Dalton to Jonesboro: The Atlanta Campaign
In the early spring of 1864, after three years of increasingly bitter fighting throughout the Southern states, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman saw that Georgia, and Atlanta specifically, held the key for the Union to bring the war to an end. There is a military axiom that states that while amateurs study strategy, generals study logistics as the crucial element of battle. General Robert E. Lee’s forces in Virginia, the main focus of the war to that point, were able to hold the Union forces away from Richmond largely as a result of the supplies that flowed steadily up from the transportation and logistical center of Atlanta.
To complicate the picture, President Abraham Lincoln was facing a fierce election campaign against the former commander of the Union Army of the Potomac, Lieutenant General George B. McClellan, a War Democrat who nonetheless agreed with the Copperheads and Peace Democrats who saw the war as unwinnable and endless. There was a real possibility that if Sherman became bogged down in the same sort of stalemated combat that Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant faced in Virginia, the Northern Democrats who had pledged to end the war by peaceful means could very well take the White House that fall. “Peaceful means” meant armistice and, in reality, a Confederate victory.
Sherman was a very modern general, not given to paroling prisoners or other gentlemanly considerations. He held a burning, very personal antipathy toward Georgia, which meshed well with his ideas about “total war.” Literally years of seeing the words atlanta depot stenciled on the sides of captured supply wagons and containers convinced him that the small city represented just as much a threat to his army as any military force. In his mind, the road to and from Atlanta needed not only to be taken but also laid to waste so that it could never again be used against the Union. An added benefit was that this “scorched earth” policy would horrify and subdue the populace, who might otherwise engage his forces in guerrilla warfare or other harassing actions.
General William Tecumseh Sherman
With General Ulysses S. Grant’s blessings, Sherman set about building an overwhelming force from his headquarters in Chattanooga. Other Union commands were asked to supply what men they could spare, and by late April 1864, three grand armies with more than 98,000 men stood ready to invade Georgia. A steady stream of reinforcements brought this force to more than 112,000 by June.
To oppose Sherman stood General Joseph Eggleston Johnston with but a single grand army of just two corps’ strength, numbering just under 50,000 men. Reinforcements from Alabama, including Major General Leonidas K. Polk’s entire corps and other commands not then under direct siege, bolstered his total strength to three corps, with just under 65,000 men by late June.
Johnston faced a very serious situation. His own combatant forces would be required to protect the railroads leading to and from Atlanta and keep their own supply lines intact, while being both undermanned and underequipped. One key factor lay in their favor: Johnston was a master of defensive strategy, rarely overwhelmingly successful in the advance but almost supernatural in his ability to know the exact moment to withdraw—just at the point where fierce resistance to the usually superior numbers had delayed or disrupted his enemy’s plans the most, while keeping his own forces as intact as possible. Very unusual for a combat commander, he was also a humanist who deeply cared about his men and sought to minimize casualties even at the advantage of the enemy.
Johnston had one other serious disadvantage—the enmity of President Jefferson Davis, who blamed him for the loss of Vicksburg the previous summer, and all too readily listened to whomever had a complaint about his tactics.
Both commanders were highly experienced, experts in their own ultimate strategies, well versed in the latest military tactics developed over the previous three years, and very highly motivated to accomplish the goals that had been handed them. This was the campaign of the grand masters, unfolding almost like a dance, with each grand army moving in both opposition and concordance, swirling together in battle, only to separate intact and move with both purpose and grace to the next stage. Ironically, or perhaps not, after the war Sherman and Johnston became the best of friends.
A casual examination of a map makes it appear that Dalton, Georgia, was very nearly a natural fortress, but Sherman was no casual observer. He had explored most of this area while on detached duty in Marietta in 1844 (and not coincidentally unsuccessfully courting a certain Miss Cecilia Stovall of Etowah Heights near Allatoona at the time), and he had the remarkable ability to recall the lay of the land in great detail. He saw that Johnston’s army could be trapped before the rocky ridge that was then their refuge if his own forces could get into the level, open ground between them and Atlanta. To this end, he sent two of his armies to distract Johnston by a strong direct assault at the northernmost gap, Mill Creek, while his third army slipped through the southernmost gap, Snake Creek, and cut off Johnston’s retreat route at Resaca.
Johnston similarly was not a casual observer; anticipating that Sherman would merely feint toward Dalton and then break south to try to cut his army off from the rail line to Atlanta, he ordered preparation of defensive works on “good ground” 17 miles south, just north and west of Resaca. In addition, he ordered preparation of a series of “military roads” between the two positions so that he could rapidly shuttle his troops into the prepared positions when Sherman made his move.
On May 8, 1864, having received notice from his cavalry scouts that Sherman’s forces were on the march toward him, Johnston set Lieutenant General John Bell Hood’s army corps in position to the north of Dalton, with his men arranged on top of the ridgeline and across Crow Valley to Pickett Top and “refused” southward over Hamilton Mountain to the direct north of Dalton. Hardee’s army corps took up position to his left, just to the west of the city and directly on top of the impressive ridgeline. The Confederate line snaked along roughly 5 miles of hill and valley, forming an almost fishhook shape, with Rock Face Ridge as the shank and Dalton just below the point. A detached division guarded the railway just to the northeast of Dalton, and a smaller detachment took up post above Dug Gap, 2 miles below the city.
Major General George H. Thomas’s Union Army of the Cumberland moved down the railway from Ringgold on May 8 and took up position just to the west of Mill Creek Gap, while Major General John M. Schofield’s Army of the Ohio moved in from the north and took up position across Crow Valley. Aided by these highly visible movements and the screening ridgeline between them and the Confederate positions, Major General James Birdseye McPherson’s Union Army of Tennessee quickly marched south through Snake Creek Gap.
Later that same day, two relatively small initial diversionary attacks were mounted by the Union troops against the very strong Confederate position just south of Mill Creek Gap and against the weaker position at Dug Gap. The attack at Mill Creek nearly turned into a full-force battle, with part of Howard’s IV Army Corps actually making it to the top of the northern end of the ridgeline before being violently repulsed. Both attacks were ultimately unsuccessful, though the attack at Dug Gap degenerated at one point into literal hand-to-hand combat—a comparatively rare event during the war—and featured the Confederates rolling large boulders down the steep mountainside toward the onrushing Union force.
Position of Union troops near Dalton, Georgia, May 8–9, 1864
Early in the morning of May 9, McPherson’s men emerged from the gap and marched quickly toward Resaca, but the sight of Confederate cavalry and infantry troops along with the well-prepared roads gave him pause. Afraid that he would be caught on the open ground and unsure just how strong a force he was facing (actually less than one division of infantry and a few cavalry), McPherson became unusually cautious and elected to withdraw and entrench at the mouth of Snake Creek Gap. Sherman considered this act to be one of the major mistakes of the campaign; if McPherson had gone ahead and moved into Resaca at that time, Johnston would have been caught off guard and surrounded, and the campaign might well have been over for all practical purposes.
As McPherson made his move toward Snake Creek Gap, Thomas and Schofield both launched strong attacks on the Confederate line, reinforcing the previous day’s assault directly against Mill Creek Gap and down the eastern slope of Rocky Face Ridge in Crow Valley. Multiple assaults over the next three days were successfully repulsed, leading Sherman to order a gradual withdrawal of forces from the fight, planning to follow McPherson’s route down to Resaca. Johnston fully expected the move; by the afternoon of May 11, with the battle still fully under way, he began ordering his units to also gradually break off and march to their prepared positions outside Resaca. By midnight on the 12th, nearly all his army had broken off contact and moved south, staying intact as fighting units and taking all of their supplies with them. It was this sort of “fighting retreat” that Johnston specialized in, utilizing what resources he had to their maximum.
Examination of this terrain shows the two weaknesses in Johnston’s defensive position: First, his lines were stretched between the Union lines and the Oostanaula River, making a hasty withdrawal nearly impossible. Second, the rail line he had to defend lay nearly underfoot and all along the Confederate line, again limiting his chances for tactical maneuver. To his advantage was a “tight” line of battle, with his forces in proximity and the two flanks well placed directly on the banks of the river.
Sherman placed his forces in a semicircle anchored by the river on the right and curving around to face the northernmost Confederates directly. His position had little direct advantage over the Confederate line but was built up quickly by units traveling through Snake Creek Gap from the Dalton area.
Johnston’s plan to defend the river and rail line from heavily fortified positions was clear, but Sherman’s intent was less so. Starting early on the afternoon of May 13, uncoordinated and seemingly random attacks were made against the Confederate left, right, center, and the right again on the morning of the 15th. Most of these assaults were slowed and their lines broken up by the incredibly rough terrain immediately before the Confederate lines. Two divisions, Brigadier General Henry M. Judah’s 2nd (Major General John M. Schofield’s XXIII Army Corps) and Brigadier General Absalom Baird’s 3rd (Palmer’s XIV Army Corps) were involved in a three-corps’-strength attack on the afternoon of May 14 on the “bend” of the Confederate line. The two divisions were nearly annihilated by coordinated artillery and long-range rifle fire before they could even get their men together through the muck, losing more than 600 in a few minutes’ time. Judah was kicked out of the army four days later for his alleged incompetence during the battle.
The Union assaults were ultimately unsuccessful in much more than getting quite a few of their own men killed and failing to push back the Confederate line at all. Several divisions of Hood’s army corps stepped out in the late afternoon of May 15 to counterattack the Union left but were withdrawn after Johnston learned of the only real Union success of the battle. Brigadier General Thomas W. Sweeney’s 2nd Division (of Major General Grenville M. Dodge’s XVI Army Corps) had crossed the Oostanaula River a few miles south at Lay’s Ferry and threatened to cut the rail line and the Confederate line of retreat. Within hours Johnston evacuated his forces intact across the river and marched south toward Cassville, destroying all the bridges as soon as his forces made it across. The last, the railroad bridge just below Resaca, was set afire at 3:30 a.m.
Johnston, ever the wily strategist, came up with a unique plan while pulling back from Resaca on the night of May 15: to send Hardee’s army corps with most of the supply wagons and ambulances straight through Adairsville to Kingston, 15 miles down the main road, while sending Hood’s and Polk’s army corps down a little-used route to the small town of Cassville, just 10 miles away. To give Hardee a little more time to ensure the safety of the supply train, Major General Ben F. Cheatham’s division was placed across the road about 3 miles north of Adairsville. Hood and Polk were ordered to march rapidly and “tightly,” to give the appearance that only a small force had passed down their path, and to be ready to launch a sudden counterattack when the unsuspecting Union forces appeared.
Sherman followed Johnston south, delayed by the long river crossings necessary for his large force and by an almost comical spat between major generals Joseph Hooker and Schofield over which one had the right-of-way on the narrow roads. The Union forces had not paused to regroup after taking the Resaca battleground and headed south with McPherson’s Army of Tennessee wide to the Union right, Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland marching straight down the railway, and Schofield’s Army of the Ohio (also known as and consisting only of the XXIII Army Corps) wide to the left. Expecting Johnston to make a stand at Adairsville, he ordered his widely separated columns to close together just north of the small crossroads town. The large Union force arrived in Adairsville after a brief but spirited skirmish with Cheatham’s division on the morning of May 18.
Sherman was apparently deceived by the Confederate diversionary tactic. Eager to engage Johnston before the Confederate force reached a good defensive ground south of the Etowah River, he hastily pushed all his units except Hooker’s XX and Schofield’s XXIII Army Corps down the single road to Kingston. These two corps were ordered down the road to Cassville to protect the flank of the main Union column.
