The Day Dixie Died: The Battle of Atlanta

by Gary Ecelbarger

  The remaining Confederates of the brigade were then commanded by Colonel William J. Winn of the 25th Georgia—their third leader in thirty minutes. Winn disappeared with his men in the thicket, no longer able to fight, while the Ohioans who disrupted their formation west of Sugar Creek continued southward to chase after them. The Yankees reached a low wooden fence that fringed the briar-laden woods; both lines of attack somewhat scattered into the thicket despite the entreaties of their officers to maintain order. Colonel Mendal Churchill attempted to keep formation of his 27th Ohio as he oversaw them climbing over the fence and negotiating through the briars. “I was on the point of giving the order to move forward,” he entered into his diary, “when a column of the enemy was seen emerging from the wood on our right flank with banners unfurled, preceded by a heavy line of skirmishers and bearing down on our right and rear.”13

  The elation of the conquerors disintegrated, for the Ohioans had then exposed themselves to a counterpunch. That left hook came in the form of Georgia and South Carolina infantry. Those were the four regiments commanded by a man with the most unique birth name in the war—Brigadier General States Rights Gist, who was born during South Carolina’s nullification crisis of 1832. Gist’s father named him as a symbol of the state’s resolve, one that was enacted twenty-eight years later when South Carolina became the first of eleven Southern states to secede from the United States. General Gist was an experienced, brave, and resilient commander. The day before the battle, Gist was struck in the back by an enemy bullet, a glancing shot that hit him close to his spine, but did not lodge within him. The general shrugged it off; a surgeon dressed the wound, and he was back in the saddle almost immediately.14

  Late to deploy, Gist’s brigade would become the second of three engaged from Walker’s division. His late arrival still managed to be a timely one. Catching the Ohioans exposed in advance of their line, Gist’s men tore into them with ragged volleys. Although the 39th Ohio was the weaker of the two regiments (a substantial amount of it was occupied with Georgia prisoners) they were on the inside of the assaulted line. The 27th Ohio was to their right and bore the brunt of Gist’s wrath.

  “We were not in a situation to offer serious resistance,” confessed Colonel Churchill. He refused his right flank by bending his most western companies northward in a right angle with the rest of the regiment to protect all from being devoured in the field. On came the Rebels, angling to the northeast and threatening to separate those Ohioans from the rest of the brigade up on the hill 200 yards behind them. Watching from a knoll north of the action, General Fuller despaired at seeing several Ohioans leave the ranks and he determined to do what was necessary to prevent skulking. One member of the 27th Ohio made the mistake of heading to the rear by crossing Fuller’s path; the general chased him down in a foot race and struck him hard with the flat of his sword. The astonished soldier spun around to face Fuller and then tore open his coat to show his commander a bloody chest wound as evidence that he was not shirking his duty but had been sent back for treatment. Before Fuller could acknowledge his mistake, the Buckeye collapsed to the ground from the shock caused by his injury.15

  Despite his tardiness—it was then past 1:00 P.M.—Gist was better suited to roll up Dodge’s corps from west to east. That thrust was less impeded than that waged by the Orphan Brigade and Finley’s Floridians from the opposite direction nearly an hour earlier. Not only were fewer regiments in Gist’s way, they were separated in groups of two, not facing toward their attackers, and at that time entirely without artillery support. Blodgett’s and Laird’s batteries facing east and south stood well away from the Georgians and Carolinians. Gist had the opportunity to take out those menacing batteries from the rear.16

  The 18th Missouri and 64th Illinois stood directly behind the Buckeyes, positioned near the creek on their left. Seeing Gist’s Confederates fanning out on their right, Colonel Morrill ordered the 64th Illinois westward to a body of woods 300 yards from the Missourians, facing southwest directly at Gist’s approaching brigade. Many of those Illinois men, like their Prairie State brethren in Mersy’s brigade, carried Henry repeaters, private purchases aided by Governor Richard Yates of Illinois (the unit’s nickname was the “Yates’ Sharpshooters”). Unfortunately for those Yankees, the strength of their weaponry was muted by their formation. The right wing of the regiment completed its perpendicular change of direction without difficulty, but not so for the inside companies. The appearance of Confederates in the field forced the left wing to abandon its attempt to extend the regimental line southward; instead they re-formed behind the right-hand companies and reduced the firepower of the regiment by 50 percent.17

