Read Ebook: The Road Past Kennesaw: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864 by McMurry Richard M Wiley Bell Irvin Author Of Introduction Etc

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 124 lines and 19359 words, and 3 pages

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.

ACROSS THE CHATTAHOOCHEE

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.

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.

JOHNSTON REMOVED FROM COMMAND

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.

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.

IN THE RANKS

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.

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.

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."

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.

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 for many lives among the soldiers in Georgia. Diseases that were especially common were smallpox, scurvy, dysentery, diarrhea , 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.

PEACHTREE CREEK

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 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.

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.

Battle of Peachtree Creek JULY 20 Battle of Ezra Church, JULY 28 Battle of Atlanta JULY 22

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 McPherson and 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.

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

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.

THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA

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.

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 ... opened on them a deadly fire, which rather staggered their line, yet on came the advancing rebels, and hotter grew the fire of ... . 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.

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

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet