The fight occurred on the 27th of May, 1864, while the armies of Generals Sherman and Johnston confronted each other near Dallas, Georgia, during the memorable “Atlanta campaign.”  For three weeks we had been pushing the Confederates southward, partly by manoeuvring, partly by fighting, out of Dalton, out of Resaca, through Adairsville, Kingston and Cassville.  Each army offered battle everywhere, but would accept it only on its own terms.  At Dallas Johnston made another stand and Sherman, facing the hostile line, began his customary manoeuvring for an advantage.  General Wood’s division of Howard’s corps occupied a position opposite the Confederate right.  Johnston finding himself on the 26th overlapped by Schofield, still farther to Wood’s left, retired his right (Polk) across a creek, whither we followed him into the woods with a deal of desultory bickering, and at nightfall had established the new lines at nearly a right angle with the old—­Schofield reaching well around and threatening the Confederate rear.

The civilian reader must not suppose when he reads accounts of military operations in which relative positions of the forces are defined, as in the foregoing passages, that these were matters of general knowledge to those engaged.  Such statements are commonly made, even by those high in command, in the light of later disclosures, such as the enemy’s official reports.  It is seldom, indeed, that a subordinate officer knows anything about the disposition of the enemy’s forces—­except that it is unaimable—­or precisely whom he is fighting.  As to the rank and file, they can know nothing more of the matter than the arms they carry.  They hardly know what troops are upon their own right or left the length of a regiment away.  If it is a cloudy day they are ignorant even of the points of the compass.  It may be said, generally, that a soldier’s knowledge of what is going on about him is coterminous with his official relation to it and his personal connection with it; what is going on in front of him he does not know at all until he learns it afterward.

At nine o’clock on the morning of the 27th Wood’s division was withdrawn and replaced by Stanley’s.  Supported by Johnson’s division, it moved at ten o’clock to the left, in the rear of Schofield, a distance of four miles through a forest, and at two o’clock in the afternoon had reached a position where General Howard believed himself free to move in behind the enemy’s forces and attack them in the rear, or at least, striking them in the flank, crush his way along their line in the direction of its length, throw them into confusion and prepare an easy victory for a supporting attack in front.  In selecting General Howard for this bold adventure General Sherman was doubtless not unmindful of Chancellorsville, where Stonewall Jackson had executed a similar manoeuvre for Howard’s instruction.  Experience is a normal school:  it teaches how to teach.

There are some differences to be noted.  At Chancellorsville it was Jackson who attacked; at Pickett’s Mill, Howard.  At Chancellorsville it was Howard who was assailed; at Pickett’s Mill, Hood.  The significance of the first distinction is doubled by that of the second.