Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/365

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General Hardee and the Military Operations Around Atlanta.
353
O'clook.

General Wheeler, Commanding Cavalry Corps:

The enemy are pressing my centre, which is only a single line for one mile. I am afraid it will not sustain itself. I have weakened my entire line to fill up the gap of one mile. I have sent word to General Brown to assist you if he can. You will communicate with him.

B. F. Cheatham, Major-General.

July 20, 1864—6½ P. M.

General Wheeler:

General Cheatham has been ordered to send you a brigade. Hold on as long as you can, but if forced back you must go into the fortifications with General Smith, who is now behind you, and hold them, says General Hood.

Respectfully,

W. W. Mackall.

Headquarters, July 20, 1864—7.15 P. M.

Major-General Wheeler, Commanding Cavalry Corps:

General—Your dispatch of 5.45 is received. General Hood directs me to say that Cleburne's division is moving to your support, to communicate this to the men, and urge them to hold on. General Hood desires to see you as soon as you can safely leave your command.Yours,

A. P. Mason,
Major and Assistant Adjutant-General.

And by a combination of good luck, audacity and hard fighting, Wheeler did "hold on" until Cleburne relieved him and enabled him to move further to the right to confront the extending lines of the enemy.

Yet General Hood, in purporting to give a true and correct history of the operations of 20th of July, and while charging General Hardee with a failure "to push the attack as ordered," nowhere in his book makes the slightest allusion to the vital and controlling fact that he withdrew this division from the line of battle when on the point of moving to the assault, at the very turning point of the day, and thereby prevented the pushing of the attack.