  Gist’s left-hand regiments found the going tough against Illinois men who could fire sixteen rounds without reloading, but the main threat to the brigade was from Gist’s right-hand regiments who were in a position to wipe the 27th Ohio from existence. General Fuller found himself in a predicament. Separated from General Dodge and Sweeny’s division by Sugar Creek, Fuller recognized that his men would face the crisis alone. Fuller was amazed at what was unfolding in front of him, “the extraordinary spectacle presented itself of our men rushing across the field in one direction, while the rebels on their right were marching steadily the opposite way.” While Winn’s Georgians stayed out of sight deep in the woods south of the two Ohio regiments, Gist’s men spread out as they approached the fields west of Fuller, threatening both his flank and his rear.18

  Lieutenant Colonel Mendal Churchill of the 27th Ohio was shot in the abdomen, a blow that staggered him but did not knock him off his feet. Regardless, Churchill understood that a gut shot was usually a mortal one. “I fully believed,” he wrote, “that the ball had gone straight through me; I thought ‘abdomen, dead man’ … [and] turned the command over to Captain [Frank] Lynch next in rank.” To his overwhelming relief, as Churchill was escorted to the rear he pulled up his shirt above his pants and watched the leaden ball that had struck him drop harmlessly to his feet (it had struck a metal button that had pushed inward and penetrated the skin, but caused no injury to vital organs). Churchill hurried back to his regiment at about the time that Captain Lynch dropped with two severe wounds.19

  As Churchill returned to his regiment, General Fuller immediately attempted to secure its right flank. He ordered out the 18th Missouri, who hustled to those western woods to extend the Union line southward and block the Confederate surge against them. Lieutenant Colonel Charles S. Sheldon aligned all of his Missouri companies at the edge of the woods and directed his men to fire three volleys. The Confederates had just reached a wooden fence bordering the woods when they were raked by the Union men from Missouri. The volleys proved too hot for the Southerners and they fell back into the woods. The Missourians were trapped. No sooner did they form in their new position than they saw the 64th Illinois buckle to their right. Within minutes Lieutenant Colonel Sheldon was temporarily out of the fight with a wound that required immediate attention.20

  General Fuller was about to experience his entire right cave in, but he was less aware of the troubles of the 64th Illinois than he was of his former command, the 27th Ohio. He had sent orders for both Ohio regiments in the southern sector of the field to swing around and return to their original line on the hill. That required the regiments to turn their backs upon their foe, a realization that did not sit well with the Ohioans. The 39th Ohio managed to complete the maneuver, but the 27th Ohio did not. Since they were on the outside of the formation, they were forced to attempt the maneuver on the run. They also kept stopping, turning, and firing toward Gist’s Georgians and Carolinians. Both factors caused a loss of their formation and a serious threat of the loss of the regiment as the Confederates closed to within 100 yards of them. The confused-looking mass of Ohioans withered under the devastating fire delivered from such a short range. Close to a third of the regiment melted away in the field—more than 100 men killed and wounded on the spot.21

  General Fuller rushed forward to save hi
s old regiment. He hurried down the hill to rally the men. “There was no time to explain anything,” Fuller noted, “for the rebels were coming on in fine style, not more than 100 yards away.” Fuller grabbed the regiment’s flag and shocked the Ohioans by running toward the Confederates with it. The general was not acting out a death wish; he stopped abruptly, wheeled toward his men, stuck the flag staff into the ground. Pointing with his sword, he directed the 27th Ohio to form on the line he had just marked.

