Next day the battery was ordered to
Atlanta, and on the morning of the 22d was assigned to a position in the
Peach Tree Street Redoubt, at that time an unfinished work.
When completed it was circular in form, having a parapet right, left and rear, with five embrasures.
In the afternoon the battery began to reply to the enemy, who had moved up within reach.
Toward sunset
General Loring came up, and ordered
Captain Rowan to fire as rapidly as possible, so as to attract the enemy's attention, and create a diversion of their forces from the left, upon which the
Confederates were making a charge.
This movement was a success.
Three thousand prisoners, twenty-eight pieces of artillery and a considerable quantity of ordnance stores were captured.
The batteries kept up a continuous firing, night and day, for several days, to prevent the enemy from advancing their line.
Two thirty-two pounder siege pieces were now brought up, one of which was planted in the
Peach Tree Street redoubt, and the other two hundred yards in the rear.
Captain M. Van Den Corput who was now temporarily in command of the battalion, placed
Lieutenant Ritter in charge of these guns, detailing men to work them from
Rowan's and
Corput's batteries.
Several attempts made by the enemy to plant batteries in our front, were frustrated by aid of these guns.
They were removed, August 20th, to the south of the city.
Captain Corput was about this time wounded, and
Captain Rowan took command of the battalion, which left
Lieutenant Ritter in command of the company.
The battalion proceeded on the 27th to
East Point, six miles southwest of
Atlanta, whence it marched to
Jonesboro, arriving there on the 30th and fighting the enemy on the same day.
Atlanta's communications being cut on every side, its evacuation was now a pressing
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necessity.
The corps was ordered back, on the 1st of September, to assist in bringing away the
Quartermaster's and ordnance stores, and that night the city was evacuated.
The retreat was in the direction of Lovejoy Station.
The enemy followed, and on the 4th we fought them two miles north of that place, to such good purpose that on the 5th they returned to
Atlanta.
The battalion was parked in a field near the station, where it remained till the 18th of September; it then moved to
Palmetto, and took position behind a line of fortifications extending from the railroad to the
Chattahoochee river.