Just to the west of the main Union line of advance, a single infantry division commanded by Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis (the 2nd Division, Union XIV Army Corps) and supported by Brigadier General Kenner Garrard’s 2nd Cavalry Division marched in and captured the important industrial center of Rome on May 18 after a one-day battle with Major General Samuel G. French’s Confederate division. Johnston’s willingness to give up Rome without much of a fight, and in effect, most of northwest Georgia and northeastern Alabama, in order to preserve his fighting force, would later be used as “evidence” of his alleged incompetence.
At Cassville, Johnston ordered Polk to set his corps across the road about a half-mile northeast of the town square, with Hood’s corps positioned about 1 mile east and parallel to the road, so as to hit the Union flank as they approached. On the morning of May 19, just as Schofield’s corps was walking into the trap, a small unit of Union cavalry led by Brigadier General Edward M. McCook stumbled into Hood’s troops from the east, and a brief skirmish erupted. Fearful that McCook was supported by infantry columns, Hood suddenly, and against orders, pulled back from his ambush position to reposition facing east, to gain support from Polk’s right. Johnston soon felt that the chance for surprise was lost and ordered both corps to a low range of hills southeast of the town before a full-force battle could develop.
Hood defended his overreaction to the end of his life, insisting that he had infantry to his rear and that he would have been unable to launch his attack on the main column of Union troops on the Cassville road. Surprisingly enough, he was partly correct; close behind McCook were two brigades of Union infantry supported by a single battery of horse artillery wandering around lost, looking for a road leading into the east side of Cassville when they ran into the rear column of Hood’s corps.
On the Confederate left, Hardee put up stiff resistance against the massed Union forces near Kingston, but shortly after the Cassville disaster, and at the urging of Hood and Polk, Johnston ordered all forces to disengage and withdraw south of the Etowah River into the Allatoona Mountains. He finally halted about 11 miles southeast of Cassville and set up a strong defensive position around the railroad gap at Allatoona Pass, just northwest of the small town of Acworth. As usual, Johnston ordered the railroad bridge across the Etowah burned as they retreated. Sherman moved in and occupied Cassville and Kingston, giving his men a few days to rest while he studied the ground ahead.
Sherman had ridden the area around Allatoona extensively as a young officer assigned to Marietta, and he knew the potential for making the gap into a natural fortress. Changing his usual frontal assault tactics, he abandoned his line of march straight down the railroad and moved westward toward the small town of Dallas. It is not clear whether he was trying to pull Johnston behind him into more open terrain (doubtful) or whether he was trying to take a more western approach into Atlanta. The real danger for Sherman was that by abandoning the railroad he was lengthening his own supply column, making it more vulnerable to a rear attack by Johnston’s troops and cavalry.
Ordered up and out by buglers on the morning of May 22, the three grand Union armies moved out of camp at Cassville and Kingston in their usual three columns. Thomas and Schofield headed nearly due south while McPherson swung far to the right in order to eventually turn and approach Dallas from due west. The huge columns of massed Union infantry in a front nearly 20 miles wide were hard to conceal, and the move west was soon discovered by scouts from Major General Joseph Wheeler’s cavalry corps. By the afternoon of May 23, Johnston ordered Hardee to a good defensive ground just east of Dallas and Polk to a tiny crossroads nearby called New Hope (some maps label it New Hope Church). Hood remained entrenched at Allatoona Gap overnight and was then ordered to New Hope when Johnston realized that all the Union forces were headed toward Dallas. On his arrival, Polk shifted his men slightly to the west, tying in with Hardee and forming a strong defensive line nearly 4 miles long from directly south of Dallas to 1 mile east of New Hope in the vicinity of a small community called Pickett’s Mill.
Hood settled into line just before the forward Union skirmishers and scouts came into view. For the South, Major General Carter L. Stevenson’s division set up on the right, Major General Thomas C. Hindman’s division in the slightly higher ground on the left, and Major General Alexander P. Stewart’s division deployed directly in front of the small log New Hope Church in the center. Just before 10 a.m. on May 25, Confederate skirmishers about a mile in front of their own lines encountered the forward elements of Hooker’s XX Army Corps rapidly marching toward New Hope. They attempted to burn a bridge over Pumpkinvine Creek to set up a delaying action, but they were quickly overrun by Brigadier General John W. Geary’s 2nd (Union) Division.
Warned that action was imminent, Stewart deployed his men in line astride the crossroads, ordering them to dig in as rapidly as possible. Stovall’s Georgia Brigade was positioned on an open hilltop in the midst of the church’s graveyard and was unable or unwilling to dig in at all, but Brigadier General Henry D. Clayton’s and Brigadier General Alpheus Baker’s Alabama Brigades in the center and right of the line threw up hasty but strong works of felled trees and earthen embankments. Sixteen guns from Captain McDonald Oliver’s Eufaula Alabama Battery and Captain Charles E. Fenner’s Louisiana Battery were massed within Stewart’s roughly half-mile front.
Sherman ordered Hooker to push through what he believed was a small force and march directly to Dallas, remarking, “There haven’t been twenty rebels there today.” Just before 4 p.m. a severe thunderstorm blew in over the battleground. Marching steadily on through the mounting wind and pounding thunder came Geary’s 2nd Division, with Major General Daniel Butterfield’s 3rd Division to his left and Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams’s 1st Division on his right, all spread across a half-mile front in column formation and bearing down directly on the massed Confederate front of Stewart’s division. The natural earth- and timber works, combined with the very thick underbrush, served to conceal the strength of the Confederate line from the Union attackers.
Just after 5 p.m., as Geary’s skirmishers drove back Hood’s, Union buglers sounded out the call to go forward double-quick. Stumbling and falling through the thick brush and unable to see what lay ahead, the men from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York hoped to brush straight through what they believed was a weak line of Confederate militiamen and detached infantry brigades. Just as the monsoon-force rains began, Williams’s men broke out of the thickest part of the woods and rushed straight for the Confederate line.
Stewart had wisely ordered the artillery to load with double canister and positioned his 4,000 men nearly shoulder to shoulder on a very tight front, anticipating quite accurately that Hooker would be packed in heavy infantry formations on his approach. As lightning crackled all around and sheets of rain poured down, the shouting mass of more than 16,000 blue-coated infantry burst into sight less than 100 feet in front of his lines. Immediately the Confederate line opened up and disappeared again in a thick cloud of bluish-gray rifle and cannon smoke. Williams’s men took the brunt of the concentrated fire, losing most of his more than 800 casualties in the first 10 minutes of battle.
For more than three hours this one-sided slaughter went on into the dark and stormy evening. Geary, Butterfield, and Williams all ordered assault after assault, trying to break through what was more and more obviously the main Confederate Army line, only to be thrown back each time by murderous artillery and rifle fire. Stewart’s Confederate forces started running out of ammunition, the 60-round-per-man standard issue being depleted in as little as 30 minutes in some cases. Stewart brought his reserve forces in line primarily for their ammunition supply, and runners searched the wounded and dead for any extra cartridges. The Union’s Hooker finally admitted defeat at about 7:30 p.m., pulling his men back a short distance to dig in for the night, while rebel yells and catcalls greeted their retreat.
Throughout the long night, as Union men dug in with shovels, bayonets, tin cups, or bare hands, sporadic rifle and artillery fire broke out, but no further assaults by either side were mounted. Hooker’s command had lost more than 1,600 men in the short fight (most references back up this figure, but one source claims fewer than 700), while Confederate losses amounted to “between 300 and 400” as reported by Stewart. One bitter Union infantryman remarked that Hooker had sent them into a “hell hole”; the name sticks as a common reference to the brutal fight there and at Pickett’s Mill.
After the pasting he received at New Hope Church, Sherman returned to his standard tactic of rapid flanking maneuvers, and ordered three divisions under the direct command of Howard to the far left in an attempt to turn the Confederate right. Johnston soon learned of the flanking attempt and ordered two divisions to shift to the right of Hood’s line, covering the probable Union line of attack. To the far right of the newly extended Confederate line was one of Johnston’s best, Major General Patrick R. Cleburne’s division, which took up position on a hilltop overlooking Pickett’s Mill.
Although his scouts reported fresh earthworks and Howard himself rode forward and observed gray-uniformed troops reinforcing them on the hill before them, the Union commander was somehow convinced that he had reached the flank, or rear, of the Confederate line of battle and possibly believed that only a small picket outpost was entrenching. His uncertainty was obvious in a message sent at about 3:30 p.m.: “I am now turning the enemy’s right flank, I think.” Just after noon on May 27, Howard brought his three divisions in line of attack on a hilltop just north of the small mill community, again forming the men into the same narrow, deep, heavy infantry formations that had failed so miserably two days earlier at New Hope Church.
At this point, the Confederate line curved to the east following the ridgeline atop a low rounded hill overlooking a steep, densely overgrown ravine. As the battle unfolded, two brigades of Cleburne’s force were shifted to the far right of the line, refusing at right angles to the line so as to prevent any possibility of being flanked.
At 4:30 p.m. the Union line, or at least most of them, stepped off into the thick, entangling underbrush. There were very serious communication and land navigation problems, and one brigade ended up marching completely away from the growing sounds of battle “to get rations.” That particular brigade’s commander, Brigadier General Nathaniel McLean of Kentucky, was a political enemy of Howard’s, and on that day chose a particularly poor way of demonstrating his contempt.
Howard’s leading brigade, commanded by Brigadier General William B. Hazen’s 2nd Brigade (of Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood’s 3rd Division, Howard’s IV Army Corps), easily drove away the Confederate pickets and moved into the ravine. The growth was so thick that the colors had to be encased to prevent them from being torn to pieces, and Hazen was forced to resort to his compass to keep moving in the right direction. Emerging suddenly in an open field, his troops first encountered a weak skirmish line of about a thousand dismounted cavalrymen from Brigadier General John Kelly’s and Brigadier General William Hume’s Confederate cavalry divisions, whom they mistook for unentrenched infantry. Steadily overpowering the cavalrymen, Hazen’s men rushed cheering across the open ground upward to what they thought was an undefended rocky ridgeline. Just before gaining the heights, Brigadier General Hiram M. Granbury’s Texas Brigade suddenly appeared in view and began pouring a galling fire into the face of the onrushing Union line.
Hazen’s men kept up the pressure, although suffering appalling casualties from a two-gun battery to their right at the point of the ravine (part of Captain Thomas J. Key’s Arkansas Battery) and from two more regiments rushing in to support Granbury, Colonel George Baucum’s 8th/19th Arkansas Consolidated Regiment to his left and Brigadier General Mark P. Lowrey’s Alabama-Mississippi Brigade to his right. Hazen managed to stay in the fight for about 50 minutes before being forced to withdraw, leaving his more than 500 wounded and dead in place in the open ravine.
As Hazen withdrew, Colonel William H. Gibson’s 1st Brigade advanced over nearly the same ground and met the same fate. Far from hitting a weakened Confederate line, as Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood (3rd Division commander) had hoped, Gibson’s men advanced as far as the Confederate line itself before being thrown violently back. Roughly an hour of combat resulted in nothing more than an additional 687 Union casualties. Another brigade, Colonel Frederick Knefler’s 3rd, was sent in at about 6:30 p.m. in order to cover Gibson’s retreat and to recover as many wounded as possible. They too were subjected to intense, nearly point-blank fire from the Confederate positions as soon as they entered the entangled ravine and withdrew in short order.
The major assaults ended by 7 p.m., but occasional firefights erupted until 10 p.m., when Granbury was ordered to “clear his front.” The Texans fixed bayonets and, with wild rebel yells, charged forward into the darkened ravine, killing or capturing many of the remaining Union troops. The remaining Union troops either “skedaddled” or “retreated in good order, with no pursuit [by the Texans] even being attempted,” depending on whose account you read. Both sides encamped in place for the night after the firing died down at about 11 p.m., their attention still fixed on the body-strewn battleground eerily lit by dead pine trees set afire during the hot exchange.
