Saturday, March 28, 2020

Major-General Oliver O. Howard: General Field Orders No. 16, September 10, 1864

GENERAL FIELD ORDERS No. 16.
HDQRS. DEPARTMENT
AND ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE,
East Point, Ga., September 10, 1864.

It is with pride, gratification, and a grateful sense of divine favor that I congratulate this noble army upon the successful termination of the campaign. Your officers claim for you a wonderful record—for example, a march of 400 miles, thirteen distinct engagements, 4,000 prisoners, and 20 stand of colors captured, and 3,000 of the enemy's dead buried in your front. Your movements upon the enemy's flank have been bold and successful: first, upon Resaca; second, upon Dallas; third, upon Kenesaw; fourth, upon Nickajack; fifth (via Roswell), upon the Augusta railroad; sixth, upon Ezra Church, to the southwest of Atlanta, and seventh, upon Jonesborough and the Macon railroad. Atlanta was evacuated while you were fighting at Jonesborough. The country may never know with what patience, labor, and exposure you have tugged away at every natural and artificial obstacle that an enterprising and confident enemy could interpose. The terrific battles you have fought may never be realized or credited, still a glad acclaim is already greeting you from the Government and people, in view of the results you have helped to gain, and I believe a sense of the magnitude of the achievements of the last 100 days will not abate but increase with time and history. Our rejoicing is tempered, as it always must be in war, by the soldier's sorrow at the loss of his companions in arms; on every hillside, in every valley, throughout your long and circuitous route from Dalton to Jonesborough, you have buried them. Your trusted and beloved commander fell in your midst; his name, the name of McPherson! carries with it a peculiar feeling of sorrow. I trust the impress of his character is upon you all to incite you to generous actions and noble deeds. To mourning friends and to all the disabled in battle, you extend a soldier's sympathy. My first intimate acquaintance with you dates from the 28th of July. I never beheld fiercer assaults than the enemy then made, and I never saw troops more steady and self-possessed in action than your divisions which were there engaged. I have learned that for cheerfulness, obedience, rapidity of movement, and confidence in battle, the Army of the Tennessee is not to be surpassed, and it shall be my study that your fair record shall continue, and my purpose to assist you to move steadily forward and plant the old flag in every proud city of the rebellion.

O. O. HOWARD,
Major-general.
SAM’L L. TAGGART
Ass’t. Adj’t. Gen’l.

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 38, Part 3 (Serial No. 74), p. 49-50; Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 299-300

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