ACROSS THE CHATTAHOOCHEE

Several days after the battle at Kolb’s farm, Sherman decided on a change in tactics—he would make a direct assault on Johnston’s lines. It was a bold decision that offered the possibility of a great victory. The Southern line was thinly held and a successful attack could lead to the isolation and destruction of a large part of Johnston’s army. The Federal commander decided to strike the Confederates at three points: McPherson would assault the southern end of Kennesaw Mountain, Thomas would move against a salient known as the “Dead Angle” (on what is now called Cheatham’s Hill) several miles to the south, and Schofield would push south on Sandtown Road and attempt to cross Olley’s Creek. June 27 was set as the date for the assault, but Schofield was to begin demonstrations on the 26th to draw Southerners away from other portions of the line.

KENNESAW MOUNTAIN

Early on the 27th, the Federals began to probe at various points along the Confederate trenches to distract the defenders. At 8 a.m. the Northern artillery opened a brief but heavy fire to prepare the way for the assaults. A few minutes later, the Federal infantry moved forward. McPherson’s troops, advancing on both sides of Burnt Hickory Road, swept over the Southern outposts and moved rapidly across the broken ground toward the main Confederate trenches. Although their lines were disordered,the blue-clad soldiers scrambled over rocks and fallen trees until they were finally halted by the heavy fire from their entrenched enemies. A few reached the Confederate line and were killed or captured while fighting in their opponents’ works. Southerners on Little Kennesaw added to the Northerners’ discomfort by rolling huge rocks down the mountainside at them. When the Union troops realized that their attack could not reach the Confederate lines, they broke off the engagement. Some were able to find protection in the advanced Confederate rifle-pits they had overrun and some managed to reach the positions from which they had begun the assault. A few were forced to seek shelter among the trees and large rocks on the slopes of the mountain where they remained until darkness offered a chance to return to their own lines.

To the south, Thomas fared no better. Two columns were directed against the Southern position—one at Cheatham’s Hill, the other a short distance to the north. The Southerners expected no attack. Many of them were off duty and others were relaxing in the lines. The Federal artillery, however, alerted them to the danger and when Thomas’ infantry started forward, the Confederates were ready.

As soon as the dense blue columns appeared in the cleared area between the lines, the Confederates opened what one Northerner called a “terrible” fire upon them. Men dropped rapidly but the columns continued up the long slope toward the Southern position. “The air,” one Federal remembered, “seemed filled with bullets, giving one the sensation experienced when moving swiftly against a heavy rain or sleet storm.” As the Union soldiers neared the crest of the ridge, they met the full fury of the defenders’ fire. To one Federal it seemed as if the Confederate trenches were “veritable volcanoes ... vomiting forth fire and smoke and raining leaden hail in the face of the Union boys.”

Most of the attackers never reached the Confederate line. Those who did were too few to overpower the defenders and were quickly killed or captured. For a few brief seconds, two Northern battle flags waved on the breastworks, but the bearers were soon shot down and within a short time the attack had failed.

As Thomas’ left assaulting column struck that portion of the Southern line held by the consolidated 1st and 15th ArkansasRegiments, the gunfire ignited the underbrush and many wounded Federals faced the terrifying prospect of being burned to death. In one of the notable acts of the war, Lt. Col. William H. Martin, commanding the Arkansans, jumped from his trenches waving a white handkerchief and shouting to the Northerners to come and get the wounded men. For a few minutes, fighting was suspended along that short stretch of the line and some of Martin’s soldiers went to assist in moving their helpless enemies away from the flames. When the wounded had been removed to safety, the two sides resumed hostilities, but here too it was clear that the attack would not be able to break Johnston’s lines.

At the Dead Angle, some of the attacking Northerners remained under the crest of the ridge within a few yards of the Confederate trenches. There they dug rifle pits of their own and started to burrow under the hill, hoping to fill the tunnel with gunpowder and blow up the salient. However, before this project had progressed very far, the Southerners abandoned the position and thus rendered the subterranean attack unnecessary.

While the attacks of McPherson and Thomas were being repulsed, Schofield was gaining a clear success at the extreme right of the Union line. On the 26th, one of his brigades crossed Olley’s Creek north of Sandtown Road and, on the following day, cleared their opponents from the area, securing a position several miles to the south which placed the right of their line closer to the Chattahoochee than was the left of Johnston’s army. From this position the Northerners could strike at the Confederate line of supply and perhaps cut Johnston off from all sources of help by breaking the railroad.