Union losses for the day’s action totaled 1,689 killed, wounded, captured, or missing, while Cleburne reported only 398 killed or wounded. This failed action so upset Sherman that he apparently completely “forgot” it in both his official report and his postwar memoirs.
The following day, May 28, 1864, Sherman finally decided that this westward flanking movement was getting him nowhere quick. Short on rations, his lines stretched nearly to the breaking point, trying to hold the entire 5-mile line of battle from south of Dallas to northeast of Pickett’s Mill, as well as the lines of communication necessary to protect their supply line back to the railroad north of Allatoona. He ordered a gradual shifting motion of the line east toward Kennesaw and Marietta and sent his cavalry to capture Allatoona Gap itself. Johnston soon learned of this movement and ordered an attack on the Union right, straight toward Dallas itself, but was repulsed with no positive effects on the Union movement and at the cost of more than 600 casualties.
By the first of June, Sherman had begun massing his armies at Big Shanty (now called Kennesaw) and made preparations to strike straight for the Chattahoochee River. In between stood the twin peaks of Kennesaw Mountain and Johnston’s entire combat force. Johnston initially arranged his 65,000 troops in a thin, 10-mile-long line of battle that stretched from Brushy Mountain on the east to Lost Mountain on the west, about 3 miles northwest of Kennesaw Mountain itself. This line was known as both the Lost Mountain and First Kennesaw line.
In the late morning of June 14, 1864, Johnston, accompanied by Hardee, Polk, and several other general officers, climbed to the crest of Pine Mountain, in the rough center of the line. While observing the Union positions as related to their own lines, they were spotted by a Union artillery battery posted less than a half-mile away, which immediately opened fire. The first round scattered the distinguished crowd; poor old, fat, and slow General Leonidas K. Polk, the Louisiana Episcopalian bishop, was struck directly in the chest by the second Parrott shot and died instantly.
Lost Mountain
After heavy attacks on June 14, 15, and 17, Johnston realized his men were spread much too thinly and withdrew 2 miles to the southeast quietly during the pitch-black night and heavy rains of June 18. There he heavily entrenched from the railroad to the right, up across Kennesaw Mountain, Little Kennesaw Mountain, and Pigeon Hill, and left over a low ridge later known as Cheatham Hill. This strong, compact 6-mile-long Kennesaw or Second Kennesaw line was reinforced by artillery batteries placed on the heights, and cavalry placed on both flanks. One Union officer noted that the natural barricade of the mountain seemed purposefully made to stop any attacking army. The sides facing the Union troops were steep and boulder-strewn, and most of the rest was covered with thick scrub brush. Confederate engineers cleared the peaks of trees and brush to serve as signal and artillery stations. The main entrenchments were dug at the proper military crests, with a series of screening entrenchments and rifle pits before them at the mountain base.
Cannon were hauled by hand up the steep slopes, 100 men per gun pulling, tugging, and cursing all the way. Eventually, two four-gun batteries were established on Pigeon Hill, one four-gun battery on the north end of Big Kennesaw (nearest present-day US 41), another nearly on the peak, and nine guns atop Little Kennesaw. Before they were even completely emplaced, firing erupted between them and newly arriving Union batteries.
As soon as each of his Union forces moved up into position, Sherman ordered constant probing and skirmish actions, trying to keep the pressure on until a weakness was revealed. One spot in the Kennesaw line, a small hilltop called Bald Knob, lay just outside the main Confederate defensive position between Pigeon and Cheatham Hills, held by a Kentucky unit of the Orphan Brigade, famous for its ferocity in battle, perhaps because their home state was held by the Union and they were unable to return there on leave throughout the war. After repeated assaults throughout much of the morning and early afternoon of June 20, two brigades of Major General David S. Stanley’s 1st Division (Howard’s IV Army Corps, Union Army) managed to wrest control of the small outpost. In a rather bizarre move, later that evening, one brigade was withdrawn when its commander thought that a relieving force had arrived. The Kentuckians quickly realized what had happened and moved back into their old positions, just as the Union troops realized their mistake and hastened back to the same spot. Just as the Union men jumped down into the trenches, the Kentuckians popped up and began shooting at point-blank range. A few minutes of swirling, confused carnage, which resulted in possibly more than one instance of “friendly fire” casualties, and the hill was left in Confederate control once again.
Impatient as ever, Sherman saw that his probing actions were gaining nothing, so once again he returned to his classic flanking moves. Hooker’s XX and Schofield’s XXIII Army Corps were both sent on a sweeping movement to the south of the Kennesaw line to attempt to gain Marietta and cut off the Confederate line of retreat. Johnston’s near-supernatural ability to “read” Sherman’s intentions came to his aid once again; through a pounding thunderstorm on the night of June 21, Hood’s entire corps marched from the far right of the line to the far left, consolidating and entrenching across the path of the approaching Union troops on Powder Springs Road.
As the Union troops prodded and advanced down that road on the afternoon of June 22, the South’s Hood suddenly decided to abandon his fairly strong defensive position to risk it all on a full-force assault. Hindman’s division into the north and Stevenson’s division on the left suddenly burst out of the thick woods into an open plain near Kolb’s Farm, heading straight into the massed fire of more than 40 Union artillery pieces. The attack gained nothing, falling apart before coming within rifle range of the hastily dug Union lines. The shattered remnants of Stevenson’s division attempted to take refuge in a shallow creekbed, where they were continuously raked by artillery fire until able to pull back after dark.
This attack further strained relations between Hood and Johnston, which had not been very healthy to begin with. Johnston issued a sharp reprimand for attacking without orders, which Hood responded to with yet another letter to Jefferson Davis, complaining about the strategy being used. Strangely, reprimands were issued on the Union side as well, for Hooker reported that during the short battle “three entire corps are in front of us,” Johnston’s entire force strength at that time. Sherman was not amused by this report, and it didn’t help that Hooker and Sherman got along no better than their Confederate counterparts.
With his probing actions indecisive and his flanking maneuver halted at Kolb’s Farm, Sherman chose yet another tactic. Tiring of the way Johnston constantly slipped out of his flanking attacks, and possibly hoping to destroy the Confederate Army of Tennessee in one huge battle, he issued the order for a direct assault on the entrenchments of the Kennesaw line itself, to begin at 8 a.m. on June 27. McPherson was ordered to attack the southern side of the mountain, Thomas was ordered to attack south of the Dallas road in support of McPherson, and Schofield was directed to feint south of Kolb’s Farm as a diversion.
Artist Alfred R. Waud’s drawing of the bombardment on Kennesaw Mountain, June 27, 1864
At 9 a.m. on the hot morning of the 27th, three brigades of McPherson’s corps stepped up onto the steep slopes of Pigeon Hill, straight into the rocky fortifications. Surprisingly, some made it far enough up the hill through increasingly heavy fire to engage in hand-to-hand combat atop the entrenchments before being forced back under heavy artillery fire. Union losses in this futile attack were more than 850, with Confederate losses described as “about 250.”
Thomas chose to concentrate his attack against a salient in the Confederate line nearly 3 miles south of Pigeon Hill, later famous as the “Dead Angle.” Believing that one mighty push would drive out the heavily entrenched Confederates of Cheatham’s and Cleburne’s divisions, he decided on the little-used heavy infantry formations. The five attacking brigades (from the Union right to left) were: Colonel John G. Mitchell’s 2nd and Colonel Daniel McCook’s 3rd—both of Davis’s 2nd Division, XIV Corps; and Brigadier General Charles G. Harker’s 3rd, Brigadier General George D. Wagner’s 2nd, and Brigadier General Nathan Kimball’s 1st—all of Brigadier General John Newton’s 2nd Division, IV Corps). They spread out across a 200-yard front (1,500 to 2,000 yards was more normal) with about 10 yards between each brigade. The overwhelming fire from the Confederate line proved so intense that the 10-yard interval gradually closed until all five brigades ended up attacking as a single mass, 12 ranks deep. An absolute slaughter ensued as every artillery piece and rifle within range concentrated on the 1,000-yard front line. One Confederate observer atop Kennesaw Mountain mentioned that as the massed Union troops approached the entrenchments, they “seemed to melt away, or sink to the earth, to rise no more.”
With so much fire coming within such a confined area, soon the dead leaves and underbrush were set afire, threatening to burn alive the wounded. Just to the right of the salient, Colonel William H. Martin of the South’s 1st/15th Arkansas Regiments ran to the top of a breastwork and, waving a white flag, shouted that he was proposing a cease-fire while the fire was put out and the wounded moved. In what was surely a bizarre scene, Union and Confederates laid down their arms and worked side by side for a few minutes. Several reports mention that the Confederates “moved” whatever Union guns and ammunition they could get ahold of as well. With the fire out and the wounded safely moved, both sides returned to their weapons, and the slaughter renewed.
By nightfall, most Union units had been completely thrown back; those few left under some protection of the hilly terrain would stay within rock-throwing distance for the next six days and keep up a constant sniping harassment. Private Sam Watkins, a self-described “high-private” with the 1st/27th Tennessee Infantry Regiment (the Maury Grays) at the Dead Angle, described his feelings when the last Union attack of the day was finally repulsed:
I never saw so many broken-down and exhausted men in my life. I was as sick as a horse, and as wet with blood and sweat as I could be, and many of our men were vomiting with excessive fatigue, over-exhaustion and sunstroke; our tongues were parched and cracked for water, and our faces blackened with powder and smoke, and our dead and wounded were piled indiscriminately in the trenches. There was not a single man in the company who was not wounded or had holes shot through his hat and clothing.
The only gain of the entire day’s action, ironically, was Schofield’s diversionary attack to the south, which managed to get between Johnston’s line and the Chattahoochee River while the Confederate forces were distracted by the main attack. Sherman was enraged over the failure to break the Confederate lines, however, and seriously contemplated ordering further attacks the next day. Thomas brought him back to reality by informing him that “one or two more such assaults would use up this army.” Sherman finally relented and reported in a cable to Washington that night that his attack had failed and that he had suffered “about 3,000 casualties.” Several reports dispute this figure, placing it closer to 7,000 or even 7,500. Included in this number were Brigadier General Harker and Colonel McCook, both killed in the assault on the Dead Angle, along with the death or wounding of nine other Union brigade and regimental commanders at this small place. Confederate losses for the day were placed at just under 1,000.
General Sherman and his troops at Kennesaw Mountain
After his stunning defeat at Kennesaw Mountain, Sherman required more than a week just to regroup and resupply his demoralized soldiers. On July 1 he abandoned for good his frontal assault tactics on entrenchments and planned another flanking maneuver to the south and east to try once again to bypass Johnston and gain Marietta. Once again, Johnston’s scouts observed the huge army getting under way before any real progress could be made. With no real natural defensive barrier to help stop the numerically superior Union Army, Johnston decided to abandon Marietta and fall back across the wide, shallow Chattahoochee River, burning or destroying whatever supplies and equipment Sherman might find useful along the way.
By the afternoon of July 2, Johnston set up a new line of defense at the small town of Smyrna, just northwest of the Chattahoochee, while his main body crossed to the south bank. This line collapsed in less than a day of heavy skirmishing with forward elements of the Union line, and by the next afternoon Johnston pulled back to his last line of entrenchments north of the river.
