The Day Dixie Died: The Battle of Atlanta

by Gary Ecelbarger

  When Hood returned from his Chickamauga wound to field duty in March he left the Army of Northern Virginia and came to the Army of Tennessee in Dalton, Georgia. He was welcomed into the army for leading an assault in Longstreet’s command at the Battle of Chickamauga that turned the Union flank and achieved the Confederate victory that day. That assault produced the grievous leg wound that made Hood a hero, albeit a crippled one. Although fitted with an artificial leg, Hood could only walk with crutches, which were difficult to use because of his useless arm. Aides needed to tend to his personal needs. They also needed to strap him to his saddle where he remained for hours as he led the corps he earned for his years of sacrifice and achievement. Ironically, it was General Johnston who put a good word in to bring the hero into his army, “Hood is much wanted here.”16

  Hood’s war wounds did not appear to diminish his zeal for carnage and mayhem but the troops he commanded could not match up to the awesome performances of his Texas brigade in 1862 and the divisions he commanded in 1863. He counterpunched fluidly at Resaca, Georgia, preserving Johnston’s right flank in mid-May, but the punch was landed too weakly by one of his divisions to roll up the Union flank as Johnston had intended. Hood severely punished part of Thomas’s army for haphazard attacks made upon his corps at New Hope Church, Georgia, ten days later. Hood’s offensive prowess was entirely lacking at Kolb’s Farm, Georgia, in the third week of June. There, Hood’s two-division assault was easily brushed away by a division of the Army of the Cumberland, which inflicted 1,500 casualties upon Hood while suffering relatively few losses (250) on the defensive. Either Hood was losing his touch, or the subordinate division and brigade commanders failed to share his passion for the assault, or other circumstances, such as a stronger and wary opponent, were conspiring to neutralize his forte on those Georgia killing fields.

  None of that mattered by July, for according to President Davis, Johnston “failed to arrest the advance of the enemy to the vicinity of Atlanta” and the War Department had lost confidence in him. Again, Hood’s Chickamauga wound appeared to aid him in the decision to replace Johnston. Hood had convalesced from his amputation for a time in Richmond late in 1863, where the blond-haired hero was treated well. There he continued to woo “Buck” (Sally Buchanan Preston), a South Carolina belle who caught Hood’s eye and heart back in 1862. She loved to flirt, but she did not love Hood. Still, he managed to get a tacit acceptance of his marriage proposal, an agreement that would disintegrate within a year. Perhaps Hood had an inkling of her teasing nature. He found an outlet to his needs by frequently visiting a young prostitute, a teenager who must have been aware of Hood’s courtship with the beautiful “Buck” when she wrote, “I wondered why he came here, when he could get all he wanted free.”17

  Hood’s dalliances with the fairer sex did not prevent him from endearing himself to the person that mattered the most in Richmond: President Jefferson Davis. He had met Davis frequently during his convalescence and grew beyond his 6'2" frame in the President’s already approving eyes. Physically, Hood was no longer the imposing figure that helped Lee defend Richmond in 1862. His shoulders no longer appeared so broad and his chest was not as thick, both a consequence of that crippled right arm. The uniform was always ill-fitting, making Hood appear like “a raw boned, country-looking man” or “like a raw backwoodsman.” Moreover, his face remained long and sad, although his booming voice was still melodious and rich in tone, and those blue eyes still were as penetrating as ever, kindly and expressive all at the same time. The few photographs taken of him darkened his features when in actuality his tawny beard and brown hair were so light as to be described as blond.18

  Hood could not impress Davis with his brilliance because he was not a brilliant man. He ranked in the bottom fifth of his West Point class of 1853, far below General Schofield and forty-three notches below James McPherson (the head of that class), but Hood’s battlefield performances outshone the class star. That and his heroic injuries impressed Davis who sent Hood to Georgia in 1864 with a rank of lieutenant general, the youngest commander in the Confederacy to hold that distinction. On July 17, Hood was promoted again to the highest Confederate rank of general, although that was noted to be a temporary rank, it was one sure to stand if Hood could somehow save Atlanta and expel the opposition from its tightening grip on the beleaguered city. In choosing him, President Davis did not consider Hood’s unproven skills as a strategist or whether or not he could handle the reams of paperwork and communicate well with his subordinates—all traits required for success by army commanders. None of that seemed to matter at that point. Davis cast his lot with Hood because he knew he would attack and not retreat. Hood’s promotion sent a message to him, his subordinates, and his opponents that the army was not going to give up Atlanta without a fight.

