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Chapter 16: Atlanta campaign-battles about Kenesaw Mountain. June, 1864.
On the 1st of June our three armies were well in hand, in the broken and densely-wooded country fronting the enemy intrenched at New Hope Church, about five miles north of
Dallas.
General Stoneman's division of cavalry had occupied
Allatoona, on the railroad, and
General Garrard's division was at the western end of the pass, about Stilesboroa.
Colonel W. W. Wright, of the
Engineers, was busily employed in repairing the railroad and rebuilding the bridge across the
Etowah (or
Hightower) River, which had been destroyed by the enemy on his retreat; and the armies were engaged in a general and constant skirmish along a front of about six miles--
McPherson the right,
Thomas the centre, and
Schofield on the left.
By gradually covering our front with parapet, and extending to the left, we approached the railroad toward
Acworth and overlapped the enemy's right.
By the 4th of June we had made such progress that
Johnston evacuated his lines in the night, leaving us masters of the situation, when I deliberately shifted
McPherson's army to the extreme left, at and in front of
Acworth, with
Thomas's about two miles on his right, and
Schofield's on his right — all facing east.
Heavy rains set in about the 1st of June, making the roads infamous; but our marches were short, as we needed time for the repair of the railroad, so as to bring supplies forward to Allatoona Station.
On the 6th I rode back to
Allatoona, seven miles, found it all that was expected, and gave orders for its fortification and preparation as a “secondary base.”
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General Blair arrived at
Acworth on the 8th with his two divisions of the Seventeenth Corps--the same which had been on veteran furlough — had come up from
Cairo by way of
Clifton, on the
Tennessee lniver, and had followed our general route to
Allatoona, where he had left a garrison of about fifteen hundred men. His effective strength, as reported, was nine thousand.
These, with new regiments and furloughed men who had joined early in the month of May, equaled our losses from battle, sickness, and by detachments; so that the three armies still aggregated about one hundred thousand effective men.
On the 10th of June the whole combined army moved forward six miles, to “Big Shanty,” a station on the railroad, whence we had a good view of the enemy's position, which embraced three prominent hills, known as
Kenesaw,
Pine Mountain, and
Lost Mountain.
On each of these hills the enemy had signal-stations and fresh lines of parapets.
Ieavy masses of infantry could be distinctly seen with the naked eye, and it was manifest that
Johnston had chosen his ground well, and with deliberation had prepared for battle; but his line was at least ten miles in extent — too long, in my judgment, to be held successfully by his force, then estimated at sixty thousand.
As his position, however, gave him a perfect view over our field, we had to proceed with due caution.
McPherson had the left, following the railroad, which curved around the north base of
Kenesaw;
Thomas the centre, obliqued to the right, deploying below
Kenesaw and facing
Pine Hill; and
Schofield, somewhat refused, was on the general right, looking south, toward
Lost Mountain.
On the 11th the
Etowah bridge was done; the railroad was repaired up to our very skirmish-line, close to the base of
Kenesaw, and a loaded train of cars came to Big Shanty.
The locomotive, detached, was run forward to a water-tank within the range of the enemy's guns on
Kenesaw, whence the enemy opened fire on the locomotive; but the engineer was not afraid, went on to the tank, got water, and returned safely to his train, answering the guns with the screams of his engine,heightened by the cheers and shouts of our men.
The rains continued to pour, and made our developments
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slow and dilatory, for there were no roads, and these had to be improvised by each division for its own supply-train from the depot in Big Shanty to the camps.
Meantime each army was deploying carefully before the enemy, intrenching every camp, ready as against a sally.
The enemy's cavalry was also busy in our rear, compelling us to detach cavalry all the way back as far as
Resaca, and to strengthen all the infantry posts as far as
Nashville.
Besides, there was great danger, always in my mind, that
Forrest would collect a heavy cavalry command in
Mississippi, cross the
Tennessee River, and break up our railroad below
Nashville.
In anticipation of this very danger, I had sent
General Sturgis to
Memphis to take command of all the cavalry in that quarter, to go out toward
Pontotoc, engage
Forrest and defeat him; but on the 14th of June I learned that
General Sturgis had himself been defeated on the 10th of June, and had been driven by
Forrest back into
Memphis in considerable confusion.