Governor Joseph E. Brown of Georgia had repeatedly offered both his militia and his own “private army,” the Georgia State Line, to Johnston for front-line service. Accepting them in May, just after the New Hope Church battle, both units had proven capable fighters in the line, although very unpolished. Private Sam Watkins gave a vivid description of their arrival:
By way of grim jest, and a fitting burlesque to tragic scenes, or, rather, to the thing called “glorious war,” old Joe Brown, then Governor of Georgia, sent in his militia. It was the richest picture of an army I ever saw … Every one was dressed in citizen’s clothes, and the very best they had at that time. A few had double-barreled shotguns, but the majority had umbrellas and walking sticks, and nearly every one had on a duster, a flat-bosomed “biled” shirt, and a plug hat; and to make the thing more ridiculous, the dwarf and the giant were marching side by side; the knock-kneed by the side of the bow-legged; the driven-in by the side of the drawn-out; the pale and sallow dyspeptic, who looked like Alex. Stephens, and who seemed to have just been taken out of a chimney that smoked very badly, and whose diet was goobers and sweet potatoes, was placed beside the three hundred-pounder, who was dressed up to kill …
After failing to hold the line at nearby Smyrna, Johnston was desperate to get his forces intact across the Chattahoochee, into the northern fringes of Atlanta, and to escape the overpowering Union frontal assault. He ordered the few thousand men of the Georgia Militia under General Gustavus Smith to dig in on his left at hastily constructed trench lines on a steep hillside just below Smyrna, on the north bank of the Chattahoochee, near the small Nickajack Creek. This near-suicidal and expendable position directly confronted the full-corps–strength vanguard of Sherman’s army. With the Union forces bearing down rapidly, the 1st Regiment of the Georgia State Line under Colonel Edward M. Galt was sent in to reinforce the line on July 4. Relieving the militia at the forward primary fighting positions, the State Line troopers barely got into place before forward elements of Palmer’s XIV Army Corps began their assault.
Palmer soon reported fierce resistance in this line, but Sherman was convinced that it represented a token rear-guard action while Johnston retreated across the river. Believing the line could be easily brushed aside, he ordered Palmer to “fiercely assault” the line with everything he had, nearly 20,000 men at that point. The total combat-effective manpower available to the State Line by this time was about 300, with the 2,000- to 4,000-strong Georgia Militia acting as reserves (most were not quite fit for even that duty) and one four-gun battery of artillery for support. Palmer’s men assaulted and skirmished with the troopers all through the day of July 5 without result, until Sherman personally came up to reconnoiter.
Upon seeing the strength of the State Line’s redoubts, he called off the attack, stating later that it represented “the best line of field entrenchments I have ever seen.” Impressed with the fighting resistance of Joe Brown’s Pets and worried that to continue the frontal attack would result in another disaster like Kennesaw Mountain, Sherman instead sent part of his army far to the left to cross the river at an unguarded site.
Finding nearly all the ferries and pontoon bridges out due to the high water caused by weeks of heavy rains, and what bridges remaining either heavily defended or burned, Sherman was hard pressed to find a crossing that wouldn’t result in losing most of his army in the muddy water.
Garrard’s 2nd Division Cavalry (of Brigadier General Washington Elliott’s Cavalry Corps, Schofield’s XXIII Army Corps) rode about 15 miles to the north and quickly captured the small town of Roswell, overlooking the Chattahoochee River. He found the bridge there burned but identified several spots nearby where the river could be safely forded. He was ordered to keep watch for Confederate movements and to stay concealed until the main force arrived. With Major General George Stoneman’s cavalry division ranging as far south as Sandtown, McPherson’s corps feinting to the right, and Thomas’s corps keeping the pressure on the river line, Schofield’s corps quickly moved upriver on July 8 to find the best crossing site.
Roswell was a small but productive mill town, making uniforms, blankets, and other textile goods for the Confederacy. Even as word of approaching Union troops caused townspeople to leave in a panic, work continued in the mill. The wealthy and prominent Barrington King family, now headed at high speed away from the town, conferred the “ownership” of the property on the shoulders of one Theophilus Roche, a French citizen and relatively new employee of the mill. One story holds that Roche was in fact the mill’s janitor. As the lead scouts of Garrard’s cavalry approached, Roche ordered the Confederate national flag hauled down and replaced with the French tricolor.
Details on what happened next are poorly documented, but it is clear that this attempt to claim foreign ownership of what was obviously a Confederate-supporting mill failed to impress the Union officers on the scene. Claiming they were acting on direct orders from Sherman (a point somewhat in dispute), the mostly women and children employees of the mill were arrested as traitors and sent under guard of a cavalry attachment to Marietta, while the mill and associated buildings were burned to the ground. Underscoring what must have been a horribly frightening and humiliating action for the women, several sources quote the Union cavalrymen escorts commenting on the “fine good looks” of the Roswell women, as pointedly different from the “fearfully homely” women they had seen elsewhere in northern Georgia. Once at Marietta, these women and children were grouped with other evacuees from the destroyed mill town of New Manchester and placed on northbound trains, ending up in Ohio and Indiana. Some records claim these women were placed in Northern prison camps in those states, while other records claim that they were “dumped out by the side of the [railroad] tracks,” while still other records indicate that Northern families ended up taking in most or all of them.
By nightfall the entire division was across, and with the news of the Union Army on the south bank, Johnston decided his only recourse was to once again retreat. Abandoning the river line to Sherman, Johnston pulled his forces back south of Peachtree Creek, on the very doorstep of Atlanta itself. In a little more than 60 days, the hardened rebel force had been forced back from no less than eight strongly prepared defensive lines by Sherman’s flanking movements and made to surrender all of northern Georgia.
Without further resistance to his river crossing, Sherman paused only long enough to rebuild pontoon and railroad bridges before striking south again. On July 11 McPherson was sent eastward toward Decatur and Stone Mountain with orders to cut the railway between Atlanta and Augusta. Sherman’s greatest fear at this point was that Johnston would receive reinforcements by rail from Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Thomas was sent south toward Peachtree Creek with Schofield marching just to his right, headed toward Buckhead.
Johnston carefully noted the Union approach and planned to wait until close contact was established and then to attack the gap between Thomas and Schofield before they were deployed for the fight. Before he could carry out this attack, Jefferson Davis fired Johnston in one of the worst decisions of the war. Late in the afternoon of July 17, Hood was promoted to general and given command of the entire Army of Tennessee. Just 33 years old and considered a hotheaded division-level commander who was already out of his league as high as the corps level, the move delighted no one more than Sherman. In his postwar memoirs he mentioned, “I was always anxious with Johnston at my front.” He knew Hood was rash and prone to ordering ill-timed and poorly planned movements, and was anxious for him to do so before Atlanta. It would be much better to destroy the Confederate forces in the field and then easily take the vital transportation and supply center than to be forced to assault heavily fortified defenses.
Least happy of all were the Confederate soldiers, who had loved Johnston for his humane treatment of them and feared Hood would kill them all off in ill-considered battles. Private Sam Watkins said Johnston’s removal was “like the successful gambler, flushed with continual winnings, who staked his all and lost. It was like the end of the Southern Confederacy.”
The day after Hood took command, Union infantrymen of Palmer’s XIV Army Corps advanced through heavy resistance by Wheeler’s cavalry to the northern banks of Peachtree Creek, near Howell Mill Road. At just about the same time, Garrard’s cavalry supported by McPherson’s infantry reached the Georgia Railroad and captured the railroad depot at Stone Mountain, 15 miles east of Atlanta. On July 19 three brigades of Palmer’s XIV Army Corps forced a crossing of Peachtree Creek toward Moore’s Mill, followed by other crossings under fire by elements of Howard’s IV Army Corps near Peachtree Road and Hooker’s XX Army Corps near Collier Road. By nightfall the Union forces formed a solid line of blue-coated infantry on the south banks of Peachtree Creek itself, facing due south toward the Confederate line arranged atop low hills about a half-mile away.
Federal picket just before the Battle of Atlanta, July 22, 1864
Pleased with the progress of his subordinates, Sherman ordered Thomas to cross Peachtree Creek and engage Hood, Schofield to capture Decatur, and McPherson to advance toward Atlanta, tearing up the railroad tracks along the way. Obsessed with detail, Sherman sent word on exactly how he wanted the tracks torn up: “Pile the ties into shape for a bonfire, put the rails across and when red hot in the middle, let a man at each end twist the bar so that its surface becomes spiral.” Hood had a reputation as a battlefield brawler, and he wasted little time going on the offensive. A general attack was ordered at about 1 p.m. on July 20, intended to drive the dug-in Union infantry back across the creek and as far as the banks of the Chattahoochee River. Before the attack could commence, Hood ordered the entire line to shift a little less than 1 mile to the east, to protect his right flank from counterattack. Despite the fact that this movement threw the whole line into disarray and caused a general confusion as to exactly where they were to advance, he ordered the attack to begin at 4 p.m.
Sherman’s men tearing up railroad tracks near Atlanta
At about 2:45 p.m., Major General William W. Loring’s division (Stewart’s corps) stepped off, almost immediately encountering Union infantry and mistakenly initiating battle action in the center of the line. Major General William B. Bates’s division of Hardee’s corps, ordered to begin the general assault from the extreme right of the Confederate lines, didn’t actually move out until nearly a half-hour later. The rest of the 2-mile-long line followed in piecemeal, advancing more in small groups and masses than in well-formed lines, a result of the uneven terrain and thick underbrush.
The only real success of the entire assault was made by Brigadier General Thomas M. Scott’s brigade (Stewart’s corps) of mostly Alabama troops, who advanced through the Tanyard Branch and Collier Road vicinity, attacked, drove off, and captured the Union flag of Colonel Patrick H. Jones’s 33rd New Jersey Infantry Regiment (Geary’s 2nd Division, Hooker’s XX Army Corps) as well as a four-gun artillery battery. Scott’s men were soon forced to withdraw, as no other unit was able to break through to support them on either flank.
No other unit achieved even that modest of a success, and the entire attack was over with and all units back in their original positions by 6 that evening. The well-positioned Union forces had handed the advancing Confederates quite a mauling. Although the numbers engaged were fairly even—21,450 Union to 18,450 Confederate—casualties were much more one-sided: 1,780 Union to 4,800 Confederate. Hood’s first outing as an army commander was an unqualified disaster.
To add insult to injury, shortly before noon on July 20, Union soldiers led by Captain Francis DeGress set up four 20-pounder Parrott rifles and soon began firing the first of thousands of artillery shells into the Gate City itself. The first shell exploded at the intersection of Ivy and East Ellis Streets, killing a young girl who had been walking with her parents past Frank P. Rice’s lumber dealership on the northwest corner. Shelling continued for several weeks at the rate of one round every 15 minutes, more as a harassment and reminder of the siege conditions than as a real destruction attempt. The DeGress battery would soon be the very object and center of fighting for the city.
Death of General James B. McPherson at the Battle of Atlanta
Before the fighting died down at Peachtree Creek, Sherman was massing his forces for the next assault. McPherson’s three corps were set in motion down the Georgia Railroad to attack Atlanta from the east, while Thomas and Schofield were ordered to close up and keep as much pressure on the Confederates as possible. By late in the day on July 20, forward elements of Major General Frank P. Blair’s XVII Army Corps had engaged Wheeler’s dismounted cavalry on a small hilltop 2 miles to the east of Atlanta. Heavy combat erupted as the two lines collided, until the overwhelmed Southern cavalrymen withdrew about midnight.
Realizing the tactical importance of a ridge known as Bald Hill, in the early morning of July 21, Blair sent in Brigadier General Mortimer D. Leggett’s 3rd Division and Brigadier General Giles A. Smith’s 4th Division against Cleburne’s division, which had replaced the decimated cavalrymen. Cleburne’s men had spent the night reinforcing the hilltop position but were unable to stop the Union assault. The Confederates withdrew slightly and then spent most of the rest of the day attempting to retake the hill. While the battle raged on, Blair ordered up his artillery and set his guns into newly reversed entrenchments, bringing Atlanta itself within good artillery range for the first time. In honor of his heroics, the hilltop was renamed Leggett’s Hill, a moniker that some maps still bear today.