Exact casualty figures for the battles of June 27 are not available. However, the best estimates place Northern losses at about 3,000 men. The Southerners lost at least 750 killed, wounded, or captured.

Sherman has been criticized for ordering the frontal attack on Johnston’s lines, but it now seems that his decision was not unwise. Had the assault succeeded, he would have won a great victory. As it was, he did not continue the attacks when it was clear that they would fail, and he had managed to secure a position from which he could easily pry Johnston out of the Kennesaw line.

Lt. Col. William H. Martin jumped from the trenches waving a white handkerchief and shouting to the Northerners to come and get the wounded men.

The success won by Schofield at Olley’s Creek indicated the direction for the next Federal movement. Sherman quickly decided to shift troops to his right, knowing that such a move would force Johnston to choose between giving up the Kennesaw line or being cut off from Atlanta. Accordingly, he began to reinforce Schofield by moving McPherson from the left to the right. By the afternoon of July 2, Federal troops were pushing southward on Sandtown Road against only light opposition from small Confederate detachments.

Johnston was aware of what was happening—in fact, he had expected such a movement since the failure of the assault on the 27th. Believing that it would be unwise to stretch his lines further and realizing that the troops opposing the Federal advance could do no more than delay it, Johnston decided to abandon his Kennesaw Mountain position and fall back to a previously prepared line near Smyrna, 4 miles to the south. Accordingly, during the night of July 2-3, the Confederates filed out of their trenches around Marietta and marched southward.

When Sherman discovered that the Southerners were gone, he pushed forward in pursuit, hoping to strike while the enemy was retreating. In the late afternoon of the 3d, the Northerners reached the new Confederate line. The 4th was spent in skirmishing, but before a serious battle could develop, the Federal right secured a strategic position from which it threatened to slice in between Johnston’s army and Atlanta. Again, the threat to his left forced Johnston to retreat. During the night of July 4-5, the Southerners fell back to a heavily fortified position on the north bank of the Chattahoochee.

On the 5th, the Federals pushed forward until they reached the new Southern line. Skirmishing that day convinced Sherman that the position was too strong to be carried by a headlong assault. He dispatched a cavalry force to seize Roswell, an important little manufacturing town about 16 miles upriver from Johnston’s fortifications, and allowed his men a few days’ rest while he planned the next move.

ACROSS THE CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER

After carefully studying the situation, the Federal commander decided to attempt a crossing near the mouth of Soap Creek, above Johnston’s right flank. On July 8, he moved Schofield’s Army of the Ohio into position for the crossing. In a brilliant movement, Schofield, utilizing pontoon boats and the ruins of a submerged fish dam, got over the river and drove away the small group of Southerners defending the area. Other troops were rushed across, bridges were built, trenches were dug, and by nightfall the Northerners held a secure bridgehead on the southern bank. On the following day, the Federal cavalry got over the river at Roswell. Sherman had successfully crossed the last major barrier between Chattanooga and Atlanta and had carried the fighting into the open country south of the Chattahoochee where the terrain would favor him.

During the night of July 9-10, Johnston retreated across the river and took up a position on the southern bank of Peachtree Creek only a few miles from Atlanta. The Confederate commander seems to have been optimistic at this time. Once again he believed that he had reached a position from which he could not be driven and he expected to fight the decisive battle of the campaign along Peachtree Creek.

Sherman, meanwhile, had decided upon his next step. He would swing north and east of Atlanta to cut Johnston off from Augusta and possible reinforcements from Virginia. McPherson was to strike eastward from Roswell to the Georgia Railroad at some point near Stone Mountain. As this force advanced, the rest of the Federals would move closer to the river. The line would thus become a great swinging movement, with McPherson on the far left, Schofield in the center as the pivot, and Thomas on the right along Peachtree Creek. This movement began on the 17th. The next day, McPherson reached the Georgia Railroad near Stone Mountain.

The Confederate government had been displeased by Johnston’s conduct of the campaign. President Jefferson Davis and other civilian officials had hoped that the Confederates would be able to regain Tennessee or at least to draw Sherman into a situation in which a severe defeat would be inflicted upon him. Instead, after 10 weeks of campaigning, Johnston was backed up against Atlanta and there was no assurance that he would even try to hold that important center. These circumstances led Davis to remove Johnston from command of the army and to replace him with John B. Hood, who was promoted to the temporary rank of full general.