I expected that this would soon be followed by a general raid on all our roads in
Tennessee.
General A. J. Smith, with the two divisions of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Corps which had been with
General Banks up
Red River, had returned from that ill-fated expedition, and had been ordered to
General Canby at New Orleans, who was making a diversion about
Mobile; but, on hearing of
General Sturgis's defeat, I ordered
General Smith to go out from
Memphis and renew the offensive, so as to keep
Forrest off our roads.
This he did finally, defeating
Forrest at
Tupelo, on the 13th, 14th, and 15th days of July; and he so stirred up matters in
North Mississippi that
Forrest could not leave for
Tennessee.
This, for a time, left me only the task of covering the roads against such minor detachments of cavalry as
Johnston could spare from his immediate army, and I proposed to keep these too busy in their own defense to spare detachments.
By the 14th the rain slackened, and we occupied a continuous line of ten miles, intrenched, conforming to the irregular position of the enemy, when I reconnoitred, with a view to make a break in their line between
Kenesaw and
Pine Mountain.
When abreast of
Pine Mountain I noticed a rebel battery
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on its crest, with a continuous line of fresh rifle-trench about half-way down the hill.
Our skirmishers were at the time engaged in the woods about the base of this hill between the lines, and I estimated the distance to the battery on the crest at about eight hundred yards. Near it, in plain view, stood a group of the enemy, evidently observing us with glasses.
General Howard, commanding the Fourth Corps, was near by, and I called his attention to this group, and ordered him to compel it to keep behind its cover.
lie replied that his orders from
General Thomas were to spare artillery-ammunition.
This was right, according to the general policy, but I explained to him that we must keep up the
morale of a bold offensive, that he must use his artillery, force the enemy to remain on the timid defensive, and ordered him to cause a battery close by to fire three volleys.
I continued to ride down our line, and soon heard, in quick succession, the three volleys.
The next division in order was
Geary's, and I gave him similar orders.
General Polk, in my opinion, was killed by the second volley fired from the first battery referred to.
In a conversation with
General Johnston, after the war, he explained that on that day he had ridden in person from
Marietta to
Pine Mountain, held by
Bates's division, and was accompanied by
Generals Hardee and
Polk.
When on
Pine Mountain, reconnoitring, quite a group of soldiers, belonging to the battery close by, clustered about him. He noticed the preparations of our battery to fire, and cautioned these men to scatter.
They did so, and he likewise hurried behind the parapet, from which he had an equally good view of our position; but
General Polk, who was dignified and corpulent, walked back slowly, not wishing to appear too hurried or cautious in the presence of the men, and was struck across the breast by an unexploded shell, which killed him instantly.
This is my memory of the conversation, and it is confirmed by
Johnston himself in his “Narrative,” page 337, except that he calculated the distance of our battery at six hundred yards, and says that
Polk was killed by the third shot; I know that our guns fired by volley, and believe that he was hit by a shot of the second volley.
It has
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been asserted that I fired the gun which killed
General Polk, and that I knew it was directed against that general.
The fact is, at that distance we could not even tell that the group were officers at all; I was on horseback, a couple of hundred yards off, before my orders to fire were executed, had no idea that our shot had taken effect, and continued my ride down along the line to
Schofield's extreme flank, returning late in the evening to my headquarters at Big Shanty, where I occupied an abandoned house.
In a cotton-field back of that house was our signal-station, on the roof of an old gin-house.
The signal-officer reported that by studying the enemy's signals he had learned the “key,” and that he could read their signals.
He explained to me that he had translated a signal about noon, from
Pine Mountain to
Marietta, “Send an ambulance for
General Polk's body;” and later in the day another, “Why don't you send an ambulance for
General Polk?”
From this we inferred that
General Polk had been killed, but how or where we knew not; and this inference was confirmed later in the same day by the report of some prisoners who had been captured.
On the 15th we advanced our general lines, intending to attack at any weak point discovered between
Kenesaw and
Pine Mountain; but
Pine Mountain was found to be abandoned, and
Johnston had contracted his front somewhat, on a direct line, connecting
Kenesaw with
Lost Mountain.
Thomas and
Schofield thereby gained about two miles of most difficult country, and
McPherson's left lapped well around the north end of
Kenesaw.