Hood had no intention of pursuing the same sort of well-planned-out, plodding, and slow retreat defense that Johnston utilized, and he saw an opportunity for offensive action against McPherson. Withdrawing Stewart’s corps and the Georgia Militia to the strongly fortified positions in the outer ring of defenses around Atlanta, he ordered Hardee’s corps on an all-night forced march. Moving due south down Peachtree Street through the middle of town (and panicking the civilians, who believed their entire army was deserting them), they swung eastward toward Decatur, attempting to get behind Blair’s corps lines before moving north into the line of battle. Cleburne’s division withdrew with some difficulty from the Leggett’s Hill action and joined Hardee’s march. At the same time, two divisions of Wheeler’s cavalry were sent around the Union left flank to attempt a strike at their supply wagons in Decatur.
To the lowly infantryman, this brilliant plan must have lost some of its luster. Having been in action off and on for more than two months, they had pulled back time after time only to spend hours in backbreaking labor—digging in and reinforcing when they arrived at new positions, for “spades is trumps,” as the men said. Then, after doing this again and again with inadequate rest and dwindling supplies, they were ordered up on the line of battle only to be violently thrown back with heavy losses. Within hours of battle once more the order was given to withdraw and now to go immediately into an all-night march. Without a doubt this was nearly more than the poorly supplied, hungry, and thirsty men could endure.
Brigadier General Daniel C. Govan of Cleburne’s division, Confederate Army, was equally unimpressed, deathly worried that “the loss of another night’s rest was a heavy tax upon their powers of endurance.” Hundreds of soldiers simply plopped down on the side of the road, unable to go any farther, until at last a two-hour rest was called. Hood intended for the attack to begin at daylight, but it became apparent that any possible attack could be launched no earlier than noon.
Unknown to the Confederates, McPherson was worried that they would attempt this exact movement and ordered his lines extended and turned to the south. Dodge’s XVI Army Corps was ordered in to Blair’s left, facing southeast and entrenching as had become the norm. At McPherson’s urging, Blair’s men heavily entrenched and blocked lanes of approach before them.
By the morning of July 22, Hardee’s men had trudged down the McDonough Road south of Atlanta and then turned to the northeast on the Fayetteville Road toward Decatur. Still trying to make up time lost on the rest stops, Hardee ordered Cleburne’s and Brigadier General George E. Maney’s divisions to begin deploying to the left when they reached Bouldercrest Road (now Drive), while Bates’s and Major General William H. T. Walker’s divisions continued on up the road before turning left on what is today called Wilkinson Drive. Both of these moves into line were short of their original goals.
Presently running into a large millpond their guides had repeatedly warned them about, Walker’s and Bates’s divisions wandered around through the thick forest for nearly an hour, trying to sort themselves out and get into the line of battle. As Walker roundly cursed their guides, grumbling that they must be “traitors” to allow him to get himself in such a fix, he raised his field glasses to try to figure out his next move. A nearby Union picket spotted Walker and killed him with a single, well-aimed shot.
Walker’s place was taken over by Brigadier General Hugh W. Mercer, and the planned dawn attack commenced after more confusion and shifting troops at about 12:15 p.m. On advancing to the planned line of departure near the present-day intersection of Memorial Drive and Clay Street, the Confederates discovered to their horror that, far from being in the Union rear, they were advancing straight into a heavily invested front-line position. Pressing forward under intense fire from Sweeney’s 2nd Division (Dodge’s XVI Army Corps), they were immediately raked by fire from two well-sited artillery positions: one six-gun, 12-pounder Napoleon battery (Lieutenant Andrew T. Blodgett’s 1st Missouri Light Battery) and one six-gun, 3-inch ordnance rifle battery (Captain Jerome M. Burrows’s 14th Ohio Light Battery, noted as being replaced in command by Lieutenant Seith M. Laird in a few accounts).
About 30 minutes later, Cleburne’s and Maney’s divisions launched their attack to the left of the ongoing fight, straight into the “bend” of the Union line held by Giles Smith’s 4th Division (Blair’s XVII Army Corps). This attack was much more successful, driving the Union line all the way north to Leggett’s Hill and capturing an entire infantry regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Addison H. Sander’s 16th Iowa) and eight artillery pieces.
McPherson had been eating lunch with his staff and corps commanders less than a mile away when he heard the sudden crash of artillery fire. He hastily mounted his horse and rode south with a small group of officers to check on the situation, pausing atop a nearby hill. From there he could see that Sweeney’s division was holding up well, but he couldn’t see the situation on the other end of the line. Striking out immediately for the spot between the two Confederate assaults, he realized that his line was not continuous in that area and quickly ordered up more troops to fill the gap. Riding through the unmanned gap toward Giles Smith’s position, his party suddenly burst out of the heavy forest into a clearing, coming face-to-face with the advancing 5th Confederate Regiment (Captain Richard Beard’s Tennessee). The Confederates called on him to surrender, but in an attempt to escape, he wheeled his horse around, raised his hat in salute, and galloped off toward the tree line. A single shot fired by Corporal Robert F. Coleman tore through McPherson’s lungs, killing him instantly.
Hood finally realized that the Union left flank was engaged, not the rear as planned, and ordered Cheatham’s corps out of the east Atlanta defense line and in to assault the entrenched Union main line. At the same time, Maney’s division was ordered to break off and move to Cleburne’s left, where they could support Cheatham’s attack. Maney’s division started their assault at about 3:30 p.m. Cheatham’s corps moved out a half-hour later, possibly due to a confusion over orders. Once again Leggett’s Hill was in the center of much of the action, but the repeated Confederate assaults failed to regain control of it.
A marker on the spot where General McPherson was killed
The general assault found a weak spot at the Union position held by Brigadier General Joseph Lightburn’s 2nd Brigade (Brigadier General Morgan L. Smith’s 2nd Division, Logan’s XV Army Corps). Brigadier General Arthur M. Manigault’s brigade (of Cheatham’s corps) led the rebel assault, pushing through the railroad cut (near the present-day Inman Park MARTA Station) and capturing the infamous DeGress’s 1st Illinois Light Battery H, consisting of four 20-pounder Parrott rifles that had been cutting them to pieces for hours. They then turned left and scattered four Ohio regiments (the 47th, 54th, 37th, and 53rd, in turn). More Confederate units poured through the opening, capturing another two-gun artillery battery and forcing a total of four Union brigades to retreat from a now nearly half-mile-wide breakthrough.
Sherman, observing from his headquarters in the Augustus Hurt House a little less than a mile to the northwest, ordered Schofield to mass all his artillery (20 guns) at the Confederate breach and Logan to collect eight brigades to fill in the breach. Between the massed artillery and Logan’s strong counterattack, the Confederates were soon forced back into their original positions at a heavy loss.
Wheeler’s cavalry strike at Decatur met with more success, driving back two regiments of infantry and capturing 225 men and an artillery piece, but the troop was ordered back to the west to support Hardee in his attempt to capture or destroy the Union supply train, his main goal.
The day was another unqualified disaster for the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Total casualties ran more than 5,000 (Sherman claimed more than 8,000, but this was no doubt exaggerated) for no gain other than 12 briefly captured artillery pieces that could not even be withdrawn in the retreat, as all the caisson horses had been killed in the action. The Union Army of Tennessee fared little better, giving up no territory but losing 3,722 killed, wounded, or missing.
Four days after the indecisive Battle of Atlanta, on July 26, Major General Oliver O. Howard of the North took over McPherson’s Army of Tennessee and immediately began moving out to the west along the northern arc of Atlanta’s defenses. His targets were the last two open railroads leading into the besieged city, the Macon & Western and the Atlanta & West Point.
Hood soon learned of the Union movement and decided, once again, that it would be a good opportunity to launch an offensive action. He sent his old corps, now under command of Lieutenant General Stephen D. Lee, along with Stewart’s corps, west down Lick Skillet Road (now Gordon Road) to confront Howard at the small crossroads where Ezra Methodist Church stood, before the Union troops could reach the vital railway.
In itself not a bad plan, the only problem was that Howard’s corps had already reached the crossroads, was aware of Hood’s intent, and was entrenching before Lee’s corps ever left the city. As his corps marched out of the Atlanta defenses at about 10 a.m. on July 28, Lee was unaware of the new developments. Brigadier General John C. Brown’s and Major General Henry D. Clayton’s divisions led the Confederate column line. Within a mile or so, Brown encountered elements of Brigadier William H. Jackson’s Cavalry Division, who informed him of the entrenched Yankee lines ahead. Lee made a very poor decision and ordered Brown’s and Clayton’s men to move straight ahead and to assault without wasting time waiting for additional support to come up.
Brown’s division hastily formed in line of battle directly opposite more than three Union brigades of Morgan Smith’s 2nd Division (Logan’s XV Army Corps) and moved forward about 12:30 p.m. Clayton’s division lagged a bit behind, moving through thick forest over to Brown’s right flank, and formed up and moved forward about 10 minutes later, also into about four Union brigades. Both Confederate divisions were assaulting uphill into a barricaded, entrenched line of heavily supplied infantry (the Union troops had been issued 100 rounds per man before the battle, about 40 percent more than usual), and were being thrown into the headlong fight piecemeal as they arrived on scene. To top off the list of problems, the forest in this area was so thick that the assaulting Confederates couldn’t see the Union entrenchment until they were nearly on top of them.
Only one unit managed to break through the Union barricade, Colonel William F. Brantley’s Mississippi brigade over on the extreme left of the Confederate line of assault, but it was soon pushed back by a strong counterattack. The rest of the Confederate line melted away under rifle fire so intense that “no mortal could stand,” as put by Colonel Hugo Wangelin (3rd Brigade Commander, Smith’s 1st Division, Logan’s Corps, Union Army).
Stewart’s corps fared no better on their attempt. Leading the way was Major General Edward C. Walthall’s division moving at the quickstep over the same ground Brown had charged through. Stumbling over the dead and wounded Confederates in the thick forest, his line was repulsed in quick order, and his dead and wounded now laid side by side with his predecessors’. Sporadic skirmishing and sniper fire continued until dark, when the Confederates withdrew into the Atlanta defenses, carrying as many wounded as the exhausted men were able to drag behind them.
Part of the Confederate defenses of Atlanta
For the third straight time in less than 10 days, Hood had wrecked a significant part of his once hardened and capable army by sending them against superior forces who were well-entrenched and better supplied. Total casualty figures for the brief attack are very difficult to accurately assess, as few Confederate records exist, but the Confederates ended with somewhere between 2,500 and 5,000 killed, wounded, or missing, compared to the Union loss of about 600.
Both sides gained and lost something as a result of the 10-day, three-battle campaign around the Atlanta defenses. Sherman failed to take the city proper but did inflict serious damage on the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Hood failed to cripple or even drive back any of the three Union grand armies before him, but he did manage to hold both the city and two of the four railroads supplying it.
Following the battle at Ezra Church, Sherman turned to his cavalry corps to try to cut Hood’s supply line. On July 27 McCook’s 1st Division Cavalry with about 3,500 horsemen moved around the western flank of Atlanta’s defenses, bound for Lovejoy Station about 25 miles south of the city. Later that same day, Garrard’s 2nd Division Cavalry and Stoneman’s cavalry division moved around the eastern line of defense toward the same destination with about 5,000 horsemen. The plan was to tear up the last remaining railroads supplying Atlanta along with their accompanying telegraph lines, then proceed to the Macon and Andersonville prisoner-of-war camps to release the more than 30,000 Union prisoners.
