad connecting the former point with the capital of Alabama, thence with Mobile on the south and with the whole Mississippi Valley on the west; southeasterly ran the important road to Macon and thence to Savannah; easterly the road to Augusta and again to Savannah and Charleston. Atlanta was essentially the door of Georgia, as was Chattanooga of Tennessee. Unless Atlanta were occupied by the Union forces only cavalry could be utilized further south and their operations must necessarily be hurried, brief and always dangerous; but with Atlanta once in the possession of the North, the city would become a new advanced base from which the Union forces could operate with the assurance that their rear was entirely · secure. On April 4, 1864, Grant had communicated to Sherman his entire

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plan of campaign and stated that he purposed to send the latter against Johnston's army "to break it up and get into the interior of the enemy's country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.''* Sherman accepted this task with "infinite satisfaction" and planned that Schofield should advance on the left, Thomas in the centre and McPherson on the right against Johnston's position at Dalton.

In preparing his army for the forward movement Sherman did away with everything that would impede the march. Tents were forbidden to all except the sick and wounded and only one tent was allowed to each headquarters for use as an office.† Sherman's army consisted of the Army of the Cumberland under George H. Thomas, numbering 60,773 men, the Army of the Tennessee under J. B. McPherson, numbering 24,465 men, and the Army of the Ohio under J. M. Schofield, numbering 13,559 men, a total of 98,797 men and 254 guns; and Sherman was joined early the next month by some cavalry and two divisions of infantry, raising his total force to 112,819. Opposing Sherman at Dalton, the first objective point of Sherman's Atlanta campaign, was Joseph E. Johnston with his force of 52,992.||

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On April 28 Sherman received his final orders from Grant to start May 5 and on May 2 the army began to move forward in three columns, Thomas in front, Schofield on the left and McPherson on the right. The position occupied by Johnston in front of Dalton was practically impregnable. On the left and south the place was guarded by a wall of quartz rock called Rocky Face Ridge. It is traversed by a gorge named Buzzard's Roost through which runs a small stream called Mill Creek. When Sherman arrived in front of this formidable barrier he found the summit and sides of Rocky Face strongly fortified. Mill Creek also had been dammed, thus affording an additional protection to the gap at Buzzard's Roost. Accordingly Sherman decided to change his tactics. On May 6 the Army of the Cumberland was at and near Ringgold, the Army of the Tennessee at Gordon's Mill on the Chickamauga, and the Army of the Ohio near Red Clay on the Georgia line north of Dalton. Sherman ordered the four corps of Thomas and Schofield to move on Dalton in front, while McPherson with two corps passed through Snake Creek Gap. On the 7th McPherson was ordered to march

Leaders, vol. iv., pp. 281-283. Pollard (Last Year of the War, p. 48) reports Johnston's army at 40,900 infantry and artillery and about 4,000 cavalry. Davis (Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. ii., p. 551) estimates the force at 68,620 men which is substantiated by Johnston in his Narrative of Military Operations, p. 574. Hood in his Advance and Retreat places the number still higher.

from Gordon's Mill through the gap to Resaca, 18 miles south of Dalton, and while he was making this movement Thomas and Schofield pressed forward against Johnston. Thomas drove the Confederates in his front through Buzzard's Roost Gap and Schofield closed down on Thomas's left. On the 8th there was heavy skirmishing between Thomas and the Confederate divisions of Stewart and Bate at Buzzard's Roost and about six miles farther south a determined assault.

The road from Lafayette to Dalton passes through a cleft in the palisade which had been deepened and widened and had thus gained its name, Dug Gap. Geary's division attacked this gap. The enemy's skirmishers were driven from the foot of the ridge and up the road nearly to the summit, when two brigades were formed in double lines on either side of the road. The position of the gap could not be carried and an assault was ordered on the perpendicular palisades south of it. The men charged only to be killed or captured and the assault failed, two other charges resulting similarly. Finally the Union troops withdrew with a loss of 306 killed and wounded, and 51 captured or missing. At Varnell's Station the cavalry divisions of Stoneman and Wheeler had an engagement in which each side lost about 150. Thomas pressed so vigorously in front of Buzzard's Roost that the heavy skirmishing attained the dimensions of a battle. By the

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while the Confederate loss was not more than half that number.*

McPherson meanwhile had moved from Gordon's Springs toward Resaca. On the night of May 8 his advance bivouaced in the gap and the next morning defeated a brigade of Confederate cavalry posted at the eastern end of it. McPherson advanced to within a mile of Resaca on the Oostanaula but found the Confederate position too strong to be forced and, fearing an attack upon his own left flank, withdrew, taking up a strong position near the east end of Snake Creek Gap. By this time Sherman had resolved to transfer the major portion of his army from Dalton to Resaca. Howard's 4th corps and a small force of cavalry were to demonstrate on Buzzard's Roost Gap and occupy Confederate attention north of Dalton. On the 10th Hooker's 20th corps moved through Snake Creek Gap and joined McPherson. Palmer's 14th corps and Schofield's 23d corps soon followed and on the 12th the whole army, save Howard's corps and the cavalry attached to it, had passed through the gap. On the morning of the 13th McPherson began the forward movement. Thomas with the corps of Palmer and Hooker was to move on McPherson's left and

* Official Records, vol. xxxviii.; Cox, Atlanta, pp. 29-41; Sherman, Memoirs, vol. ii.; Johnston's Narrative; Battles and Leaders, vol. iv., p. 252; Van Horne, History of the Army of the Cumberland; Confederate Military History, vol. vi., pp. 297-298, 302-304.

abreast of the town. Thomas came up on McPherson's left and faced Camp Creek. Schofield worked his way through dense woods and joined Thomas' left, but it was noon of the 14th before these movements were completed at which time Howard's 4th corps, following Johnston from Dalton, had reached a position about a mile north of Schofield's left.

Meanwhile, as we have seen, Johnston had abandoned Dalton and, during the 13th, formed his army covering Resaca, the corps of Polk and Hardee west of the place facing west and

Creek, and, crossing it, secured a commanding position very close to Polk's main line and there intrenched. The Confederates attempted to retake the position but their assaults were repulsed. Farther to the left, Palmer's 14th and Schofield's 23d corps became severely engaged with Hardee at Camp Creek. One part of Schofield's corps was defeated with severe loss but another part succeeded in making a lodgment beyond the creek. Two divisions of Howard's corps were then dispatched to Schofield's support, leaving Stanley's division in