We captured a good many prisoners, among them a whole infantry regiment, the Fourteenth Alabama, three hundred and twenty strong.
On the 16th the general movement was continued, when
Lost Mountain was abandoned by the enemy.
Our right naturally swung round, so as to threaten the railroad below
Marietta, but
Johnston had still further contracted and strengthened his lines, covering
Marietta and all the roads below.
On the 17th and 18th the rain again fell in torrents, making army movements impossible, but we devoted the time to strengthening our positions, more especially the left and centre,
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with a view gradually to draw from the left to add to the right; and we had to hold our lines on the left extremely strong, to guard against a sally from
Kenesaw against our depot at Big Shanty.
Garrard's division of cavalry was kept busy on our left,
McPherson had gradually extended to his right, enabling
Thomas to do the same still farther; but the enemy's position was so very strong, and everywhere it was covered by intrenchments, that we found it as dangerous to assault as a permanent fort.
We in like manner covered our lines of battle by similar works, and even our skirmishers learned to cover their bodies by the simplest and best forms of defensive works, such as rails or logs, piled in the form of a simple lunette, covered on the outside with earth thrown up at night.
The enemy and ourselves used the same form of rifle-trench, varied according to the nature of the ground, viz.: the trees and bushes were cut away for a hundred yards or more in front, serving as an abatis or entanglement; the parapets varied from four to six feet high, the dirt taken from a ditch outside and from a covered way inside, and this parapet was surmounted by a “head-log,” composed of the trunk of a tree from twelve to twenty inches at the butt, lying along the interior crest of the parapet and resting in notches cut in other trunks which extended back, forming an inclined plane,, in case the head-log should be knocked inward by a cannon-shot.
The men of both armies became extremely skillful in the construction of these works, because each man realized their value and importance to himself, so that it required no orders for their construction.
As soon as a regiment or brigade gained a position within easy distance for a sally, it would set to work with a will, and would construct such a parapet in a single night; but I endeavored to spare the soldiers this hard labor by authorizing each division commander to organize out of the freedmen who escaped to us a pioneer corps of two hundred men, who were fed out of the regular army supplies, and I promised them ten dollars a month, under an existing act of Congress.
These pioneer detachments became very useful to us during the rest of the war, for they could work at night while our men slept; they in turn were not
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expected to fight, and could therefore sleep by day. Our enemies used their slaves for a similar purpose, but usually kept them out of the range of fire by employing them to fortify and strengthen the position to their rear
next to be occupied in their general retrograde.
During this campaign hundreds if not thousands of miles of similar intrenchments were built by both armies, and as a rule whichever party attacked one of them got the worst of it.
On the 19th of June the rebel army again fell back on its flanks, to such an extent that for a time I supposed it had retreated to the
Chattahoochee River, fifteen miles distant; but as we pressed forward we were soon undeceived, for we found it still more concentrated, covering
Marietta and the railroad.
These successive contractions of the enemy's line encouraged us and discouraged him, but were doubtless justified by sound reasons.
On the 20th
Johnston's position was unusually strong.
Kenesaw Mountain was his salient; his two flanks were refused and covered by parapets and by
Noonday and
Nose's Creeks.
His left flank was his weak point, so long as he acted on the “defensive,” whereas, had he designed to contract the extent of his line for the purpose of getting in reserve a force with which to strike “offensively” from his right, he would have done a wise act, and I was compelled to presume that such was his object.
We were also so far from
Nashville and
Chattanooga that we were naturally sensitive for the safety of our railroad and depots, so that the left (
McPherson) was held
very strong.
About this time came reports that a large cavalry force of the enemy had passed around our left flank, evidently to strike this very railroad somewhere below
Chattanooga.
I therefore reenforced the cavalry stationed from
Resaca to
Cassville, and ordered forward from
Huntsville, Alabama, the infantry division of
General John E. Smith, to hold
Kingston securely.
While we were thus engaged about
Kenesaw,
General Grant had his hands full with
Lee, in
Virginia.
General Halleck was the
chief of staff at
Washington, and to him I communicated almost daily.
I find from my letter-book that on the 21st
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of June I reported to him tersely and truly the condition of facts on that day: “This is the nineteenth day of rain, and the prospect of fair weather is as far off as ever.
The roads are impassable; the fields and woods become quagmires after a few wagons have crossed over.