Sherman didn’t have to wait long for word of his “great cavalry raid.” On July 30 McCook’s division was thoroughly routed near Newnan by two cavalry brigades under Wheeler’s personal command, assisted by several infantry units. McCook’s retreat north has been aptly described as “pathetic,” poorly planned, and poorly executed. He managed to both lose most of the prisoners they had captured and be led by other prisoners into ambush after ambush. The fact that the Union cavalrymen would actually ask their Confederate prisoners to act as guides seems almost beyond comprehension, but it did indeed happen, to McCook’s sorrow. The Union commander was finally reduced to calling his commanders together and ordering them to scatter in an “every man for himself” headlong flight back toward the Union lines. McCook and about 1,200 men, the remnants of 10 cavalry regiments and artillery batteries, finally made it back to Marietta six days later.
The next day, Stoneman’s entire force was captured, killed, or scattered at Sunshine Church just north of Macon. Stoneman not only failed to liberate the Union prisoners at Macon and Andersonville, but he also suffered the ignobility of joining their ranks at Macon’s Camp Oglethorpe. Garrard never even left the Atlanta area, where he skirmished with a detachment of Wheeler’s around Flat Rock, 15 miles southeast of Decatur, until pulling back to the main Union line on July 29.
The “great raid” was not only a spectacular Confederate victory, but so many cavalry horses were captured that an entire infantry brigade (Brigadier General Joseph H. Lewis’s Kentucky Orphan) was able to be mounted later in the fall by the Confederacy. Sherman, noted for his extravagant prose in victory, was somewhat more terse in defeat, saying, “On the whole the cavalry raid is not deemed a success.”
Sherman grew more and more frustrated with his inability to pound or starve Hood’s troops out of the city and ordered yet another attack on the remaining railroad tracks to try to force the Confederates out in the open where they could be destroyed once and for all. On August 4 Schofield’s XXIII and Palmer’s XIV Army Corps were ordered to swing around to the southwest and strike toward the two remaining railroad tracks near East Point. Another squabble between officers—this time between Palmer and Schofield over who was the senior officer—delayed the movement for nearly two full days.
Hood got word of the Union movement on August 5 and ordered a new line of emplacements built along the Sandtown Road (now called Cascade Road) and manned by Bates’s division of Hardee’s corps reinforced by a two-gun artillery battery, a brigade of the Georgia Militia, and Brigadier General Lawrence S. Ross’s Texas Cavalry Brigade.
At dawn on August 6, after Sherman harshly reprimanded Palmer for his attitude and the delay it caused (he later stated, “I regard the loss of time this afternoon as equal to the loss of 2,000 men”), Brigadier General Jacob D. Cox’s 3rd Division (Schofield’s XXIII Army Corps) advanced with a 2,500-man front against the now heavily entrenched Confederate left. This attack got within 30 yards of the Confederate line before being broken up by severe losses and thrown back. Several other multi-brigade assaults were attempted with the same result and nearly 400 casualties.
In the midst of all this action, still upset over his argument with Schofield and stinging from Sherman’s rebuke, Major General John M. Palmer tendered his resignation and quit his command. Brigadier General Richard W. Johnson hastily took over command and ordered an immediate assault on the right of the Confederate line. They were no more successful, suffering 200 more casualties for no gain. Total Confederate losses for the day were about 200 and included those captured in their forward skirmish positions in the early part of the battle. Sherman tersely described the action as “a noisy but not bloody battle.”
Frustrated with his inability to cut the rail lines, Sherman pondered his next move. A direct assault on the Atlanta fortifications was completely out of the question. Two, and in some places three, interlocking rings of artillery batteries and infantry parapets surrounded the city a little over a mile out from its center, reinforced by as many as four rows of abatis and long lines of chevaux de frise. These were manned with the tired, hungry, and undersupplied but highly experienced Confederate Army of Tennessee. Planned by Georgia’s chief military engineer, Captain Lemuel P. Grant, and constructed using slave labor from nearby plantations, the fortress city was “too strong to assault and too extensive to invest,” according to Sherman’s own chief of engineers, Captain Orlando M. Poe. Sherman decided to bombard the city into submission.
On August 1 Sherman had ordered Schofield’s artillery to increase their rate of fire, and after the disaster at Utoy Creek, he sent for large artillery guns and plenty of ammunition. Two 30-pounder Parrott rifles were brought in from Chattanooga, specifically for building destruction, and eight huge 4.5-inch siege guns were brought in and mounted by August 8. On August 9 Sherman ordered every battery within range to open fire “and make the inside of Atlanta too hot to be endured.” That day alone more than 5,000 shells slammed into the city’s heart.
Sherman kept up the intense bombardment for more than two weeks, gradually wearing away the strength and endurance of the hollow-eyed soldiers within the city fortifications. Then, suddenly, on August 25 all the guns fell silent. Hood hoped for a moment that Sherman had given up and was withdrawing, but his hopes were dashed when word came of yet another Union flanking attempt. Thomas’s entire Army of the Cumberland and Howard’s Army of Tennessee moved around the right of Atlanta and swept down on the Atlanta & West Point Railroad 9 miles southwest of East Point. Hood could not hope to muster any sort of force to stop them but pulled nearly his entire army out of Atlanta to try to protect the last remaining railway, leaving Stewart’s corps and Smith’s Georgia Militia to hold the city lines.
Realizing that Sherman intended to strike at Jonesboro and cut the railway, after dark on August 30 Hood ordered Hardee’s and Lee’s corps to move hastily to defend the small town. Encountering Union pickets at about 3 a.m. and not wanting to risk a night battle, the two Confederate corps moved slightly to the east, not arriving in line at Jonesboro until just after noon on the 31st. Hood was almost frantic to defend his railroad, sending Hardee message after message to attack “as soon as you can get your troops up.”
At 3 that afternoon, the order came: fix bayonets, up and at ’em, and drive the Yankees from their trenches. The two-corps-wide Confederate assault advancing through open fields and concentrated artillery canister fire into the Union-fortified positions never made it closer than 60 yards at any point before withdrawing. Losses were staggeringly one-sided—at least 1,700 Confederates versus a mere 179 Union killed or wounded.
At the same time, Schofield’s Army of the Ohio, reinforced by Major General David S. Stanley’s IV Army Corps, moved around the southern Atlanta defenses and struck the Macon & Western Railroad near Rough & Ready (now called Mountain View). Quickly overwhelming the small dismounted cavalry unit stationed there, the Union troops quickly ripped up the tracks and moved north toward East Point.
At 6 that evening, Hood ordered Lee’s corps back north to help defend Atlanta against the new attack, leaving Hardee alone in Jonesboro facing three full Union corps. At midnight Hardee sent a message by courier to Hood (the telegraph wire having been cut about 2 p.m.) advising that the attack had failed and Atlanta should be abandoned. Through the rest of the long, hot night his forces shifted around to cover the gaps left by Lee’s departure and to dig in as best they could. All knew their real job was to hold the main Union armies long enough for Hood to get the rest of their forces out of Atlanta.
The last Union attack began at 4 p.m. on September 1, led by two brigades of Brigadier General William P. Carlin’s 1st Division (Brevet Major General Jefferson C. Davis’s XIV Army Corps) and quickly followed by brigade after brigade, division after division, until all three corps were engaged in the assault. Amazingly, although one side of his line caved in and 865 prisoners and two full batteries of artillery were captured, Hardee managed to hold until the attack ended after nightfall. About midnight he withdrew his three remaining divisions south to Lovejoy Station, leaving behind about 1,400 dead and wounded. The Union force fared little better, losing a total of 1,272, but finally taking and cutting the last railway they had sought for so long.
On the morning of September 1, having received Hardee’s dreadful message, Hood at long last ordered the evacuation of the doomed city. With the railway cut, it would be impossible to take much in the way of supplies with them, so warehouses were ordered opened up for the civilians. Stewart’s corps and Smith’s militia began marching out around 5 p.m., with the rear guard, French’s divisional pickets, withdrawing about 11 p.m. Sappers and engineers hastily prepared the abandoned military supplies for destruction. Around midnight a thunderous roar announced the end of a large ammunition train that Hood was unable to withdraw. Sherman heard the blast 15 miles away in his headquarters at Jonesboro and knew he now had the city.
On September 3, 1864, Sherman telegraphed Major General Henry W. Halleck in Washington, “So Atlanta is ours, and fairly won.”
Hood managed to slip away with his forces more or less intact, what remained of them, after blowing up his large ammunition train and abandoning warehouses full of supplies. No complete records exist, but somewhere close to 30,000 tired, starving, and ill-equipped troops were left to carry out Hood’s desperate plan to strike at the Union rear. Well over 81,000 troops were still available to Sherman, who decided not to follow and finish off the badly mauled Confederate force but to simply rest and resupply within the fortifications of Atlanta.
Union soldiers with captured guns in the fortifications around Atlanta
The President [Jefferson Davis] never visited the army without doing it injury; never yet that it was not followed by disaster. He was instrumental in the Gettysburg affair. He instructed Bragg at Murfreesboro. He has opened Georgia to one hundred thousand of the enemy’s troops and laid South Carolina liable to destruction. I charge him with having almost ruined the country, and will meet his champion anywhere to discuss it.
—Congressman H. S. Foote of Tennessee, Confederate States of America, December 1863
Ruins of Atlanta, 1864
Between Dalton and the gates of Atlanta lie the graves of 4,423 Union and 3,044 Confederate soldiers. The Union had 22,822 wounded and the Confederates 18,952 during the four-month campaign, and a total of 17,335 from both sides were captured or simply disappeared.
Sherman rested until mid-November, and then, leaving one corps behind to garrison the city and guard against the still-roaming Confederate Army of Tennessee, he divided his forces into two great columns and began his advance to Savannah and the sea. Almost as a parting gift to the vanquished rebels, he ordered every building “of military value” to be put to the torch; his troops broadly interpreted this order, burning all but about 500 of the 5,000 or so buildings left standing after the long campaign.
Both sides knew that with the fall of Atlanta and its surrounding factories and railroads, the war was, for all practical purposes, over.
The Atlanta Battlefield
The area of battle on July 22 ranged around the area of Moreland Avenue and I-20, just east of the immediate downtown area. Nothing remains of the Atlanta battleground in the way of entrenchments or preserved area. Leggett’s Hill was bulldozed to make way for I-20 and Moreland Avenue expansions in the 1980s. A memorial marks the site where Walker died; it is an upturned cannon on the corner of Wilkinson Drive and Glenwood Avenue, directly adjacent to the north side of I-20. Close by is another upturned cannon marking the site of McPherson’s death at the corner of McPherson and Monument Avenues just off Maynard Terrace. A stone church building on DeGress Avenue off DeKalb Avenue (1 block north of I-20) stands where the center of battle swirled that day; a marker notes that this was where the famed Troup Hurt House stood. Sherman’s headquarters was in the Augustus Hurt House; the marked site is now on the grounds of the Carter Presidential Center on Copenhill Avenue off Moreland Avenue.
The Atlanta Cyclorama
800 Cherokee Ave.
Atlanta, GA
(404) 658-7625
The Cyclorama is an old favorite and comes close to tying with the Atlanta History Center as our favorite place to visit. The displays center around what they call “the world’s largest painting,” 42 feet tall and 385 feet around, weighing more than nine tons and with sculptures in front that give a very real three-dimensional feeling to the work. This painting is of a two-hour span of time, focusing just after 3 p.m. on July 22, 1864, as seen from a vantage point near the Troup Hurt House during the Battle of Atlanta.