Davis’ replacement of Johnston with Hood is one of the most controversial acts of the war. Relations between the President and Johnston had not been friendly since a dispute over the general’s rank in 1861. Disagreements over strategy and tactics as well as the personalities of the two men exacerbated matters in 1862 and 1863. During Johnston’s tenure as commander of the Army of Tennessee, the situation became worse as communications between the two broke down almost completely. Davis promoted officers in the army without consulting Johnston, who maneuvered in the field without informing the government of his plans and operations in any meaningful detail.

Davis saw that Johnston had yielded much valuable territory to the enemy. Important officials in the government began to urge that the general be removed from command. On July 9, Davis sent his military adviser, Gen. Braxton Bragg, to report on the situation in Georgia. Bragg visited Johnston, learned nothing of the general’s plans, and reported that it appeared the city would be abandoned. Other evidence brought to the President’s attention—such as Johnston’s suggestion that prisoners held in south Georgia be sent to safer points—seemed to confirm Bragg’s assessment that Atlanta would not be defended. On July 16, Davis telegraphed Johnston: “I wish to hear from you as to present situation and your plan of operations so specifically as will enable me to anticipate events.” The general’s reply of the same date read in part:

As the enemy has double our numbers, we must be on the defensive. My plan of operations must, therefore, depend upon that of the enemy.

It is mainly to watch for an opportunity to fight to advantage. We are trying to put Atlanta in condition to be held for a day or two by the Georgia militia, that army movements may be freer and wider.

This vague reply did not satisfy Davis and on July 17 he issued the order that removed Johnston from command. In great haste, Johnston wrote out an order relinquishing his position and thanking the soldiers for their courage and devotion. By the afternoon of the 18th he had left Atlanta and the Army of Tennessee in the none-too-steady hands of John Bell Hood.

Much debate has swirled around Davis’ decision. Johnston and his partisans have argued that the general’s removal made inevitable the loss of Atlanta, the reelection of Lincoln, and the defeat of the Confederacy. They contend that had Johnston remained in command, the city would have been held, or that if it were surrendered, the army at least would not have been weakened and would have continued as an effective unit.

Hood and Davis maintained that Johnston’s long retreat had demoralized the army, that Johnston would not have held Atlanta, and that the Confederacy’s only chance for success lay in replacing Johnston with a bold commander who could strike Sherman a blow that would send the Northerners reeling back to Chattanooga.

Most historians have tended to accept Johnston’s position. There can be no definite answer, of course, but it does seem that Johnston would have evacuated the city rather than lose a large portion of his army fighting for it. This would have saved the army but, coming after the long retreat from Dalton, might have so demoralized it that desertion and disgust would have ended its career as an effective fighting force. If the retention of Atlanta was essential to the life of the Confederacy, President Davis seems justified in his decision to remove Johnston. It was the Confederacy’s misfortune that no bold, intelligent, and lucky general was available to take his place. But one thing was certain—with Hood leading the Southerners, the pattern of the campaign would change.

Historians have long been in the habit of dealing with the past as if it were nothing more than the story of a small number of great men who moved about shaping the world as they saw fit. In reality, leaders are not long successful without followers—the great mass of the common people who do the work, bear the burdens, and suffer the consequences of their leaders’ policies. The Civil War offers a unique opportunity to study the common people of America because during that conflict large numbers of people were directly involved in the great events of the times. For most of them, the war was the single most important event of their lives. Consequently they wrote about it in great detail in their letters and diaries and saved these documents after the conflict ended. It is therefore possible to see the Civil War armies as groups of humans, not masses of automata. The men who followed Sherman, Johnston, and Hood in 1864 left behind information that adds much to an understanding of the campaign.

Records kept by the Federal Government show that the typical Northern soldier was 5 feet 8¼ inches tall and weighed 143½ pounds. Doubtless the Southerners were of a similar stature. The same records also indicate that before the war 48 percent of the men had been farmers. Among the Confederates the percentage of farmers was more than half. Relatively few immigrants served in either western army—perhaps one-fifth to one-sixth of the men were of foreign birth. More than half the units in Sherman’s armies were from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, and Wisconsin also furnished large contingents. Such Eastern States as New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were represented, but their contributions were small. More than two-thirds of the units in the Southern army were from Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. Other States with significant numbers of troops in the Confederate ranks were Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee were represented by units on both sides. Most of the men in the armies that struggled for Atlanta had volunteered for military service in 1861 or 1862. By 1864 they had become veterans, inured to the hardships of military life. Nevertheless, they found the Atlanta Campaign a severe trial.