  On Wednesday, July 20, Hood spent his third day as commander of the Army of Tennessee doing exactly what was expected of him by his president—attacking the enemy to keep them from closing in upon Atlanta. He inherited General Johnston’s command on July 17, a force that could rightfully boast seven weeks earlier to be one of the largest armies ever fielded by the Confederacy in the three-year-old war. Back then the army approached 80,000 officers and men present for duty, but Johnston lost significant numbers of troops as he ceded 100 miles of Georgia to General Sherman. He lost a higher percentage of men killed, wounded, and captured on the defensive than did Sherman, who had sparred with him since early May. The addition of Georgia militia failed to significantly offset those losses; still, Hood inherited a significant and skilled force that numbered close to 63,000 soldiers in his infantry, cavalry, artillery, and militia. Hood’s Army of Tennessee was the largest Confederate army on the continent on July 20, 1864, larger than Robert E. Lee’s dwindling numbers facing the Union Army of the Potomac 450 miles north of them at Petersburg, Virginia.19

  The Army of Tennessee was torn between its ardor for its former commander and its dissatisfaction with the conduct of the campaign to that point. Grumbling within the ranks was palpable over the previous month as Johnston continued to fall back through northern Georgia. Most soldiers who wrote an opinion were distraught to see Johnston go, but Hood was not considered a source of despair for those writing within days of the command change. Quite the contrary, he was a source of hope for a change of direction and fortune. One soldier claimed that all were “perfectly satisfied” with Hood as their new commander. He could hardly speak for everyone, but even some Johnston men, like Captain Samuel Kelly, confessed that he did not object to Hood’s ascent to command “and hope it is for the best.” It was the most ardent Johnston supporters who were dumbfounded by his dismissal and also distraught at Hood’s ascent to the top of the command. “Hood is the most unpopular Gen’l in the Army and some of the troops are swearing that they will not serve under him,” revealed Lieutenant Robert Gill of the 41st Mississippi the day he learned that Johnston was gone. That same day (July 18) Martin Van Buren Oldham scrawled in his diary, “Hood’s fighting quality, as demonstrated by his total disregard for human sacrifice, does by no means suit the men.” That Tennessee soldier well realized why Hood replaced Johnston, closing his daily entry by easily predicting, “Gen. Hood will probably teach the army other tactics than fortifying.”20

  Hood sensed the low morale and insisted that battle victories were the perfect antidote. Charged with the responsibility to protect Atlanta from Union invasion, Hood saw the adverse outcome as inevitable unless he could deliver a devastating blow to Sherman. The first opportunity arose Wednesday July 20 as Hood studied Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland as it crossed Peachtree Creek, a northwesterly flowing tributary of the Chattahoochee. “Feeling it impossible to hold Atlanta without giving battle, I determined to strike the enemy while attempting to cross this stream,” reported Hood, stressing that his objective was “to crush Thomas’ army before he could fortify himself, and then turn upon Schofield and McPherson.” To destroy Thomas he planned on hitting him with two of his corps to d
rive him over Peachtree Creek and trap him between the stream and the Chattahoochee River while the third Confederate corps—his former command—kept Schofield in place northeast of Atlanta. If he failed to destroy or irreparably wound the Army of the Cumberland, Hood realized his chances to turn the campaign around would suffer severely.

  He failed. The Battle of Peachtree Creek began at 4:00 P.M. (three hours later than initially planned), and despite some early success against the center of Thomas’s army, Hood’s two attacking corps failed to throw the enemy across Peachtree Creek. Vigorous assaults were initiated by the corps of Major General Alexander P. Stewart, but Hood seethed that his other attacking corps, commanded by Lieutenant General William J. Hardee, “failed to push the attack.” Two hours and fifteen minutes later, Hood called off the battle when he rightfully convinced himself that the opportunity for success had come and gone. Thomas’s defense cost him 1,500 killed and wounded men, attesting to the vigor of the Southern attack, but Hood’s casualties reached 2,500 without appreciable gain on the battlefield.21

