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Chapter 8
ATLANTA AND AFTERWARDS
Pvt. Marion Baxter was still down in Mississippi?s Piney Woods in the spring of 1864, still concerned as a member of Col. Lowry?s command with stragglers, deserters, and bushwackers. Early in May, Gen. Polk?s Army of Mississippi was directed to move northeast into northwest Georgia where Gen. Johnston and his Army of Tennessee faced Gen. Sherman and his "Army Group". The previous summer Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans and Gen. Braxton Bragg had dueled back and forth in middle Tennessee and northwestern Georgia. First, Rosecrans pushed Bragg out of Chickamauga, but failed to follow up his victory. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga and was invested. He was sacked, being replaced by Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas. It took both Grant and Sherman to lift that seige, but lift it they did, and Bragg was forced back to Dalton, Georgia. Having lost the confidence of his army, Bragg in late December 1863 was replaced by Gen. Joe Johnston. Command changes often followed the loss of territory. And now Johnston, with Sherman thrusting deeper into Georgia, needed every soldier he could lay his hands on, thus the reason for Polk?s movement northeastward.
En route to Georgia Gen. Polk sent orders back to Col. Lowry directing him to conclude his expedition to Jones and Smith counties and to rejoin John Adams? Brigade. According to a letter from Major Rorer to his cousin in Virginia, John Adams? Brigade was in camp near Rome, Georgia, on May 11. The 20th Mississippi had caught up with the rest of Polk?s command somewhere en route, because Pvt. Baxter took part in the battle near Resaca, Georgia, that began on the 13th. The pace set by Polk?s main forces across Alabama and into Georgia was a relatively slow one, Maj. Rorer indicates in his letters. A portion of the journey was made by rail, but most of it was overland. The main 20th Mississippi wagon train left Demopolis with the rest of the army of the Dept, of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana, and when Baxter and the two detached regiments
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