Unlike many Civil War military operations in which fighting occurred at infrequent intervals, the struggle for Atlanta was virtually a continuous battle. Sometimes, as at Resaca, almost all of the opposing forces were engaged; at other times, action was limited to the desultory firing of skirmishers. But only on rare occasions were the soldiers able to escape the sounds and dangers of combat.

The weather—whether a freak cold wave in mid-June, the unusually heavy rains of late May and June, or the normal heat of July and August—affected every man and often hampered troop movements as well. Frequently units on the march lost men who could not stand the pace. The soldiers would drop by the roadside until they had recovered their strength, then move on to overtake their comrades. For example, the heat on July 12 was so bad that only 50 of the men in an Illinois regiment could keep up on a 3-mile march. When the armies were in fortified positions, as they were at Kennesaw Mountain, the men often stretched blankets or brush across the trenches to protect themselves from the sun. On rainy days, fence rails or rocks in the trenches served to keep soldiers out of the water.

Clothing was also a problem. As a rule, Sherman’s men were better supplied than their opponents, but the wool uniforms they wore were unsuited to the hot Georgia summer. The Confederates had almost no new clothing after the campaign began and their uniforms deteriorated rapidly. A Texan summed up their plight in early June when he wrote: “In this army one hole in the seat of the breeches indicates a captain, two holes a lieutenant, and the seat of the pants all out indicates that the individual is a private.”

Rarely did the men of either army have a chance to wash and almost all of them were affected by body lice and other vermin. A sense of humor helped them to survive these trials—soldiers who were pinned down in a water-filled trench by enemy fire consoled themselves with the thought that they were at least drowning the lice. The Federals complained that the retreating Southerners infested the country with lice that attacked the advancing Northerners. Other pests included chiggers, ticks, snakes, scorpions, flies, and ants.

By 1864 most of the men in the armies that struggled for Atlanta had become veterans, inured to the hardships of military life.

Soldiers in both armies had no scruples about supplementing their rations with whatever could be taken from surrounding farms and homes.

Soldiers in both armies suffered from a shortage of food and had no scruples about supplementing their rations with whatever could be taken from the surrounding farms and homes. Corn, pork, chickens, geese, hams, potatoes, apples, and onions disappeared as the armies moved through a neighborhood. Wild berries and fish were also eaten. Nevertheless, there were many times when food was in short supply. One Federal wrote, “most of the time we are on the move and cannot get such as is fit for a man to eat.”

The Atlanta Campaign, like many of the later Civil War campaigns, saw the development of trench warfare on a large scale. Protecting works were built from loose rocks, fence rails, tombstones, or even the bodies of dead comrades. By the third or fourth week of the campaign, both sides had mastered the art of field fortification—a trench, with the dirt piled on the side toward the enemy and surmounted by a headlog under which were small openings for firing. Such works left “little but the eyes ... exposed” to enemy fire. In front of the trenches the underbrush would be cleared away and young trees cut so they fell toward the foe. The trees were left partly attached to the stump so that they could not be dragged aside. Telegraph wire was sometimes strung between them to create further obstacles.

From behind their fortifications soldiers could pour out such a volume of fire that there was no chance for a successful massed attack—unless complete surprise could be achieved or overwhelming numbers brought against a weak part of the enemy’s line. Much of the fighting was therefore done by small patrols and snipers, especially in heavily wooded country such as the area around New Hope Church and Kennesaw Mountain.

The soldier who died in battle could expect no elaborate funeral. Usually the armies were too busy to do more than bury the dead as quickly as possible and they would probably be put in a mass grave near the place where they had fallen. Later the bodies might be exhumed and moved to a cemetery where they would be listed as “unidentified” and reinterred in a numbered but nameless grave.

The soldier who was wounded or who was disabled by disease suffered greatly. As a rule, the Northerner who was sent to an army hospital fared better than his opponent because the Federals were better equipped and provisioned than the Confederates.Field hospitals treated men whose wounds were either very slight or too serious to permit further movement. Others were sent by wagon and rail to hospitals in the rear—Rome, Chattanooga, and Knoxville for the Federals; Atlanta and the small towns along the railroads south of that city for the Southerners.

Transportation in crowded hospital wagons over rutted roads or in slow hospital trains was an indescribable horror. The hospitals themselves were better but, by modern standards, uncomfortable and dirty. For painful operations, Northern soldiers often enjoyed the blessing of chloroform. Many Southerners, however, especially those in the hospitals in smaller towns, frequently endured major surgery without the benefit of any opiate except, perhaps, whiskey. In such cases the hospitals echoed with the screams of men undergoing amputations or such treatments as that calling for the use of nitric acid to burn gangrene out of their wounds.

