It has not been within the scope of this paper to refer to the operations of Cheatham's corps, which were directed from the Atlanta side, for the most part, as I understand it, against the entrenched position of the Fifteenth corps.
How well the troops fought, and how gallantly they were led, is also manifest by the record of losses. General Hardee, in a letter written on the 24th of July, two days later, with the returns no doubt before him, states the loss in his corps alone at thirty-two hundred and ninety-nine (3,299) in killed, wounded and missing. This included Major-General W. H. T. Walker killed, and Brigadier-Generals Gist and Smith and other acting brigade commanders wounded. Cleburne's division lost about fifteen hundred officers and men out of a total of about thirty-five hundred carried into action (I get these figures from his Adjutant-General, Captain Buck); and one of his brigades in a single desperate charge lost about one-half of the entire number engaged in it (Lowry's official report). The loss in officers, especially field officers, was unparalleled}} and irreparable. It aggregated over sixty field and acting field officers in the corps; and thirty general field and acting field officers in Cleburne's division alone. Hardee was obliged next day to break up one of his divisions.
The manner in which the troops were led is thus referred to by General Strong, in the paper above mentioned (page 106), in speaking of the second attack of Walker and Bate on the Sixteenth corps:
"It seemed to us that every mounted officer of the attacking column was riding at the front of or on the right or left of the first line of battle."
And referring to other portions of the field later in the day, he says:
"The battle from half-past three P. M. was desperate and bloody in the extreme, and the result was extremely doubtful till late in the day.
"Our lines were broken and pierced in several places, and batteries and regimental colors were lost and won again and again."
And the author of the book entitled "Iowa and the Rebellion" (pages 259-261), in describing the fighting of Iowa troops, where Cleburne's and Maney's divisions were engaged, quotes from General Giles A. Smith's official report, as follows:
"Rebel commanders, with such men as would follow them [he might more justly have said with such men as they had to follow