  The Ohioans responded with a shout as they ran toward General Fuller to align on each side of that flag. Churchill ordered another charge and with their bayonets gleaming from the ends of their barrels, the bluecoats rushed forward. As experienced by the luckless 66th Georgia fifteen minutes earlier, Gist’s men were caught off guard. With no time to reload or attach their bayonets, they refused to attempt hand-to-hand combat with a rejuvenated opponent charging toward them and quickly returned to the cover of the woods. That counterpunch freed up the harassed flank of the 18th Missouri, who could then adjust to the threat to their front and the right recently vacated by the 64th Illinois.22

  General Gist refused to lose the momentum. Whether or not he understood how poorly defended the Union flank was, Gist saw to it that all of his soldiers were committed into the fight. He personally led his reserve companies forward. Gist was a commanding figure astride his beautiful horse, both to the Confederates rallying by him and the Federals opposing him. Gist was much too conspicuous to his enemy, watching him wave his hat and urge on his men. Nonetheless, the Union artillery had begun to train their muzzles to the southwest. The first screaming rounds striking Gist’s men were devastating ones. One of them killed a member of Gist’s staff, Lieutenant Joseph Clay Habersham. The exploding shell tore off both of his legs and mutilated his body. States Rights Gist was fortunate to escape the deadly artillery rounds, but it was a seemingly innocuous bullet wound in his hand that turned into his Achilles heel. The injury forced that proven–tough man from the field, and removed him from his command for six weeks.23

  The success of Walker’s division depended upon the achievement of Gist’s brigade. Gist was replaced by Colonel James McCullough of the 16th South Carolina. The change of command from a confident and inspirational brigade commander to one who was brand new to that responsibility weakened the brigade’s aggression against Fuller’s flank. General Walker was in position to fill that void. With his faded sombrero topping off his rail-thin body, Walker was easy to recognize astride his iron gray horse. As he rode among the Carolinians and Georgians of Gist’s brigade, Walker exhorted them forward. “One more charge and the day is won!” he bellowed. “Follow me!”

  Follow they did. Walker led them out of the woods and into the clearing where even General Dodge could pick him out among the surging Southern soldiers. A fusillade of small arms fire thudded into the hides of the horses of the Confederate general and his staff. Walker’s gray mare dropped underneath its rider. The general popped up immediately, but he could not escape a second swarm of Yankee lead. A bullet tore through his lungs and killed him while he was still on his feet. Walker’s body pitched forward to the ground. “Bring off the general!” shouted his men; Carolinians responded by bearing Walker’s lifeless body to the rear.24

  Walker’s death killed the momentum of his division. By 1:15 P.M., the most severe threat to Dodge’s corps had been successfully and completely repulsed. Gist’s brigade was essentially through for the day. Its casualty totals were never tabulated, but in all likelihood the brigade was reduced by at least 200 dead, wounded, and captured soldiers. Fuller’s defense proved costly, 280 killed, wounded, or missing Union soldiers—eight times the casualties suffered by Rice’s brigade an hour earlier.25

  Brigadier General Hugh W. Mercer was immediately informed of Walker’s death and took over command of his division. The new division commander was the namesake grandson of one of George Washington’s generals, killed in the Battle of Princeton during the Revolutionary War. Mercer was fifty-five years old, but his physique was so broken down as to make him appear and act like a man at least ten years older. (Indeed, Mercer would survive the battle only to be relegated to lighter duties in Savannah a few days later.) As decrepit as he was, Mercer was the only officer remaining in the entire division with the rank of general but also one who could not come close to the experience, confidence, and aggressiveness of General Walker.26

  Mercer had but one fresh brigade to commit into the fight—his own. Those Georgians had tarried in the woods while George Smith’s brigade was repulsed in front of them and Gist’s men were manhandled northwest of their position. The reserve position proved a dangerous one as the constant Union cannonading killed and wounded several Georgians there. Colonel Charles H. Olmstead of the 1st Georgia Infantry was victimized by a Union shell that exploded in the woods close to Mercer’s brigade, spewing shrapnel everywhere. One of the iron chunks smashed against Olmstead’s head and unhorsed him. Suffering from a concussion, he was out of the fight. Olmstead’s injury occurred just as General Mercer ascended to division command and it was significant because he was the senior ranking colonel of the brigade. That left Colonel William Barkuloo of the 57th Georgia infantry as the next ranking officer still on two legs.27

