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ALLATOONA PASS

"HOLD THE FORT"

The Pass at Allatoona.

The pass of Allatoona, the scene of General John M. core's stubborn fight to " hold the fort," in October, 1864, is a narrow railroad cut through the Allatoona range of mountains. The actual field of battle was the line of heights, cut into almost equal eastern and western halves by the beginning of the pass. Through this opening rises in the north the Allatoona Mountain, where the signals were received from Sherman at Kenesaw to " hold fast," for " I am coming." Sherman had penetrated the southern Confederacy to Atlanta, and was bringing his supplies three hundred and thirty-six miles by rail from Louisville, when Hood turned on his lines, and got between him and Allatoona in the opening days of October.

In the village, at the foot of the heights, were 2,700,000 rations, and Colonel Tourtellotte, the commander, had only about six hundred fighting men to defend them. On the 4th, Sherman sent word to Corse, who was in Rome, forty miles to the north-west, to move his command to Allatoona, and hold it. General Corse, though the youngest general in the army, was one in whom Sherman most implicitly trusted, and one of the best qualified for the sever task before him. He received his orders at about eight o'clock on the evening of the 4th, and at once ordered the First Brigade to prepare to move. Only one locomotive and twenty cars were available, and they had to be unloaded of hard-tack, and brought from Kingston, twenty miles away. Spreading rails, washouts, and derailments delayed the journey, so that it was nearly one o'clock in the morning of the 5th when about one thousand fighting men were added to the meagre garrison of the heights.

The pickets had already been driven in, and brisk firing showed that the enemy had invested the place in force. Corse, accompanied by Colonel Richard Rowett, of Illinois, made the circuit of the lines in the darkness, and prepared his plans for the day. Only a little foot-bridge joined the heights on either side of the railroad cut, and it was necessary to divide the little garrison in advance with careful regard to the contingencies of action. When morning came, the Confederate attack was made from all sides. From Myrick's Hill, about half a mile to the south, a battery of thirteen guns dropped shell into the Federal lines. On the west, Young's famous brigade of Texans and Cockrell's Missouri brigade marched up the highway, while Sear's brigade attacked from the north. The total Confederate force, by their own official reports, was 5,600 men. The 1,600 Union troops were carefully disposed on the heights, the larger number to the west, protected by some light earthworks, with two pieces of artillery on each side of the cut.

When French, the Confederate commander, had made his dispositions, he sent in a curt message to Corse to surrender, " to avoid a needless effusion of blood," and gave him five minutes to consider it. In less than the time allowed the young Federal commander had dictated his reply, that he was prepared for the " needless effusion of blood" whenever it was agreeable to the enemy. At once the attack began on all sides. While the artillery shelled the Federal lines, daring individual soldiers attempted to creep up to the stores to set them on fire, and one was found after the battle within thirty yards, prone upon the ground, with an extinguished torch in his hand. On the west, where Corse commanded in person, Cockrell and Young forced their way up the road over the first weak defences, and though suffering terrible losses, reached close to the last redoubt on the crest of the height. At about one o'clock, a bullet ploughed across General Corse's cheek, cutting through his cheek and ear, and rendering him insensible. He regained consciousness at about I.45, to hear Colonel Richard Rowett, who was in command, give the order to " cease firing." Thinking at the moment that it meant surrender, he sharply counter-manded the order, and with bandaged, bleeding head moved from point to point, inspiring the defence.

Meantime, on the eastern height, colonel Tourtellotte manfully held his ground, and by catching a part of the attacking column of sears between the converging fire of two lines of earthworks, made several hundred prisoner. But the brunt of the attack came on the little garrison of the western heights. Cockrell's brigade was nearly exterminated, but Young's fierce Texans drove the little Northern force from point to point, closer to the feeble earth-works. Towards the middle of the afternoon, when the Federal guns had been silenced for want of ammunition, a strong Confederate column of attack was observed forming in a ravine to the northwest. It was to be the charge of the last reserves, like that of the Imperial Guard at Waterloo, and Corse met it with more than the spirit of " the Iron Duke," for he was without ammunition, bleeding with wounds, and with no hope of prompt re-enforcement. Minie-balls, wrapped in strips of blanket, were forced into the little field-piece, and the men loaded their smoking muskets from their fast diminishing hoard of bullets. On came the Confederates, officers leading; flags flying, and soldiers shouting the frightful "rebel yell." When at the distance of two hundred yards from the redoubt, the guns of the alizing, panic-stricken defeat. Then Corse uttered something like Wellington's order, " Up, guards, and at them!" and the remnant of his little garrison leaped over the breastworks, charged with bayonets and clubbed muskets, and drove the Confederates far down the hill. It is this scene which our artist depicts.

The battle was won, and Corse was able to telegraph to Sherman, " I am short a cheek-bone and ear, but am able to whip all hell yet!" He added with pathetic truthfulness, "My losses are very heavy." The little redoubt was encumbered by the dead. They had to be moved to make way for the gun, when it was put in position for its last discharge. Corse's losses, out of about 1,600 fighting me, were 142 killed, 352 wounded, and 212 missing; the missing; however, included a detachment of about 90 men captured in a block-house at Allatoona Creek, who were not in the battle at the pass. The Confederate loss was estimated by General Young, who was taken prisoner, at 2,000.

Sherman had heard the distant firing all day, and when it ceased he feared that Allatoona had fallen. Had the Confederate commander been able to form his men for another attack, he would probably have carried the Federal position, for the guns of the men were bursting in their hand from repeating firing; only a few rounds of small-arm ammunition remained, the artillery was silent, and officers and men were exhausted by over fourteen hours of continuous fighting. The "needless effusion of blood" had saved Allatoona, protected its vast quantities of stores, foiled Hood's plans, and made possible the " march to the sea." General Sherman was so pleased with the defence that he made it the subject of a special order, praising General Corse, his officers and men, and pointing out that it illustrated " the most important principle in war, that fortified posts should be defended to the last, regardless of the relative numbers of the party attacking and attacked."