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No precise figures as to the number of men who were killed, wounded, or sick during the campaign are available. However, it is known that for the war as a whole, disease killed about twice as many men as did the weapons of the enemy. Sickness brought on by exposure and unsanitary camps undoubtedly accounted formany lives among the soldiers in Georgia. Diseases that were especially common were smallpox, scurvy, dysentery, diarrhea (also known as “dierear” and the “Tennessee quick step”), and various types of fevers.

Religion provided a great source of comfort for many soldiers. Chaplains accompanied both armies but were too few to serve all the troops. Some chaplains preferred to spend the campaign in the rear where they would be safe, while others, of far more influence with the men, braved hardships and dangers with the units they served. At least three of the latter group were killed in battle during the campaign—either while helping the wounded or fighting in the ranks. When chaplains were not available the men sometimes organized and conducted their own religious services. On the other hand, many soldiers ignored religion altogether and continued such “sinful” practices as cursing, drinking, and gambling. Nevertheless, what one soldier called “the missionary influence of the enemy’s cannon” and the constant presence of death and suffering led many to seek comfort in religion.

Throughout the campaign, when the armies were in a relatively stable situation, the men sometimes agreed not to shoot at one another. Instead, they would meet between the lines to talk, swim, drink, bathe, enjoy the sun, pick blackberries, exchange newspapers, swap Northern coffee for Southern tobacco, play cards, wrestle, eat, sing, rob the dead, and argue politics. Officers on both sides tried to prohibit this fraternization, but the men in the ranks had the good sense to ignore their orders. These informal truces would usually be respected by all, and when they were over, fighting would not resume until every man had gotten back to his own trenches. Much of the tragedy of the war was reflected in a letter written by a Wisconsin soldier on June 24:

We made a bargain with them that we would not fire on them if they would not fire on us, and they were as good as their word. It seems too bad that we have to fight men that we like. Now these Southern soldiers seem just like our own boys, only they are on the other side. They talk about their people at home, their mothers and fathers and their sweethearts, just as we do among ourselves.

However, regardless of the soldiers’ feelings about each other during those times of truce, the war was being run by the generals and the generals said it must go on.

John Bell Hood, the new commander of the Confederate forces, found himself in a difficult position on the morning of July 18, 1864. Hood was young—only 33—and relatively inexperienced in handling large bodies of troops. After graduation from West Point (in the same class with the Federal generals McPherson and Schofield) he had served with the U.S. Army until the spring of 1861, when he resigned and cast his lot with the Confederacy. In the early years of the war Hood had risen rapidly in rank—a rise more than justified by his outstanding leadership at the brigade and division level.

Until the summer of 1863, Hood had been physically one of the most magnificent men in the Confederate Army. A woman who knew him in 1861 described him as “six feet two inches in height, with a broad, full chest, light hair and beard, blue eyes, with a peculiarly soft expression, commanding in appearance, dignified in deportment, gentlemanly and courteous to all.” By the time he took command of the Army of Tennessee, Hood’s appearance had undergone some changes. His left arm dangled uselessly at his side, smashed by a Federal bullet at Gettysburg in July 1863. His right leg was gone, cut away at the hip following a wound received at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. Hood suffered great pain from these wounds, and no doubt he should have been retired from field command; but he was not the kind of man who could stay away from the army during a war.

After recovering from his second wound, he was sent to the Army of Tennessee as a corps commander and had served in that capacity until Davis selected him to succeed Johnston. He may have been taking a derivative of laudanum to ease his pain and some students of the war believe that this affected his judgment. Many soldiers in the army distrusted Hood’s ability. Some officers resented his promotion over the heads of generals who had served with the army since the beginning of the war. Hood himself believed that the army had been demoralized by Johnston’s long retreat and hence was unlikely to fight well.

Nor could the tactical situation have brought Hood any encouragement. Thomas’ Army of the Cumberland was advancing southward directly toward Atlanta, while the armies of McPherson and Schofield were east of the city, advancing westward. Two of the four railroads that connected Atlanta with the rest of the Confederacy were in Federal hands. Unless Hood could keep the remaining lines open, the city was doomed.

