Didnt have any confidence that they could hold this position in this, so, yet, the army retreated yet again. Sherman, at this point, is pretty optimistic about the course of the campaign up to this point. And in a wonderfully e voktive phrase, he writes this is at the beginning. With are like a vast hive of bees and expect to swarm over the chatahoochie in a few days. Johnsons army was in the alatoona mountains. Sherman was very familiar with the entire section of georgia. He had spent time in the 1840s. He had been stationed here. Sherman knew it would be foolish to try and attack johnson in the alatoona mountains. So what johnson tries to do is execute another flanking march. This one would involve some risk because it would move the union army some mimes away from the western atlantic. The objective of this march would be the town of dallas. Johnsons calvary informed him in pretty timely fashion of this Movement Toward dallas. And johnson shifts away west ward to try and block sherm