  General Mercer notified Colonel Barkuloo that he was the new brigade commander and ordered him to send the Georgians forward. Barkuloo’s men advanced over the ground where the Georgians of Colonel George A. Smith’s brigade had attempted an attack a half an hour before. That brought them out at the creek valley 500 yards in front of Mersy’s brigade. Barkuloo looked across the field and up the ridge where Fuller’s men on the left and Sweeny’s men on the front and right, supported by Laird’s battery, convinced him not to martyr his men there. A company officer agreed with Barkuloo’s conclusion by stating “that it was madness to advance our little brigade.” Losing 15 men to artillery fire, Barkuloo tucked his command back into the trees and eventually returned to his reserve position. The effectiveness of the Union artillery must have been the deciding factor. The two XVI Corps batteries fired 1,119 rounds of ammunition—perhaps three-quarters of those rounds were expended between noon and 1:15 P.M., an average of fifteen shots per minute among the 12 guns of those two batteries.28

  Walker’s division was out of the fight in less than an hour from the first contact with the XVI Corps. Like Bate’s men who attacked before them, the assaults by Walker’s men were disjointed and unsupported, allowing seven southward-facing Union infantry regiments and one battery to beat them back. The lost opportunity was not lost on the soldiers who survived the offensive. “Walker’s division failed to carry the Yankee works on account of bad generalship,” wailed Robert G. Mitchell of the 29th Georgia. The problem had less to do with bad generalship than with too few generals in the division. With the death of Walker and the wounding of Gist, General Mercer was the only officer left in the division to hold the rank. All three brigades were led by colonels who ascended to command between 12:30 and 1:00 P.M., serving under a new division commander whose talent was as limited as his experience at that level of command.29

  The repulse of two divisions of Hardee’s corps by the Union XVI corpsmen serving under General Dodge did not end the rearward threat to the Army of the Tennessee. Two miles northeast of Bate’s repulsed line stood Decatur, the sleepy Georgia town that had been aroused by the entry in and out of its borders by McPherson’s army two days earlier. Since then, Decatur served as a wagon park for the supply train of the Army of the Tennessee. Approaching the town from the south were two divisions of 3,000 cavalry under the command of Major General Joseph Wheeler. Hood’s adjusted plan called for Wheeler to strike Decatur from east to west, disrupting the supply line and wreaking havoc directly behind McPherson’s army. Wheeler understood that Decatur was not only the true “left” of General Sherman’s entire three-army district, it was the point where the utter disruption of the district was intended to begin.

  MAJOR GENERAL JOSEPH “FIGHTING
JOE” WHEELER, C.S.A.

  Wheeler commanded two cavalry divisions in the Battle of Atlanta, and his men fought for two days dismounted as infantry. One of the youngest corps commanders in the Confederate army, Wheeler later served in the U.S. Army in the Spanish-American War and for that service is only one of two Confederate generals buried in Arlington National Cemetery (the other is Brigadier General Marcus Joseph Wright). (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

  Wheeler reconnoitered Decatur at noon, just at the start of Bate’s attack upon Sweeny 2 miles down the Fayetteville Road. “General Hardee supposed the place to be occupied by cavalry,” reported Wheeler, “but … I found that a division of infantry, strongly intrenched, occupied the town.” Wheeler was mistaken. He did not see a division; he instead had been observing Colonel John W. Sprague’s brigade, three regiments buttressed by 6 cannons, which had replaced a cavalry guard the day before and had been charged with the responsibility of guarding nearly 1,600 wagons and the four- and six-horse teams that pulled them. Detached from Fuller’s 4th Division (XVI Corps) to protect the supply train from exactly what Wheeler was planning to do to it, Sprague deployed the cannons on hills surrounding the Georgia Railroad that cut diagonally below the town and had his infantry placed across the roads leading into Decatur from the south. Colonel Sprague, an Ohioan in his midforties whose full, graying beard and piercing eyes made him look a little like the late rabid abolitionist John Brown, had spent half of the first year of the war in rebel prisons, but the incarceration failed to soften him. He remained as pugnacious as he was ambitious. Recommending his promotion, a superior characterized Sprague with three words that spelled trouble for Wheeler, “He will fight.”30