The level of detail is amazing; we were astonished to discover recently that a detail portrays the charge of the obscure 1st Georgia State Line near the railway cut. A very well-produced short film narrated by James Earl Jones introduces the setting in a small, separate theater before you enter the main display theater. A 185-seat theater arranged in bleacher fashion slowly revolves in front of the painting and a taped historian narrates the action, complete with related spotlighting of the painting. A special treat is when one of the museum guides takes you on another spin around, highlighting some of the more-obscure elements of the work; this happens more often during the winter off-season than during the peak visiting time.
Downstairs in the main entrance is the famed locomotive Texas, one of the heroes of the Andrews Raid, along with a few other displays and an excellent bookstore. Upstairs is a good collection of artifacts, along with an excellent collection of contemporary Civil War artwork.
Atlanta History Center
130 W. Paces Ferry Rd.
Atlanta, GA
(404) 814-4000
Located just off the northeastern fringes of the Peachtree Creek battlefield, the Atlanta History Center is the crown jewel of Civil War museums in the South, and perhaps the nation. We were awestruck by the new buildings and displays on the many aspects of Atlanta history, but the Civil War display was simply beyond compare. Built around the large Beverly M. DuBose general artifact collection and the huge Thomas Swift Dickey ordnance collection (we bet you didn’t know anyone actually collected old shells!), both donated permanently to the center, changing exhibits keep the displays fresh and invite even the casually interested visitor back time and again. Located on 33 acres in the heart of Buckhead, the history center includes one of the Southeast’s largest history museums; two historic houses, Swan House and Tullie Smith Farm; Centennial Olympic Games Museum; historic gardens; and the Kenan Research Center. The history center also includes the Margaret Mitchell House, located at the midtown campus.
The Civil War display, Turning Point, leads you through the stages of the war, with artifacts carefully chosen and displayed as appropriate and accurate for each year. Multimedia use is extensive, with four films, several sound displays, and many small scenes and dioramas. A unique display is the sole remaining Union supply wagon. As one curator mentioned, everyone wanted to save the unusual items, but they have a hard time finding the mundane.
The center hosts annual Civil War encampments, which provide a better-than-average display of the camp and battle life of the common soldier, around the circa-1845 Tullie Smith Farm. Recent encampments have featured rifle and artillery demonstrations, cavalry and infantry maneuvers, and even mail call and food ration distributions.
This is our absolute favorite museum, and we have returned quite a few times simply to enjoy the high quality of both artifacts and displays. A side benefit for the long-suffering Civil War buff’s “widow” is the extensive collections present in other exhibits of everything from folk art to the 1996 Olympics.
The Ezra Church Battlefield
As in most of the rest of the battlegrounds in Atlanta itself, nothing remains of the vast majority of the original emplacements but historical markers. Mozley Park, on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive just north of the I-20 intersection, was in the center of the fighting but is poorly marked and a bit difficult to find. Nearby Westview Cemetery (1680 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd. SW) does contain a short section of preserved Confederate trenches.
In the cemetery, atop a low hill close by the trench line, is one of the very few monuments erected by the Confederate veterans themselves (most were funded by either the states or the United Daughters of the Confederacy). Standing guard over the now nearly forgotten graves of his comrades stands a lone concrete picket, with an inscription that talks mostly of peace: “Nation shall not rise up against Nation … Neither shall they learn war anymore.”
Georgia Department of Archives and History
5800 Jonesboro Rd.
Morrow, GA
(678) 364-3700
Not a museum, but a true gold mine of information for the hard-core buff or serious researcher, the Georgia Archives house a huge number of records ranging from muster and pension files to original letters and diaries. A large, comfortable “search room” houses an extensive number of reference works and is manned by staff members who will retrieve any other documents you may need.
The now-retired curator of Georgia’s Civil War document collection, Charlotte Ray, was an invaluable source of information and inspiration in our research into other Civil War projects, and her influence is still felt at every level. The staff is polite, polished, and highly professional, and they have proven over and over that they can work miracles in finding just the obscure document you might need! There is no charge for admission.
Georgia’s Stone Mountain Park
US 78
Stone Mountain, GA
(770) 498-5690
This 3,200-acre park, originally intended as a permanent Confederate memorial, is built around the world’s largest outcropping of granite and features the world’s largest carving on the mountainside. Larger than Mount Rushmore, the 90-foot-by-190-foot figures of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson took nearly 60 years to carve. Two large museums in the park—the Stone Mountain Museum at Memorial Hall and the Antebellum Plantation and Farmyard—are a bit dated, but do contain impressive displays of artifacts, paintings, and dioramas.
The park has become “the official playground of Atlanta,” according to one source. On sunny weekends it can become hard to get around past all the hikers, bikers, picnickers, and sun worshipers, but it does have a large number of restaurants and attractions for the non–Civil War buff, including a laser light show, riverboat cruises, train, and skyrides.
The park is open year-round 6 a.m. to midnight. Attraction hours vary by season—call for current prices or check online. Some attractions are seasonal.
Peachtree Creek Battlefield
Today this entire battlefield is in the middle of heavily urbanized Buckhead. The only remaining portion in more or less original condition is Tanyard Branch Park on Collier Road, scene of the most intense fighting. Several markers give a good idea of the layout of battle in this area, and a few cannon and embankments add to the flavor. Collier Road runs between Peachtree Road, about 2 miles north of I-85, and Howell Mill Road (which intersects I-75 1 mile to the west). At the corner of Collier and Peachtree is Piedmont Hospital, which has a large stone marker commemorating the battle. Another marker nearby indicates the spot where the Confederate assault began.
On the eastern flank of the battlefield is Peachtree Road, and the main entertainment district of Atlanta (Buckhead) is a short drive north. Be aware that the area around Peachtree, Pharr, and Paces Ferry Roads is simply crawling with bars (literally stacked on top of one another in some places!), which attracts large and nearly equal numbers of obnoxious young drunks and irritable police officers on weekend nights. “DUI check” roadblocks are common after dark, as are run-over pedestrians. Some upscale chain restaurants (Cheesecake Factory, Bone’s) are in the area, along with mid-scale retro (Johnny Rockets) and low-rent cheap fare (Waffle House, IHOP). For spouses who aren’t Civil War fans, a good distraction is the twin upscale shopping malls another mile north on Peachtree: Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza. A good scale to judge the quality of shops here (and matching prices) is the fact that the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead hotel sits between the two malls.
Utoy Creek Battlefield
The Utoy Creek battlefield is centered in what is today the Cascade Springs Nature Preserve, off-limits to the public. The only extant structure in this area is the small Utoy Church, used as a hospital during the battle (now known as the Temple of Christ Pentecostal Church). Take I-20 west out of downtown Atlanta, exiting onto Martin Luther King Jr. Drive (exit 17). To the right (northeast) is the Ezra Church battle area. Turn to the left (southwest) and immediately left again on Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard. On your right is Westview Cemetery, a major burial site for Confederates killed in the battles around Atlanta. Continuing on Abernathy Drive, turn right onto Cascade Avenue. Travel 1½ miles, and then turn left onto Centra Villa; travel another half-mile and turn left onto Venetian Drive. Drive less than a half-mile, and turn left onto Cahaba Drive; Utoy Church is on the corner.
General Joseph Eggleston Johnston Statue
Intersection of Crawford and Hamilton Streets
Downtown Dalton, GA
Usually we would not recommend a special trip just to view a statue, but this is a must-see exception. A rather large, impressive bronze representation of Johnston in a pensive stance, the statue was commissioned in 1912 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy from Nashville artist Belle Kinney. Although we consider Johnston to be perhaps the finest battlefield commander in the Western Theater, his reputation suffered from both Davis’s enmity and his own rather abrasive personality. As far as we have been able to establish, this is the one and only statue of the Virginia native.
Jonesboro Battlefield
Jonesboro battlefield lies entirely within the present-day city limits of Jonesboro and almost entirely within the central business district. The town was almost completely destroyed during the battle, but a handful of period structures still exist. The center of action is well marked and can be found in Jonesboro’s historic district, on US 41/19 (also called Tara Boulevard. Yes, that Tara). The heavy commercial buildup in this area can make finding the individual sites and structures difficult. We strongly encourage you to check with the Clayton County visitors center at 104 North Main St., www.visitscarlett.com, for some excellent maps and directions.
Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park
900 Kennesaw Mountain Dr.
Kennesaw, GA
(770) 427-4686, ext. 0
Kennesaw Mountain today is a National Battlefield Park, stretching from just north of Big Kennesaw Mountain about 5 miles south to Kolb’s Farm, 3 miles north and west of Marietta. There are a multitude of hiking and equestrian trails throughout the large complex, which has become more or less a playground for the surrounding affluent community, as well as the third-most-visited battlefield park in the nation. The major combat areas are well marked with maps, photos, and explanatory markers, and Union and Confederate state memorials dot the open fields. The 11,900-square-foot visitor center houses an excellent relevant book selection and a film about the battle, as well as a very helpful and knowledgeable staff. Park hours are dawn to dusk. Admission to the park and parking are free. There is a small admission charge to ride the shuttle bus to the top of the mountain. On weekends the road is closed to foot travel, so visitors must ride the shuttle.
Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History
2829 Cherokee St.
Kennesaw, GA
(770) 427-2117
Housed in an old cotton gin, and home of the famed locomotive of the Andrews Raid, the General, this museum run by the city of Kennesaw does a very credible job of using its small collection of artifacts to best advantage. A short film about the Andrews Raid relates the story of the botched Union guerrilla attempt that started less than 100 yards away, and the museum has a good book collection for sale.
Wildman’s Civil War & Relic Shop
2879 S. Main St.
Kennesaw, GA
(770) 422-1785
Across the street from the tracks and museum is another local institution, Wildman’s Civil War & Relic Shop, which is a dusty and rambling building housing equal parts assorted books and artifacts for sale and museum. Be forewarned: This store has a very strong racial and “unreconstructed” feel, and there are many modern books, posters, and stickers exalting the Ku Klux Klan and the local gun laws. Kennesaw gained fame in 1982 by passing the first city ordinance in the nation requiring local residents to own firearms and ammunition, largely as a result of Dent “Wildman” Myers’s efforts (this gun ordinance was in response to another town’s antigun ownership ordinance). This said, we consider Mr. Myers to be one of the better sources of information on the Kennesaw Campaign, and his contributions over the years to writing the local history have been invaluable.
The Confederate Cemetery at Resaca
One of the very few high-profile remnants of the battle is the small Confederate cemetery just north of the small crossroads town. Leave I-75 at exit 320, go east about a half-mile to the intersection with US 41, and turn left. Go north on US 41 about 2 miles, and then slow and look for a small sign pointing out the cemetery to your right down Confederate Cemetery Road.
This small cemetery houses the remains of about 420 soldiers, the vast majority of whom are unknown. Local Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy camps frequently maintain the cemetery, giving it a very parklike appearance. Ironically, these graves may prove to be the pickets that guard the only remaining preserved part of this battlefield. This cemetery rests on what was part of Major General Alexander P. Stewart’s division (Hood’s corps), and a look around at the terrain makes it apparent that a good position would have been on the low hills just above the cemetery. Like so much else around this battlefield, unfortunately, these hills are on private property and not open to the public.
In the early afternoon of July 9, finding a 300-yard-wide, relatively shallow spot over a submerged fish dam near Sope Creek (Soap Creek on some maps), Colonel Daniel Cameron’s 103rd Ohio Infantry (Union Army) swam across to establish a beachhead. Encountering no opposition, Schofield then ordered a crossing in force at 3:30 that afternoon. Led by a combat amphibious assault by the 12th Kentucky Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Laurence H. Rousseau, part of Colonel Robert K. Boyd’s 3rd (Kentucky) Brigade (the same brigade that had “withdrawn for rations” at Pickett’s Mill), the crossing was an outstanding success. The only Confederates in the area were part of a small picket outpost, who only got off a single volley before running away.
