at either point, but our assaulting columns
held their ground within a few yards of the rebel trenches, and
there covered themselves with parapet. McPherson lost about five
hundred men and several valuable officers, and Thomas lost nearly
two thousand men. This was the hardest fight of the campaign up to
that date, and it is well described by Johnston in his "Narrative"
(pages 342, 343), where he admits his loss in killed and wounded
as

Total ............. 808

This, no doubt, is a true and fair statement; but, as usual,
Johnston overestimates our loss, putting it at six thousand,
whereas our entire loss was about twenty-five hundred, killed and
wounded.

While the battle was in progress at the centre, Schofield crossed
Olley's Creek on the right, and gained a position threatening
Johnston's line of retreat; and, to increase the effect, I ordered
Stoneman's cavalry to proceed rapidly still farther to the right,
to Sweetwater. Satisfied of the bloody cost of attacking
intrenched lines, I at once thought of moving the whole army to the
railroad at a point (Fulton) about ten miles below Marietta, or to
the Chattahoochee River itself, a movement similar to the one
afterward so successfully practised at Atlanta. All the orders
were issued to bring forward supplies enough to fill our wagons,
intending to strip the railroad back to Allatoona, and leave that
place as our depot, to be covered as well as possible by Garrard's
cavalry. General Thomas, as usual, shook his head, deeming it
risky to leave the railroad; but something had to be done, and I
had resolved on this move, as reported in my dispatch to General
Halleck on July 1st:

General Schofield is now south of Olley's Creek, and on the head of
Nickajack. I have been hurrying down provisions and forage, and
tomorrow night propose to move McPherson from the left to the
extreme right, back of General Thomas. This will bring my right
within three miles of the Chattahoochee River, and about five miles
from the railroad. By this movement I think I can force Johnston
to move his whole army down from Kenesaw to defend his railroad and
the Chattahoochee, when I will (by the left flank) reach the
railroad below Marietta; but in this I must cut loose from the
railroad with ten days' supplies in wagons. Johnston may come out
of his intrenchments to attack Thomas, which is exactly what I
want, for General Thomas is well intrenched on a line parallel with
the