Yet we are at work all the time.
The left flank is across
Noonday Creek, and the right is across
Nose's Creek.
The enemy still holds
Kenesaw, a conical mountain, with
Marietta behind it, and has his flanks retired, to cover that town and the railroad behind.
I am all ready to attack the moment the weather and roads will permit troops and artillery to move with any thing like life.”
The weather has a wonderful effect on troops: in action and on the march, rain is favorable; but in the woods, where all is blind and uncertain, it seems almost impossible for an army covering ten miles of front to act in concert during wet and stormy weather.
Still I pressed operations with the utmost earnestness, aiming always to keep our fortified lines in absolute contact with the enemy, while with the surplus force we felt forward, from one flank or the other, for his line of communication and retreat.
On the 22d of June I rode the whole line, and ordered
General Thomas in person to advance his extreme right corps (
Hooker's); and instructed
General Schofield, by letter, to keep his entire army, viz., the Twenty-third Corps, as a strong right flank in close support of
Hooker's deployed line.
During this day the sun came out, with some promise of clear weather, and I had got back to my bivouac about dark, when a signal message was received, dated--
We have repulsed two heavy attacks, and feel confident, our only apprehension being from our extreme right flank.
Three entire corps are in front of us.
Hooker's corps (the Twentieth) belonged to
Thomas's army;
Thomas's headquarters were two miles nearer to
Hooker than mine; and
Hooker, being an old army officer, knew that he
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should have reported this fact to
Thomas and not to me; I was, moreover, specially disturbed by the assertion in his report that he was uneasy about his
right flank, when
Schofield had been specially ordered to protect that.
I first inquired of my adjutant,
Dayton, if he were certain that
General Schofield had received his orders, and he answered that the envelope in which he had sent them was receipted by
General Schofield himself.
I knew, therefore, that
General Schofield must be near by, in close support of
Hooker's right flank.
General Thomas had before this occasion complained to me of
General Hooker's disposition to “switch off,” leaving wide gaps in his line, so as to be independent, and to make
glory on his own account.
I therefore resolved not to overlook this breach of discipline and propriety.
The rebel army was only composed of three corps; I had that very day ridden six miles of their lines, found them everywhere strongly occupied, and therefore
Hooker could not have encountered “three entire corps.”
Both
McPherson and
Schofield had also complained to me of this same tendency of
Hooker to widen the gap between his own corps and his proper army (
Thomas's), so as to come into closer contact with one or other of the wings, asserting that he was the senior by commission to both
McPherson and
Schofield, and that in the event of battle he should assume command over them, by virtue of his older commission.
They appealed to me to protect them.
I had heard during that day some cannonading and heavy firing down toward the “Kulp house,” which was about five miles southeast of where I was, but this was nothing unusual, for at the same moment there was firing along our lines full ten miles in extent.
Early the next day (23d) I rode down to the “Kulp house,” which was on a road leading from
Powder Springs to
Marietta, about three miles distant from the latter.
On the way I passed through
General Butterfield's division of
Hooker's corps, which I learned had not been engaged at all in the battle of the day before; then I rode along
Geary's and
Ward's divisions, which occupied the field of battle, and the men were engaged in burying the dead.
I found
General Schofield's corps on the
Powder
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Springs road, its head of column abreast of
Hooker's right, therefore constituting “a strong right flank,” and I met
Generals Schofield and
Hooker together.
As rain was falling at the moment, we passed into a little church standing by the road-side, and I there showed
General Schofield Hooker's signal-message of the day before.
He was very angry, and pretty sharp words passed between them,
Schofield saying that his head of column (
Hascall's division) had been, at the time of the battle, actually in advance of Iooker's line; that the attack or sally of the enemy struck his troops before it did
Hooker's; that
General Hooker knew of it at the time; and he offered to go out and show me that the dead men of his advance division (
Hascall's) were lying farther out than any of
Hooker's.
General Hooker pretended not to have known this fact.
I then asked him why he had called on me for help, until he had used all of his own troops; asserting that I had just seen Butter-field's division, and had learned from him that he had not been engaged the day before at all; and I asserted that the enemy's sally must have been made by one corps (
Hood's), in place of three, and that it had fallen on
Geary's and
Williams's divisions, which had repulsed the attack handsomely.