The single spot remaining in more or less original condition is Sope Creek, part of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. Ruins of a paper mill burned by Union cavalry scouting for crossing sites are still visible, as well as the nearby shallow ford across the river. Take I-75 to exit 261 (Delk Road), and travel east to Powers Ferry Road. Turn right, go about a half-mile, and turn left onto Terrell Mill Road. About 1½ miles down Terrell Mill is Paper Mill Road; follow the signs to the park from there. The park is in a residential area with no amenities of any kind.
Atlanta is a major tourist and convention destination, and the hospitality industry in Fulton County alone employs more than 115,000 workers and pays more than $215 million in taxes to the local governments. Needless to say, just about any chain hotel or motel in every price range is readily available; the Downtown Connector, the merging of I-75 and I-85 through downtown Atlanta, is the major corridor to all the listed amenities, and a short drive in any direction on the three highways (including I-20) is the best bet for lower-priced chain establishments at nearly any exit. The following recommendations are a tiny sampling of what is available in the downtown area itself.
| Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort at Stone Mountain Park | $$$ |
4021 Lakeview Dr.
Stone Mountain, GA
(770) 879-9900
(888) 670-2250
This Marriott property is located in Stone Mountain Park and is the nicest of the lodging choices at Stone Mountain. Each room offers either a private balcony or veranda to highlight the views of Stone Mountain Park. This lodging property offers an on-site spa and is convenient to Stone Mountain’s golf course.
| Four Seasons | $$$$ |
75 14th St.
Atlanta, GA
(404) 881-9898
Formerly the Continental Grand, this Four Seasons hotel has retained all that was grand. In the three-story lobby, light from the 10-foot-high Baccarat chandelier plays across the rose-colored Spanish marble walls around the broad grand staircase. A lounge on the mezzanine serves cocktails and afternoon high tea. Park 75 is a sit-down, white-tablecloth restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch, and supper from early morning until 11 p.m. every day. The menu is “new American with global influences and Southern accents.” The Ballroom showcases a skyline view from its 6,000-square-foot open terrace. There is an on-site spa, and its gorgeous indoor lap pool suggests a Roman bath.
| Marriott’s Stone Mountain Inn | $$$ |
1058 Robert E. Lee Dr.
Stone Mountain, GA
(770) 469-3311
(888) 670-2250
The Inn is a carefully preserved replica of a 19th-century plantation. The rooms are not as luxurious as those at the Evergreen Marriott, but are very spacious and many offer a sofa bed for extra sleeping accommodations. It is the quieter of the two Stone Mountain properties. Southern-style food is served in the Mountainview Restaurant.
| The Village Inn Bed and Breakfast | $$–$$$ |
992 Ridge Ave.
Stone Mountain, GA
(770) 469-3459
This property was originally built in 1820 as a roadside inn, and it is the oldest structure in historic Stone Mountain Village. It survived Sherman’s fiery torch due to the fact that it was used as a Confederate hospital during the Civil War.
| Westin Buckhead Atlanta | $$$–$$$$ |
3391 Peachtree Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA
(404) 365-0065
(866) 716-8128
The Westin is patterned after the elegant fashions of modern Europe: sleek and smooth with curving lines and sweeping expanses of glass. The interior art is spectacular and belies the rather uninteresting exterior. Each of the 365 guest rooms in the 22-floor property has wireless high-speed Internet as well as phone service with voice mail, cable TV with HBO, bathrobes, and a hair dryer. The hotel’s health club has an indoor pool.
Dalton is today a major shopping mecca for both the Atlanta and Chattanooga metropolitan areas, due to its reputation as a major manufacturing center of carpets and as the host to a number of outlet shopping centers, most of which are tied to the local carpet industry. However, the majority of motels and restaurants are of the lower-middle range of chains, and there is little of note in the city itself related to the war. The best selection of the usual chain restaurants and motels can be found at exits 333 and 336 off I-75; exit 333 also features a large outlet mall.
This area is a heavily built-up suburb of the Atlanta metropolitan area and has nearly any amenity you could think of within a short drive. Just to the north of the battlefield park is Barrett Parkway; turn right and a major shopping and entertainment district is a very short drive to the east. In the vicinity of where Barrett Parkway intersects I-75 is a major regional mall (Town Center), several large strip shopping centers, an unusual bowling alley/microbrewery combination (U.S. Play), a good dozen chain hotels and motels, and every low- to mid-range chain restaurant present in the Atlanta market.
Roswell is an upscale suburb of Atlanta and in fact sits in the midst of the “richest zip codes” in the Southeast (based on per-capita income of the area). The Roswell square has gentrified into a boutique and antiques-store zone, as have so many other small Southern towns, but has an unusually high percentage of decent restaurants and other amenities nearby. The northbound road through the square, Alpharetta Highway (US 19), leads to both fast-food heaven and very upscale shopping zones. Both Holcomb Bridge and Mansell Road running to the east of Alpharetta Highway just north of the square will take you to just about any chain restaurant you could imagine, as well as the usual array of chain hotels and motels near the intersections with GA 400 (about 1 to 2 miles east). Just east of GA 400 on Mansell Road is the major regional North Point Mall, as well as associated strip malls and “big box” stores.
The Cyclorama (earlier in the Atlanta section) is painted from the vantage point of a person standing at a spot on Moreland Avenue about a mile north of I-20, just where the railroad tracks cross over the road. Do not be alarmed if you see a lot of strangely dressed people walking around here; this is the area known as Little 5 Points (locals call it L5P) and is the so-called “hippie” district. One block north of the railroad tracks on Moreland is the center of commerce for the area, where you can find any manner of macrobiotic food, incense, leather clothing, or artwork, and where you can get tattooed and pierced to your heart’s content. We recommend Urban Tribe (1131 Euclid Ave.) or Sacred Heart Tattoo (483 Moreland Ave.) for the latter.
There is a distinct lack of the usual fast-food places in this area, which is actually a blessing. This area and the nearby Virginia-Highlands district (2 miles north on Moreland Avenue, west on Ponce de Leon Avenue, then immediately right onto Highland Avenue) are blessed with a large number of truly fabulous restaurants. Unfortunately, both districts suffer the Atlanta disease of quick open-and-shut doors; we recommend that you look for the bright green newspaper boxes and pick up a copy of Creative Loafing (free). Its main restaurant reviewer is Cliff Bostick, and we have never gone wrong with one of his recommendations. Be aware that he leans very heavily toward Vietnamese and other Asian cuisine.
| Bacchanalia | $$$$ |
1198 Howell Mill Rd.
Atlanta, GA
(404) 365-0410
This is, without a doubt, our favorite serious foodie Atlanta restaurant; in fact, it would fit very nicely alongside the finest that New Orleans or San Francisco can offer. This former Buckhead restaurant took a bold step and relocated to a renovated factory closer to downtown, in a neighborhood that is in transition, but most delicately can be described as “interesting.” However, the crowds who love the eatery’s delectable fixed-price menus, which change with the passing seasons, are still putting their names on the reservation list. Along with an extensive wine list, you’ll find plenty of seafood selections and updated American classics. There’s plenty of on-site parking.
| Canoe | $$$ |
4199 Paces Ferry Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA
(770) 432-2663
On the banks of the Chattahoochee River in northwest Atlanta, Canoe is housed in a barrel-vaulted brick building once known as Robinson’s Tropical Gardens. It’s said that many a young romance bloomed at this riverfront restaurant and nightspot in the golden post–World War II years. Today wedding parties have been known to arrive in canoes for a luscious reception.
In accordance with its goal of offering delicious, healthful food for today’s diner, Canoe’s fare includes Laughing Bird shrimp dumplings, baby arugula salad, and slow-roasted Carolina rabbit. There’s also an assortment of beef and seafood. You can call ahead for reservations or take advantage of any waiting time to stroll riverside. Valet parking is available. Reservations are recommended.
| La Grotta Ristorante | $$$$ |
2637 Peachtree Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA
(404) 231-1368
Ravina Center
4355 Ashford Dunwoody Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA
(770) 395-9925
Fine Italian cuisine here includes pasta dishes and favorites such as ravioli, fettuccine, and herb-crusted fillet of salmon. The current menu features a “Stimulus Menu” and “Bail Out Menu.” Dinner is served Mon through Sat at the Peachtree Road location, very close to the Peachtree Creek battlefield site, and reservations are suggested. The Ravina location, open for lunch and dinner, is more airy and modern than the Buckhead restaurant, with a wonderful view of the hotel’s gardens from huge glass windows.
| Manuel’s Tavern | $ |
602 North Highland Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA
(404) 525-3447
Manuel’s Tavern has been an in-town gathering place since 1956 when Manuel Maloof founded it. Maloof was politically active his entire life (at one time he was CEO of DeKalb County), and today the walls of his tavern are covered with beer signs and pictures of sports heroes, Democratic Party leaders, and icons who frequent the place. Through the years, the Atlanta Press Club has held meetings and debates here, and the New York Times has described it as “Atlanta’s quintessential neighborhood bar.” Regulars roam from the main room to the “ballroom” (really the dining room), from bar to booth to table, catching up on all the latest while enjoying Manuel’s wings, sandwiches, burgers, and salads. Most Atlanta cops, firefighters, and paramedics consider this “the” place to unwind after their shift, so expect to see quite a few uniforms at any given time. It can get hectic on a busy night, but the atmosphere is friendly and inviting.
| The Dalton Depot | $$ |
110 Depot St.
Dalton, GA
(706) 226-3160
One exception to the rule about Dalton eateries is this wartime railroad depot, in its original use until 1978 and now a mid-scale restaurant. This is the place where Johnston arrived to take over command of the Army of Tennessee, as well as the site of the celebrated arrival of Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s corps, en route to the battle at Chickamauga. During the Andrews Raid, better known as the Great Locomotive Chase, the pursued and the pursuers raced by the station, the following train slowing down long enough to drop off a messenger boy to give an update to the depot’s telegraph office.
The Depot specializes in steaks, pasta dishes, and premium hamburgers and has a full bar. The menu, outside of a handful of specials, is very similar to what one would find in the Applebee’s and Chili’s chains, but the atmosphere is much more pleasant here.
| Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen | $$$ |
2830 Windy Hill Rd.
Marietta, GA
(770) 984-8899
5635 Jimmy Carter Blvd.
Norcross, GA
(770) 849-0600
10795 Davis Dr.
Alpharetta, GA
(770) 992-5566
This Cajun seafood house always draws a crowd; even at lunch, the wait can be more than 45 minutes! But it’s worth it: The portions are large, the selection vast, and the tastes delectable. The wait passes quickly at the enormous bar. In addition to Cajun favorites, there are grilled, broiled, and baked items, and soups and salads. The setting is casual and noisy (no one will notice the kids’ chatter in the large dining room). Pappadeaux’s does not take reservations.
| Shillings on the Square | $$ |
19 N. Park Sq.
Marietta, GA
(770) 428-9520
This casual restaurant and bar has anchored a corner of the Marietta square for 20 years, hard by the Civil War–era Kennesaw House. The Streetside Grill is a favorite of locals looking for sandwiches, salads, and soups late into the night or during a short lunch break.
For those with more elegant tastes, Top of the Square is an 80-seat fine dining room, with white tablecloths, candles, and soft piano tunes putting diners in a relaxed mood. Entrees include steaks, seafood, lamb, and chicken.