Sherman’s army, after all the depletions, numbered about sixty thousand effective men.  All weak men had been left to hold the rear, and those remaining were not only well men, but strong and hardy, so that he had sixty thousand as good soldiers as ever trod the earth; better than any European soldiers, because they not only worked like a machine but the machine thought.  European armies know very little what they are fighting for, and care less.  Included in these sixty thousand troops, there were two small divisions of cavalry, numbering altogether about four thousand men.  Hood had about thirty-five to forty thousand men, independent of Forrest, whose forces were operating in Tennessee and Kentucky, as Mr. Davis had promised they should.  This part of Mr. Davis’s military plan was admirable, and promised the best results of anything he could have done, according to my judgment.  I say this because I have criticised his military judgment in the removal of Johnston, and also in the appointment of Hood.  I am aware, however, that there was high feeling existing at that time between Davis and his subordinate, whom I regarded as one of his ablest lieutenants.

On the 5th of October the railroad back from Atlanta was again very badly broken, Hood having got on the track with his army.  Sherman saw after night, from a high point, the road burning for miles.  The defence of the railroad by our troops was very gallant, but they could not hold points between their intrenched positions against Hood’s whole army; in fact they made no attempt to do so; but generally the intrenched positions were held, as well as important bridges, and store located at them.  Allatoona, for instance, was defended by a small force of men under the command of General Corse, one of the very able and efficient volunteer officers produced by the war.  He, with a small force, was cut off from the remainder of the National army and was attacked with great vigor by many times his own number.  Sherman from his high position could see the battle raging, with the Confederate troops between him and his subordinate.  He sent men, of course, to raise the temporary siege, but the time that would be necessarily consumed in reaching Corse, would be so great that all occupying the intrenchments might be dead.  Corse was a man who would never surrender.  From a high position some of Sherman’s signal corps discovered a signal flag waving from a hole in the block house at Allatoona.  It was from Corse.  He had been shot through the face, but he signalled to his chief a message which left no doubt of his determination to hold his post at all hazards.  It was at this point probably, that Sherman first realized that with the forces at his disposal, the keeping open of his line of communication with the North would be impossible if he expected to retain any force with which to operate offensively beyond Atlanta.  He proposed, therefore, to destroy the roads back to Chattanooga, when all ready to move,