As we rode away from that church
General Hooker was by my side, and I told him that such a thing must not occur again; in other words, I reproved him more gently than the occasion demanded, and from that time he began to sulk.
General Hooker had come from the
East with great fame as a “fighter,” and at
Chattanooga he was glorified by his “battle above the clouds,” which I fear turned his head.
He seemed jealous of all the army commanders, because in years, former rank, and experience, he thought he was our superior.
On the 23d of June I telegraphed to
General Halleck this summary, which I cannot again better state:
We continue to press forward on the principle of an advance against fortified positions.
The whole country is one vast fort, and Johnston must have at least fifty miles of connected trenches, with abatis and finished batteries.
We gain ground daily, fighting all the time.
On the 21st General Stanley gained a position near the south end of Kenesaw, from which
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the enemy attempted in vain to drive him; and the same day General T. J. Wood's division took a hill, which the enemy assaulted three times at night without success, leaving more than a hundred dead on the ground.
Yesterday the extreme right (Hooker and Schofield) advanced on the Powder Springs road to within three miles of Marietta.
The enemy made a strong effort to drive them away, but failed signally, leaving more than two hundred dead on the field.
Our lines are now in close contact, and the fighting is incessant, with a good deal of artillery-fire.
As fast as we gain one position the enemy has another all ready, but I think he will soon have to let go Kenesaw, which is the key to the whole country.
The weather is now better, and the roads are drying up fast.
Our losses are light, and, notwithstanding the repeated breaks of the road to our rear, supplies are ample.
During the 24th and 25th of June
General Schofield extended his right as far as prudent, so as to compel the enemy to thin out his lines correspondingly, with the intention to make two strong assaults at points — where success would give us the greatest advantage.
I had consulted
Generals Thomas,
McPherson, and
Schofield, and we all agreed that we could not with prudence stretch out any more, and therefore there was no alternative but to attack “fortified lines,” a thing carefully avoided up to that time.
I reasoned, if we could make a breach anywhere near the rebel centre, and thrust in a strong head of column, that with the one moiety of our army we could hold in check the corresponding wing of the enemy, and with the other sweep in flank and overwhelm the other half.
The 27th of June was fixed as the day for the attempt, and in order to oversee the whole, and to be in close communication with all parts of the army, I had a place cleared on the top of a hill to the rear of
Thomas's centre, and had the telegraph-wires laid to it. The points of attack were chosen, and the troops were all prepared with as little demonstration as possible.
About 9 A. M. of the day appointed, the troops moved to the assault, and all along our lines for ten miles a furious fire of artillery and musketry was kept up. At all points the enemy met us with determined courage and in great force.
McPherson's attacking column fought up the face of the lesser
Kenesaw, but could not reach the summit.
About a mile to the right (just below the
Dallas road)
Thomas's assaulting
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column reached the parapet, where
Brigadier-General Harker was shot down mortally wounded, and
Brigadier-General Daniel McCook (my old law-partner) was desperately wounded, from the effects of which he afterward died.
By 11.30 the assault was in fact over, and had failed.
We had not broken the rebel line at either point, but our assaulting columns held their ground within a few yards of the rebel trenches, and there covered themselves with parapet.
McPherson lost about five hundred men and several valuable officers, and
Thomas lost nearly two thousand men. This was the hardest fight of the campaign up to that date, and it is well described by
Johnston in his “Narrative” (pages 342, 343), where he admits his loss in killed and wounded as--
This, no doubt, is a true and fair statement; but, as usual,
Johnston overestimates our loss, putting it at six thousand, whereas our entire loss was about twenty-five hundred, killed and wounded.
While the battle was in progress at the centre,
Schofield crossed Olley's Creek on the right, and gained a position threatening
Johnston's line of retreat; and, to increase the effect, I ordered
Stoneman's cavalry to proceed rapidly still farther to the right, to
Sweetwater.
Satisfied of the bloody cost of attacking intrenched lines, I at once thought of moving the whole army to the railroad at a point (
Fulton) about ten miles below
Marietta, or to the
Chattahoochee River itself, a movement similar to the one afterward so successfully practised at
Atlanta.
All the orders were issued to bring forward supplies enough to fill our wagons, intending to strip the railroad back to
Allatoona, and leave that place as our depot, to be covered as well as possible by
Garrard's cavalry.
