The Confederate dead and wounded at New Hope Church ran high.The wounded flooded Atlanta in train-loads and the town was appalled.Never,even after the battle of Chickamauga,had the town seen so many wounded.The hospitals overflowed and wounded lay on the floors of empty stores and upon cotton bales in the warehouses.Every hotel,boarding house and private residence was crowded with sufferers.Aunt Pitty had her share,although she protested that it was most unbecoming to have strange men in the house when Melanie was in a delicate condition and when gruesome sights might bring on premature birth.But Melanie reefed up her top hoop a little higher to hide her thickening figure and the wounded invaded the brick house.There was endless cooking and lifting and turning and fanning,endless hours of washing and rerolling bandages and picking lint,and endless warm nights made sleepless by the babbling delirium of men in the next room.Finally the choked town could take care of no more and the overflow of wounded was sent on to the hospitals at Macon and Augusta.
With this backwash of wounded bearing conflicting reports and the increase of frightened refugees crowding into the already crowded town,Atlanta was in an uproar.The small cloud on the horizon had blown up swiftly into a large,sullen storm cloud and it was as though a faint,chilling wind blew from it.
No one had lost faith in the invincibility of the troops but everyone,the civilians at least,had lost faith in the General.New Hope Church was only thirty-five miles from Atlanta The General had let the Yankees push him back sixty-five miles in three weeks!Why didn't he hold the Yankees instead of everlastingly retreating?He was a fool and worse than a fool.Graybeards in the Home Guard and members of the state militia,safe in Atlanta,insisted they could have managed the campaign better and drew maps on tablecloths to prove their contentions.As his lines grew thinner and he was forced back farther,the General called desperately on Governor Brown for these very men,but the state troops felt reasonably safe.After all,the Governor had defied Jeff Davis'demand for them.Why should he accede to General Johnston?
Fight and fall back!Fight and fall back!For seventy miles and twenty-five days the Confederates had fought almost daily.New Hope Church was behind the gray troops now,a memory in a mad haze of like memories,heat,dust,hunger,weariness,tramp-tramp on the red rutted roads,slop-slop through the red mud,retreat,entrench,fight—retreat,entrench,fight.New Hope Church was a nightmare of another life and so was Big Shanty,where they turned and fought the Yankees like demons.But,fight the Yankees till the fields were blue with dead,there were always more Yankees,fresh Yankees;there was always that sinister curving of the blue lines toward the Confederate rear,toward the railroad—and toward Atlanta!
From Big Shanty,the weary sleepless lines retreated down the road to Kennesaw Mountain,near the little town of Marietta,and here they spread their lines in a ten-mile curve.On the steep sides of the mountain they dug their rifle pits and on the towering heights they planted their batteries.Swearing,sweating men hauled the heavy guns up the precipitous slopes,for mules could not climb the hillsides.Couriers and wounded coming into Atlanta gave reassuring reports to the frightened townspeople.The heights of Kennesaw were impregnable.So were Pine Mountain and Lost Mountain near by which were also fortified.The Yankees couldn't dislodge Old Joe's men and they could hardly flank them now for the batteries on the mountain tops commanded all the roads for miles.Atlanta breathed more easily,but—
But Kennesaw Mountain was only twenty-two miles away!
On the day when the first wounded from Kennesaw Mountain were coming in,Mrs.Merriwether's carriage was at Aunt Pitty's house at the unheard-of hour of seven in the morning,and black Uncle Levi sent up word that Scarlett must dress immediately and come to the hospital.Fanny Elsing and the Bonnell girls,roused early from slumber,were yawning on the back seat and the Elsings'mammy sat grumpily on the box,a basket of freshly laundered bandages on her lap.Off Scarlett went,unwillingly for she had danced till dawn the night before at the Home Guard's party and her feet were tired.She silently cursed the efficient and indefatigable Mrs.Merriwether,the wounded and the whole Southern Confederacy,as Prissy buttoned her in her oldest and raggedest calico frock which she used for hospital work.Gulping down the bitter brew of parched corn and dried sweet potatoes that passed for coffee,she went out to join the girls.
She was sick of all this nursing.This very day she would tell Mrs.Merriwether that Ellen had written her to come home for a visit.Much good this did her,for that worthy matron,her sleeves rolled up,her stout figure swathed in a large apron,gave her one sharp look and said:“Don't let me hear any more such foolishness,Scarlett Hamilton.I'll write your mother today and tell her how much we need you,and I'm sure she'll understand and let you stay.Now,put on your apron and trot over to Dr.Meade.He needs someone to help with the dressings.”
“Oh,God,”thought Scarlett drearily,“that's just the trouble.Mother will make me stay here and I shall die if I have to smell these stinks any longer!I wish I was an old lady so I could bully young ones,instead of getting bullied—and tell old cats like Mrs.Merriwether to go to Halifax!”