BATTLES AROUND ATLANTA

On July 19, the Army of the Cumberland crossed Peachtree Creek, but as it advanced, it drifted toward the west. Thus by the afternoon a gap had developed in the Northern line between Thomas on the right and Schofield in the center. Hood decided to concentrate the corps of Hardee and Stewart against Thomas. The Confederate commander hoped to overwhelm the isolated Army of the Cumberland before help could arrive from McPhersonand Schofield. Hood relied upon his former corps, temporarily commanded by Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham, and the cavalry to defend the area east of Atlanta. The attack on Thomas was set for 1 p.m., July 20.

Early in the morning of the 20th, while the Southerners were preparing to assail the right of the Federal line, the Northerners east of Atlanta moved west along the Georgia Railroad toward the city. Their progress was so rapid that Hood felt it necessary to shift his army to the right in an effort to strengthen the forces defending the eastern approaches to Atlanta. This movement led to such confusion in the Confederate ranks that the attack against Thomas was delayed for about 3 hours. When the Southerners were finally ready to strike, Thomas’ men had had time to establish and partly fortify a position on the south side of Peachtree Creek.

What Hood had planned as a quick blow against an unprepared Northern army thus developed into a headlong assault against a partially fortified line. For several hours the Southerners threw themselves against the Federals. Most of the attacks were halted before they seriously threatened the Union position, but for a short while it appeared that some of Hardee’s men would sweep around the left of Thomas’ line and win a great victory. Hastily, Thomas assembled artillery batteries and directed their fire against the Southerners. Eventually the Confederates were driven back.

While fighting raged along Peachtree Creek, McPherson continued to push toward Atlanta from the east. By 6 p.m., Hood was forced to call upon Hardee for troops to reinforce the Southern lines east of the city. This order drew from Hardee the reserve division that he was preparing to throw into the assault against Thomas and forced him to abandon the attack. The first of Hood’s efforts to cripple the Federal army had failed, although at the time some Southerners saw it as a blow that slowed Federal progress.

Northern casualties in the Battle of Peachtree Creek were reported at 1,600. Estimates of Southern losses (mostly from Federal sources) range from 2,500 to 10,000. It seems now that 4,700 is a reliable estimate of Confederate casualties.

Gen. John B. Hood

The battle later became a source of controversy between Hood and Hardee. Hood, smarting under the criticism of Joseph E. Johnston and others, blamed the failure to crush Thomas on Hardee. The corps commander, Hood charged, had failed to attack at the proper time and had not driven home the assault. Hardee, who had outranked Hood when they were both lieutenant generals and who may have been disgruntled at serving under his former junior, replied that the delay was caused by Hood’s decision to shift the line to the right and that the assault had not been as vigorously executed as it normally would have been because Hood’s late-afternoon order to send reinforcements to the right had deprived the attackers of the unit that was to deliver the final blow. Postwar commentators mostly favor Hardee and a careful examination of the evidence supports this view.

After the Battle of Peachtree Creek, attention shifted to the eastern side of the city. Hood determined to strike McPherson who, on July 20 and 21, had moved past Decatur and entrenched a line running north and south a few miles east of Atlanta. The Confederate commander realized that he might march troops around the left of McPherson’s position and attack him from the flank and rear. He chose Hardee’s Corps to be the flanking column and planned to have Cheatham’s men attack the front of McPherson’s army from the west while Hardee struck from the south and east. With luck, this sensible plan could result in the defeat of a large part of Sherman’s forces.

Late on the 21st, Hardee’s men withdrew from their advanced position north of Atlanta and by midnight they were marching out of the city. They were to move southward, then turn and swing eastward and northward. Meanwhile, the other Southerners fell back to shorter lines where, it was hoped, they would be able to hold off the Federals while Hardee outflanked them.

On the morning of July 22, Sherman found the Southerners gone from his immediate front and concluded that Atlanta had been abandoned. However, as his armies pushed forward, they discovered that the defenders had only fallen back to a new position. The Northern advance contracted the Federal lines and the XVI Corps of McPherson’s army was crowded out of place. McPherson ordered it to move to his extreme left. Thus at the time Hardee was moving to that area, McPherson, by chance, was sending in reinforcements.

Hardee’s march was long and hard. Poor roads, inept guides, and the July heat combined to delay the Southerners. It was not until noon that Hardee had his men in position, and at 1 p.m. he sent them forward. The Confederates made their way through heavy underbrush and emerged facing the Federal XVI Corps which had halted in a perfect position to meet the charge which broke upon them.

