ing
in Sherman's rear, admirably seconded by Forrest's and Wheeler's
raiding cavalry. Late in October Forrest performed the remarkable
feat of taking a flotilla with cavalry. He suddenly swooped down on
the Tennessee near Johnsonville and took the gunboat _Undine_ with
a couple of transports. Hood had meanwhile been busy on Sherman's
line of communications, hoping at least to immobilize him round
Atlanta, and at best to bring him back from Georgia for a Federal
defeat in Tennessee.

[Illustration: _GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN_
Photograph by Brady. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington]

On the fifth of October the last action near Atlanta was fought thirty
miles northwest, when Hood made a desperate attempt on Allatoona with
a greatly superior force. Twelve miles off, on Kenesaw Mountain,
Sherman could see the smoke and hear the sounds of battle through the
clear, still, autumn air. But as his signalers could get no answer
from the fort he began to fear that Allatoona was already lost, when
the signal officer's quick eye caught the faintest flutter at one of
the fort windows. Presently the letters, C--R--S--E--H--E--R, were
made out; which meant that General John M. Corse, one of the best
volunteers produced by the war, was holding out. He had hurried
over from Rome, on a call from Allatoona, and was withstanding more
than four thousand men with less than two thousand. All morning long
the Confederates persisted in their attacks, while Sherman's relief
column was hurrying over from Kenesaw. Early in the afternoon the
fire slackened and ceased before this column arrived. But Sherman's
renewed fears were soon allayed. For Corse, after losing more than
a third of his men, had repulsed the enemy alone, inflicting on
them an even greater loss in proportion to their double strength.

Corse was still full of fight, reporting back to Kenesaw that though
"short a cheek bone and an ear" he was "able to whip all hell yet."
Sherman thanked the brave defenders in his general orders of the
seventh for "the handsome defense made at Allatoona" and pointed
the moral that "garrisons must hold their posts to the last minute,
sure that the time gained is valuable and necessary to their comrades
at the front."

The situation at the beginning of November was most peculiar. With
the whole Gulf coast blockaded and the three great ports in Union
hands, with the Mississippi a Union stream from source to sea,
and with Sherman firmly set in