Sherman's armies suffer about three thousand casualties…

Sherman's armies suffer about three thousand casualties in comparison to Johnston's one thousand.

The Union general, not initially deterred by these losses, had twice asked Thomas to renew the assault.

"Our loss is small, compared to some of those [battles in the] East."

The Rock of Chickamauga replies, however, "One or two more such assaults would use up this army."

A few days later Sherman will mournfully write to his wife, "I begin to regard the death and mangling of couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash." (McMurry, Richard M. Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. p 111).

Kennesaw Mountain is not Sherman's first large-scale frontal assault of the war, but it is his last.

He had interrupted his string of successful flanking maneuvers in the Atlanta campaign for logistical reasons, but also so that he could keep Johnston guessing about the tactics he would employ in the future.

In his report of the battle, Sherman writes, "I perceived that the enemy and our officers had settled down into a conviction that I would not assault fortified lines. All looked to me to outflank. An army to be efficient, must not settle down to a single mode of offence, but must be prepared to execute any plan which promises success. I wanted, therefore, for the moral effect, to make a successful assault against the enemy behind his breastworks, and resolved to attempt it at that point where success would give the largest fruits of victory." (Liddell Hart, B. H. Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American. New York: Da Capo Press, 1993. p. 266. First published in 1929 by Dodd, Mead & Co.)