Poor coordination also weakened the force of the Confederate offensive. Cheatham’s men, who assailed the XVII Corps, did not join the assault until about 3:30, by which time Hardee’s attack had lost much of its force. Nevertheless, the fighting was severe. One Federal brigadier wrote of the attackers:

They burst forth from the woods in truly magnificent style in front of my right.... Hardly had the enemy made his appearance in my front when [the artillery] ... opened on them a deadly fire, which rather staggered their line, yet on came the advancing rebels, and hotter grew the fire of ... [our artillery]. At the same time the ... infantry ... opened on them with cool and deadly aim. Still on came the charging columns, more desperate than ever, those in front urged up by those in rear.

The first charge was driven back, but the Southerners returned to the attack again and again throughout the long afternoon. Several times they swarmed over the Federal positions, capturing men and cannon, but each time they were driven back. In one of the early charges, McPherson was killed by advancing Confederate skirmishers as he rode forward to rally his men. Finally, about 7 p.m., the Southerners abandoned the attack and fell back. Their losses have been estimated at about 8,000. Union casualties were reported at 3,722.

For the second time Hood had lashed out at his opponent and had been thrown back. Later he tried to shift the blame to Hardee whom he accused of failing to be in the proper place at the proper time. In post-war years, a bitter verbal battle raged over the question. Most present-day authorities feel that Hardee did all that could reasonably have been asked of him. His troops were worn from the battle on Peachtree Creek, the bad roads slowed his march, and the fateful positioning of the XVI Corps was a matter over which he had no control.

In the summer of 1864, however, many Confederates saw the battle as a splendid victory. One artilleryman wrote on July 23:

We gained a great victory yesterday of which I suppose you know [from newspapers] as much as I do. We left before much was accomplished but hear that our corps captured 3,500 prisoners and 22 pieces of artillery & the enemies killed & wounded amounted to twice our own.

For several days after the Battle of Atlanta, there was a lull in military activities around the city. Both sides were reorganizing. Sherman selected Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard to command the army that McPherson had led. On the Confederate side, Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee replaced Cheatham as commander of the corps that had originally been Hood’s.

By July 26, Sherman had decided upon his next maneuver. His goal was the railroads south and west of Atlanta—the last links between that city and the rest of the Confederacy—and to reach them he would swing Howard’s Army of the Tennessee around from his extreme left to his extreme right. The movement began that afternoon and by nightfall on the 27th, Howard’s men were west of Atlanta. Early the following day the advance was resumed. The only effective opposition came from a small body of Confederate cavalry.

Hood was aware of Sherman’s new maneuver and determined to block it by sending the corps of Lee and Stewart west along the road to the little settlement of Lickskillet. By noon the opposing forces were in the area of a meetinghouse known as Ezra Church, about 2½ miles west of Atlanta. The Confederates had been ordered to attack and prevent the Northerners from crossing the road, and Lee and Stewart sent their men forward in a series of assaults against the XV Corps. The Federals had not had time to entrench, but they had piled up barricades of logs and church benches, and these afforded some protection.

“Our skirmishers, overpowered by numbers, were compelled to fall back to the main line,” wrote a Union officer,

followed at an interval of but a few paces by dense columns of the enemy, which, covered as they were by the undergrowth, advanced within forty or fifty paces of our lines, when a terrific and destructive fire was opened upon them, and was continued steadily until their advance was checked, at the distance of some twenty to thirty paces. Their lines were cut down, disordered, and driven back some distance, when they rallied and again came boldly forward to the charge, but under the murderous fire of our rifles were no more able to disorder or discompose our lines than before. They gained a little ground several times, only to lose it inch by inch, after the most terrible fighting on both sides.... After a very short interval, which did notamount to a cessation of the battle, new and largely augmented columns of the enemy came pouring in upon us, with the same results, however, as before, although their colors were planted within twenty paces.

For 4 or 5 hours the assaults continued, but the Confederates attacked piecemeal—separate units rushing forward—rather than striking a unified blow, and all their desperate courage was not enough to overcome this handicap. The Southern army is estimated to have suffered about 5,000 casualties in this battle. Federal losses were reported at 600.

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Although he had inflicted heavy losses on the Southerners, Sherman seems to have become convinced that he would not be able to capture Atlanta by his customary tactics. Hood had constructed a line of trenches that ran from Atlanta southward to East Point, protecting the railroads. The Confederate fortifications were too strong to be attacked and too long to be encircled. Sherman brought up a battery of siege guns and shelled the city. The Southern artillery in Atlanta replied and for several weeks helpless citizens lived in their cellars and scurried about amid bursting shells as the artillery duels started fires and smashed buildings, killing soldiers and civilians indiscriminately.

