After struggling along the broken ground of the ridge, the Federals ran up against the main Confederate works and could go no farther. The Rebel defenses ran along a line that followed a natural palisade of rocks that was 20 feet high in places and nearly straight up. Not only were the defenders able to punish their blue- clad attackers with musketry, the steepness of the ridge allowed them to roll boulders down on the Federal ranks, as well.

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The Union ‘demonstration’ against the northern end of the ridge went perfectly. Sherman then began shifting Thomas’ and Schofield’s troops to the right, south behind the ridgeline. When Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s Confederate cavalry finally penetrated the heavy skirmish lines used to screen this move, they found most of Sherman’s infantry gone-hurrying on their way to Snake Creek Gap.

Johnston, who had been ill-served by Wheeler’s undisciplined cavalry, finally saw through Sherman’s ruse and began a masterful withdrawal to Resaca. Taking advantage of his interior lines, Johnston easily won the race to the crossroads town. By the morning of May 13, he was in position to receive the Union attack.

In their new position, the Rebels defended a four-mile front that protected Resaca from the west. Their left was anchored on the Oostanaula River, their right on the Connasauga. The Confederate line ran north along the high ground behind Camp Creek for two and a half miles, then followed the ridge away from Camp Creek and coursed east. Though the rivers securely anchored the Rebel flanks, they also forced Johnston to fight with a river to his rear, complicating any retreat.

Sherman determined to press Johnston head-on, while also trying to effect a crossing of the Oostanaula and get across the enemy’s line of retreat. That night, the Federal troops slept in their positions. On Schofield’s front, artillerymen, exhausted from dragging their guns across country, slept by their guns. Infantrymen rolled into their blankets. Pre-battle tensions brought troubled dreams to the sleepers. One man near the 19th Ohio Battery cried out in his sleep and fired his rifle. Men all along the line reached for their weapons and fumbled with their equipment. Nervously, they waited for dawn.

With the sunrise, the musket fire of the opposing skirmishers increased and the wounded began stumbling back from the front. Units moved forward and deployed for the attack. Sherman had decided to hit Johnston at a bend in the Confederate works. Here, Camp Creek forked and coursed northwest from the Rebel trenches. The valley floor was nearly flat and several hundred yards wide. The creek bed was deep in spring runoff and in many places unfordable. The muddy banks were tangled with brush; jagged limestone rocks made the footing treacherous.

To make matters worse, the Southern defenders had an unhindered field of fire. Thomas’ XIV Corps and two divisions of the Army of the Ohio would hit the angle on the Confederate right. Major General Oliver Howard’s IV Corps would go in on the left after trailing the rest of the army from Dalton Schofield’s left division, under Maj. Gen. Jacob D. Cox, had slightly easier ground to cover than the right, but the prospect of charging across the valley, through the creek and up the ridge into the Rebel trenches, was a fearsome undertaking. Lieutenant John A. Joyce of the 24th Kentucky (Union) Regiment, wrote, ‘We charged across an open field interspersed with dead trees that flung out their ghostly arms to welcome us to the shadows of death.’

Brigadier General Henry P. Judah’s division formed Schofield’s right. He had not performed well recently, and Schofield had considered removing him from command. His performance during this attack would result in his forced resignation-unfortunately for his division, it came a couple of days too late. Judah’s men charged down the western slope of the valley into the boggy ground around the creek. Their front had not been properly reconnoitered and the swampy ground proved nearly impassable for infantry.

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