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
