“In the bloody charge led by General Hooker, the Twenty-seventh Illinois was pressing upon the rebel works; and when they had approached very near them, Michael Delaney, the color-bearer, rushed some ten paces forward ahead of his regiment, and holding aloft the starry banner of his country, shouted to his comrades to follow. Just then a ball struck his left arm, inflicting a flesh wound, from which the blood trickled in profuse currents. Still grasping the flag, and keeping it to the breeze, he drew his revolver, and rushing forward, leaped upon the enemy’s works, waving his flag, and firing his pistol upon the foe. Thus, standing upon the enemy’s works, his pistol in hand, and his colors streaming over his head, two rebels approached him, one on each side, and thrust their bayonets into the sides of the hero martyr. He felt the cold steel pierce to the very quick of his young life, yet he did not falter. With the blood gushing from his wounds, he clasped the flag to his breast, and bore it back in safety to his comrades, among whom he soon after bled to death. Though no star or eagle decorated his shoulders, he is of the country’s heroes, his name stamped among theirs, high on the roll of honor. Though no sculptured marble may mark the spot of his lonely grave among the melancholy pines of northern Georgia, his intrepid bravery entitles him to the homage of all who honor the flag he so bravely bore, and laid down his life to save. The Twenty-seventh Illinois regiment suffered heavily, but behaved nobly, in this fierce and unequal contest.”
And the unresting, yet patient, sagacious commander, in his own report, tells us how he alarmed his antagonist, and drew him away from the slopes of Kenesaw to save his path of retreat: “On the 1st of July General McPherson was ordered to throw his whole army by the right down to and threaten Nickajack Creek and Turner’s Ferry, across Chattahoochie. General McPherson commenced his movement on the night of July 2d, and the effect was instantaneous. The next morning Kenesaw was abandoned, and with the first dawn of day I saw our skirmishers appear on the mountain top. General Thomas’s whole line was then moved forward to the railroad, and turned south in pursuit toward the Chattahoochie. In person I entered Marietta at 8.30 o’clock in the morning, just as the enemy’s cavalry vacated the place. General Logan’s corps of General McPherson’s army, which had not moved far, was ordered back into Marietta by the main road, and General McPherson and General Schofield were instructed to cross Nickajack, and attack the enemy in flank and rear, and, if possible, to catch him in the confusion of crossing the Chattahoochie; but Johnston had foreseen and provided against all this, and had covered his movement well. He had intrenched a strong _tête-du-pont_ at the Chattahoochie, with an advanced intrenched line across the road at Smyrna camp-meeting ground, five miles from Marietta.”