  Unknown to General Hood was that by initiating the Battle of Peachtree Creek, he upset Sherman’s plans for General Thomas to order his troops to “push hard for Atlanta, sweeping everything before them.” Sending that message to Thomas half an hour before Hood launched his attack, Sherman was looking for a quick and simultaneous assault upon the outer defenses of Atlanta. With Thomas under continuous assaults throughout the late afternoon, and Schofield opposed by a larger corps of Confederates, Sherman looked to McPherson to break the stalemate. Based on the limited number of troops Hood had to protect Atlanta, Sherman realized that of the three armies under his command, the Army of the Tennessee must be opposed by the fewest number of Southerners and the lowest number of cannons. No one could blame Sherman if McPherson’s earlier vacillation at Resaca invaded his thoughts. If it did, that would be McPherson’s opportunity for redemption.22

  McPherson’s army advanced from Decatur, Georgia (due east of Atlanta), with two corps marching westward on parallel roads. The XV Corps followed the line of the Decatur road and the Georgia Railroad while the XVII Corps attempted to keep pace on a more tortuous farm road off the left flank of the XV Corps. The undersized XVI Corps, all of four brigades, took up the reserve role and marched in the rear. McPherson’s supply train, over 1,000 wagons, remained in an established park near Decatur.23

  Early in the afternoon McPherson’s men struck a line of Confederates who opened fire upon them with a battery from a belt of woods a half mile west of a north-south road known for the Clay residence off to the side of it. Major General Frank Blair’s corps, the XVII, was hit by that barrage. Blair’s men faced off against Hood’s cavalry corps, approximately 2,500 horse soldiers commanded by Major General Joseph Wheeler. Wheeler was a Georgian and only twenty-seven-years old but had come under enemy fire so often in the war that he would eventually tally three wounds, sixteen horses shot out from under him, and thirty-six staff officers who caught lead probably intended for him.

  To counter Wheeler’s guns, Blair called up two batteries, the 15th Ohio and 1st Minnesota Light Artillery. A heavier-than-expected artillery duel followed in that sector, one that imbued a lasting effect on the artillerists engaged. Thomas D. Christie, a Minnesotan working one of the cannons, declared, “I never want to see shells fly thicker than they did at us there.… Four of our fancy horses were killed, & another wounded, three of them by our shell, which burst under the Limber, throwing splinters & gravel right in the Captain’s face.” In less than an hour the two Union batteries overpowered the lone Confederate battery and Blair’s men knocked Wheeler’s defenders back to a ridge line 2 miles east of Atlanta, dominated by a treeless eminence known as Bald Hill.24

  Wheeler was attempting to make a stand as Hood launched the Battle of Peachtree Creek. Hood’s army was essentially arrayed in an arc that partially ringed Atlanta and covered approaches north and east. (If Atlanta was the center of the face of the clock, the Confederate army was aligned from 11 o’clock to 3 o’clock.) Wheeler was Hood’s right flank, a position made more important as the afternoon waned while Hood battled Thomas on his left. If Wheeler was driven into Atlanta, Hood risked the threat of one of Sherman’s armies at his rear as he attempted to drive two others away from his front. Furthermore, Wheeler protected the right flank of Hood’s infantry—Hood’s old corps commanded by Major General Benjamin Franklin Cheatham—that extended to the east-west Georgia Railroad to prevent the advance of the Army of the Ohio against it.

  If Wheeler was forced from the ridge south of Cheatham and the railroad, Hood’s army could be rolled up counterclockwise from the railroad. That not only was unacceptable; it would be disastrous to Hood’s defense of the city. Trying to oversee the battle on each side of his arc of defense, Hood was unable to spare any infantry from his three corps to support Wheeler. He sent up more cavalry to boost his numbers up to 3,500. It was up to his cavalry chief to hold on and stave off the Union infantry and artillery opposing him. Wheeler got his men on the high ground, but he was outnumbered two to one by the available troops of Blair’s corps, and five to one if the generally unopposed XV Corps was sent after Wheeler. If General McPherson pushed his attack like Sherman expected him to, Wheeler stood no chance against the weight of Union manpower and the strength of artillery fired by the Army of the Tennessee. Throwing Wheeler back into Atlanta would open the ground for McPherson to claim, place artillery on those enticing heights, and unravel Hood’s entire defense. “If we can soon dislodge the enemy from the hill,” wrote McPherson to Sherman that afternoon, “I will press my whole line forward and ascertain the exact state of affairs.” That was the moment to redeem the lost opportunity at Resaca back on May 9.25

  McPherson refused to throw caution to the wind, and he was hampered by those unforeseen circumstances on battlefields that conspired against the armies fighting there. His army crawled at the time when Sherman desired a full, hard press against any enemy troops in front. By the middle of the afternoon, McPherson was advancing close to 20,000 troops (with at least 5,000 more in reserve) within striking distance of an opponent of under 4,000 men yet it appeared he was doing as little as possible to strike. It was Resaca all over again with nearly the same number of troops opposing each other.