The Federal commander also decided to try cavalry raids in the hope that his horsemen could reach the railroads below Atlanta and, by cutting them, force Hood to evacuate the city. Late in July, two expeditions were launched. One under Brig. Gen. George Stoneman was to swing to the east to McDonough, Lovejoy Station, and Macon, tearing up the railroad and destroying supplies as it went. These cavalrymen were then to strike southwest to Americus where they hoped to free the 30,000 Northerners held in the prisoner of war camp at Andersonville. The other expedition, under Brig. Gen. Edward M. McCook, was to operate to the west and join Stoneman in attacking the Confederate lines of communication south of Atlanta.

From the start both raids were badly managed. Much of the blame must rest upon Stoneman who chose to go directly to Macon rather than follow orders. The scattered Federals were faced by a well-handled Confederate force led by Wheeler. Except for Stoneman’s column, the Northern horsemen were driven back to Sherman’s lines after destroying some Confederate supplies. Stoneman reached the vicinity of Macon where on July 31 he was attacked by the Southerners and captured along with 500 of his men.

Somehow during these busy weeks, Sherman found time to write a letter to Miss Emily Hoffman of Baltimore, the fiancée of the dead McPherson. “I owe you heartfelt sympathy,” he wrote, adding, “I yield to none of Earth but yourself the right to excell me in lamentations for our Dead Hero. Better the bride of McPherson dead than the wife of the richest Merchant of Baltimore.”Sherman described the fallen leader of the Army of the Tennessee who had been a close friend as well as a trusted subordinate as “the impersonation of Knighthood” and added that “while Life lasts I will delight in the Memory of that bright particular star.”

On August 10, Hood, perhaps thinking that the defeat of Stoneman and McCook had weakened Sherman’s cavalry, struck out at his opponent’s line of supply. He sent cavalry commander Wheeler with 4,000 men to destroy the railroad north of Marietta and to disrupt Sherman’s communications with the North. Although Wheeler was able to make some temporary breaks in the line, he was unable to reduce substantially the flow of supplies to Sherman’s armies. The Federal commander had built strong fortifications at the most strategic points on the railroad and his efficient repair crews quickly rebuilt those parts of the track that Wheeler could reach and damage. Eventually, the Confederate cavalry drifted into Tennessee and did not rejoin Hood until the campaign was over. Many students of the war regard Wheeler’s mission as a mistake because the absence of the cavalry deprived Hood of the best means of keeping posted on Sherman’s activities and thus proved fatal to the army at Atlanta.

Wheeler’s departure led Sherman to send out a third cavalry expedition, commanded by Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick. The Northerners reached the railroads below Atlanta and on August 18-20 succeeded in tearing up sections of the track. On the 20th they were driven away. Kilpatrick reported to Sherman that the railroad had been so thoroughly wrecked that it would take at least 10 days to repair it. However, on the following day, the Federals saw trains bringing supplies into the city from the south. Clearly the Northern cavalry was not strong enough to destroy Hood’s lines of supply. New plans would have to be tried if the Unionists were to capture Atlanta.

Meanwhile, a curious kind of optimism was developing in the Southern ranks. Many Confederates did not see the hard battles of late July as defeats. Rather they viewed them as successful efforts to halt the progress of flanking columns that had threatened the city’s lines of supply. One officer wrote on August 4 about the battles of Atlanta and Ezra Church: “General Hood watches his flanks closely and has twice whipped the flankingcolumns.” When Sherman made no new efforts to flank the city and when the Northern cavalry raids were beaten off one after another, many men came to believe that Atlanta had been saved. In mid-August a Texan informed his homefolk that “affairs are brightening here. People and army seem more confident of success.” At about the same time, a Mississippian wrote that “The enemy seems checked in his flanking operations on our left, as he has made no progress in that direction for the last four or five days.” On August 28, an Alabamian wrote his wife that “It required hard fighting to check the enemy here after having pursued us so far.”

At the very end of August there came exciting news for the Southerners. Sherman had fallen back! The Northerners were gone from in front of Atlanta! Many thought Wheeler’s cavalry had cut off Sherman’s supplies and that this had forced the Federal commander to lift the siege. Joyous Confederates swarmed out of the city to romp over the abandoned Northern trenches. “The scales have turned in favor of the South,” wrote Capt. Thomas J. Key of Arkansas, “and the Abolitionists are moving to the rear.”

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