General Thomas, as usual, shook his head, deeming it risky to leave the railroad; but something
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had to be done, and I had resolved on this move, as reported in my dispatch to
General Halleck on July 1st:
General Schofield is now south of Olley's Creek, and on the head of Nickajack.
I have been hurrying down provisions and forage, and to-morrow night propose to move McPherson from the left to the extreme right, back of General Thomas.
This will bring my right within three miles of the Chattahoochee River, and about five miles from the railroad.
By this movement I think I can force Johnston to move his whole army down from Kenesaw to defend his railroad and the Chattahoochee, when I will (by the left flank) reach the railroad below Marietta; but in this I must cut loose from the railroad with ten days supplies in wagons.
Johnston may come out of his intrenchments to attack Thomas, which is exactly what I want, for General Thomas is well intrenched on a line parallel with the enemy south of Kenesaw.
I think that Allatoona and the line of the Etowah are strong enough for me to venture on this move.
The movement is substantially down the Sandtown road straight for Atlanta.
McPherson drew out of his lines during the night of July 2d, leaving
Garrard's cavalry, dismounted, occupying his trenches, and moved to the rear of the Army of the Cumberland, stretching down the
Nickajack; but
Johnston detected the movement, and promptly abandoned
Marietta and
Kenesaw.
I expected as much, for, by the earliest dawn of the 3d of July, I was up at a large spy-glass mounted on a tripod, which
Colonel Poe, United States Engineers, had at his bivouac close by our camp.
I directed the glass on
Kenesaw, and saw some of our pickets crawling up the hill cautiously; soon they stood upon the very top, and I could plainly see their movements as they ran along the crest just abandoned by the enemy.
In a minute I roused my staff, and started them off with orders in every direction for a pursuit by every possible road, hoping to catch
Johnston in the confusion of retreat, especially at the crossing of the
Chattahoochee River.
I must close this chapter here, so as to give the actual losses during June, which are compiled from the official returns by months.
These losses, from June 1st to July 3d, were all substantially sustained about
Kenesaw and
Marietta, and it was really a continuous battle, lasting from the 10th day of June till
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the 3d of July, when the rebel army fell back from
Marietta toward the
Chattahoochee River.
Our losses were:
Army of the Cumberland.
| Corps. | Killed and Missing. | Wounded. | Total. |
| Fourth (Howard） | 602 | 1,542 | 2,144 |
| Fourteenth (Palmer） | 353 | 1,466 | 1,819 |
| Twentieth (Hooker） | 322 | 1,246 | 1,568 |
| Total, Army of the Cumberland | 1,277 | 4,254 | 5,531 |
Army of the Tennessee.
| Corps. | Killed and Missing. | Wounded. | Total. |
| Fifteenth (Logan） | 179 | 687 | 866 |
| Sixteenth (Dodge） | 52 | 157 | 209 |
| Seventeenth (Blair） | 47 | 212 | 259 |
| Total, Army of the Tennessee | 278 | 1,056 | 1,334 |
Army of the Ohio.
| Corps. | Killed and Missing. | Wounded. | Total. |
| Twenty-third (Schofield） | 105 | 362 | 467 |
| Cavalry | 130 | 68 | 198 |
| Total, Army of the Ohio | 235 | 430 | 665 |
| Loss in June, aggregate | 1,790 | 5,740 | 7,530 |
Johnston makes his statement of losses from the report of his
surgeon Foard, for pretty much the same period, viz., from June 4th to July 4th (page 576):
| Corps. | Killed. | Wounded. | Total. |
| Hardee's | 200 | 1,433 | 1,633 |
| Hood's | 140 | 1,121 | 1,261 |
| Polk's | 128 | 926 | 1,054 |
| Total | 468 | 3,480 | 3,948 |
In the tabular statement the “missing” embraces the prisoners; and, giving two thousand as a fair proportion of prisoners
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captured by us for the month of June (twelve thousand nine hundred and eighty-three in all the campaign), makes an aggregate loss in the rebel army of fifty-nine hundred and forty-eight, to ours of seventy-five hundred and thirty--a less proportion than in the relative strength of our two armies, viz., as six to ten, thus maintaining our relative superiority, which the desperate game of war justified.