  The XV Corps infantry enjoyed an unimpeded advance with its right moving on the Decatur road and Georgia Railroad (two routes so close that at times they occupied the same roadbed). Yet, McPherson never called upon any of its divisions or brigades to assist the XVII Corps. Only the artillery saw activity that day. As soon as he caught a view of the buildings in Atlanta just two and a half miles west of him, Major General John A. Logan ordered one of his batteries to unlimber and symbolically fire the first shots into the city. The cannons chosen belonged to Captain Francis H. De Gress’s Battery H, 1st Illinois Light Artillery. De Gress deployed his 4 Parrott rifles on elevated ground and sent twenty-pound rounds arcing into Atlanta. The shells exploded in the square in front of City Hall and at the great railroad depot (called the Car Shed). Twenty-five years later came the claim that De Gress’s battery killed a young girl near the corner of Ellis and Ivy Streets, a tragedy that escaped the newspapers and diaries in Atlanta during the summer of 1864.26

  While De Gress’s artillerists hurled rounds unopposed, another XV Corps battery was horrified—“for one mortal hour” as described by its captain, William H. Gay—as Confederate artillerists attached to Cheatham’s corps harassed it with converging fire from a mere 500 yards. For reasons unknown, Gay had been ordered not to return fire, so there his silent guns stood as 7 men and numerous horses in his Iowa battery were killed and wounded. “It was indeed a trying hour,” lamented Captain Gay.27

  Union Brigadier General Walter Q. Gresham personally suffered a more trying hour than did Captain Gay. His day started out cheerfully. Writing a short letter from Decatur to his worried wife back home, Gresham assuaged her with optimism, “Be of good cheer. A good time is coming. We will soon be
through.”28 General Wheeler’s stubborn stand stole Gresham’s cheer. Gresham’s division of two brigades belonged to the XVII Corps; it was the principal engaged force throughout the afternoon of July 20. General Blair with another division at hand had yet to provide Gresham any assistance, nor did General McPherson who had two more corps at his disposal. Slowly Gresham had gained ground throughout the sweltering afternoon, but was unable to push Wheeler’s dismounted cavalry from Bald Hill and the ridge line running northward from it. He sent one brigade under the command of Colonel Benjamin F. Potts forward in line of battle to a point about 400 yards east of that hill. Potts advanced his men to the cover of the banks of a creek ravine where he halted his men and awaited orders.

  Gresham had a trying time that late afternoon and although his 50 killed and wounded men were much smaller losses compared to most battles, he was suffering the only significant casualties of the day for the Army of the Tennessee. Seeking an end to the harassment, he rode up behind the ravine hiding Potts and his brigade, dismounted and walked toward his skirmish line in front of the Confederate battery. He never made it. A rebel bullet tore into his lower left leg and shattered his tibia, dropping Gresham immediately. He was quickly tended to and borne from the field on a litter. Gresham’s leg was saved from amputation, but his Civil War career ended that day.29

  Gresham’s wound should not have ended the day’s action. Replaced temporarily but immediately by Colonel William Hall, who had commanded the Iowa brigade in the division, the division remained in position and was soon reinforced by elements of Brigadier General Mortimer Leggett’s division, which Blair ordered up to support Hall’s left. One brigade arrived and protected the Iowa flank by extending it and facing southward. McPherson rode upon the scene urging Blair to drive the Confederates off the hill. Leggett rode back to his command to prepare them for the assault. At the same time an officer was sent forward to scout out the extent of Wheeler’s line atop Bald Hill. He returned shortly and notified the generals that the line of enemy troops abruptly stopped just south of the hill. An aide to General Leggett rode up to the commanding generals, saluted them, and asked, “General Blair, General Leggett wishes to know if he shall attack the enemy in his front.”30