The Day Dixie Died: The Battle of Atlanta

by Gary Ecelbarger

  As much as Union Captain Anderson was sound, Confederate Captain Bourne was awe inspiring. An Iowan in the fort was struck by Bourne’s performance, although he obviously did not know his identity. “Just at this point a rebel officer was very conspicuous,” gushed the Yankee; “he was always in the lead, cheering his men forward and urging them to go over the works, but the deadly fire of our rifles and their fast-thinning ranks outbalanced their leader’s eloquence.” The regiment melted away at the base of Bald Hill, leaving only dozens of those Confederates unscathed. Captain Bourne was not one of them. The Iowan remarked, “Several of us presented our regards to this officer, but no one saw him fall.” Bourne was killed in front of his men, earning the respect of friend and foe alike.14

  The efforts of Bourne and others in Govan’s command enabled the brigade to grab a toehold at the hill by flattening themselves behind works they captured in front of the Iowans. They were unable to advance any closer, but they secured that position as the rest of Cleburne’s attackers converged upon the hill from the southwest. Even behind the works Govan’s losses mounted to obscene levels. As the evening waned, his brigade—formed from eleven regiments—looked more and more like one large regiment. Five hundred casualties for July 22 left Govan with less than 800 officers and men to fight the next day, but those men clung tenaciously to the ground they sacrificed far too much to acquire.15

  Govan lost another valuable officer on southwest side of the battlefield where Cleburne and Maney had launched their attack with the Tennesseans and Georgians. Colonel George F. Baucum of the 8th Arkansas had been detached to skirmish for Cleburne, but he was wounded at the forefront of that assault. He survived, but scores of skirmishers perished in front of the Yankee guns. One of those dead was particularly conspicuous. Killed instantly by a bullet through his brain, the soldier remained in the position in which he took in his last breath, kneeling behind a stump with his rifle pointed toward Bald Hill.16

  Notwithstanding the menacing advance of Govan’s brigade from the south, Union artillery and infantry fire remained oriented to the southwest, toward the threat posed by the 2,000 men that moved in position behind their skirmishers. The defenders of Bald Hill fired upon the men from Colonel Walker’s brigade and Rawls’s brigade as they left the woods to converge upon the hill. Once they came into view, the killing intensified as the gunners rammed double rounds of canister down their muzzles. A member of the Black Horse Battery claimed that their performance against that assault was “our most deadly work.” Three regiments on the west and southern side of the hill also blazed away at the attackers: the 30th Illinois, the 68th Ohio, and the 78th Ohio. Those regiments deployed outside the earthworks, draping the hillside across its southern and southwestern slope. Iowa and Wisconsin (Bryant’s) troops covered the flanks as did the 20th Ohio down the eastern flank. They likely were unable to fire on the attackers, but were prepared to meet them if they reached the hill.17

  The Tennesseans under Colonel Walker took severe casualties, which sent scores of men reeling back to the woods, but General Cleburne and General Maney rallied them and charged the works again. The Confederates rushed across the same cultivated fields where Potts’s brigade had successfully fended off Strahl’s regiments three hours earlier. The Union skirmish line witnessed the effects of artillery fire on the Tennessee men “which tore wide spaces in their ranks.” Taking his first steps into the field, a soldier in the 9th Tennessee noted, “As I looked down the line, I could see men dropping by the scores.” Struck twice by enemy lead, the soldier joined the casualty list of his regiment (a list with more than sixty names on it). Fortunately for him, he fell in a furrow between two ridges. That man-made ravine protected the wounded soldier and allowed him to remain in place for several hours as bullets and artillery rounds rent the air a few feet above him. “I remember that the crash of bullets against an old tree which stood near me was as continuous as the ringing of a bell,” he recalled.18

  More Union bullets and artillery rounds crashed into human bodies than into that tree, but the Union skirmish line, lying prone in the field between the two opposing lines, was harassed by musketry from both sides, which grew heavier and heavier. “The line of fire was picking our men out as they lay hugging the ground,” complained Captain Gilbert Munson, General Leggett’s picket officer, who was horrified to see so many killed and wounded in that helpless position. “Very many were shot in the head. Few tried to get back, even when wounded. They knew that to stand up while that sheet of lead was in the air was sure death. So they lay quiet and suffered.”19

  Neither the incessant metal hail nor the mounting casualties stopped Cleburne’s charge. Colonel Walker’s men forced Munson’s skirmishers—at least those who dared lift their heads—back toward their original lines. Those Confederates were developing a double convergence against the Bald Hill defense. Not only were the regiments of Walker’s brigade and Govan’s brigade closing in upon the knoll from two directions, but the Georgians from Rawls’s brigade added a new dimension by advancing more parallel with the Flat Shoals Road between those two brigades. Rawls led his troops northeastward toward the works created and held by General Leggett’s division, peppered with lead and iron after every quickstep they took. They brushed away bluecoated skirmishers and traversed their light works and then struck the commanding earthworks lining the west side of the Flat Shoals Road where Rawls halted them. One of the Georgians considered that “the big mistake,” for the Ohioans were merely shouting distance away from them. The Buckeyes did their talking with their guns, pummeling Rawls’s men with a ferocious hail of bullets and locking them in position.

  Most of the Georgians escaped an instant death or a painful wound by tucking themselves behind the Union works, but three huge gaps existed in that line of parapets, open points where Union batteries once stood. The Confederates crowding behind the works were unavoidably stuck on their side of the gaps, where Union infantry cut them down with relative ease. Locked in place and unable to charge into the Union line, dozens upon dozens of Southerners were killed and wounded, including Lieutenant Colonel Rawls who went down with a painful wound and had to be carried to the rear. Battle flags acted like magnets, attracting Union metal each time they were waved. The flag of the 54th Georgia (in Rawls’s brigade) was perforated 115 times. The flagstaff was splintered by bullets, snapping in two places.20

  As Lieutenant Colonel Rawls was escorted rearward, command of the Georgians then devolved upon Lieutenant Colonel Cincinnatus S. Guyton of the 57th Georgia. He became the fourth commander of that brigade in just five hours and took over his new duties under more trying circumstances than all of his predecessors. The Ohioans were less than 50 yards from his regiments at the works; Guyton’s left flank had intermingled with the right flank of Colonel Walker’s Tennessee brigade, throwing both into disorder, and, unable to hide his frustration, Guyton reported, “The brigade was in the utmost state of confusion as regarded its organization.” Guyton was an aggressive commander who well understood that his command was most threatened while stagnant and not able to fight back. He ordered his men to advance, but the men could not respond. The officers, like those in Govan’s brigade, had been thinned out by Northern bullets and artillery rounds and it was impossible for those not killed or wounded to organize their respective commands into attacking bodies while within point-blank range of their adversary. Guyton was forced to hold his men in place as the brigade absorbed 150 total casualties.21

  Although Govan and Guyton were unable to breach Blair’s XVII Corps’ reconstructed line, they apparently were able to divert enough attention toward their threatening positions to allow Cleburne’s intended line busters to assault the hill. Colonel Walker’s Tennesseans absorbed as many as 100 casualties in the cultivated field west of Bald Hill, but enough of them were charging toward the embrasure on the knoll to carry their momentum onto its crest. Colonel Walker led his men on foot up the slope of the hill, waving his sword “in glittering circles above his head”
to exhort his men forward. Hundreds of fellow Tennesseans followed him to the crest, but a ferocious volley pummeled them and halted the momentum. With his general’s commission en route from Richmond, Francis Walker’s promising career ended in that volley atop Bald Hill. Pierced by an enemy bullet Walker crumbled to one knee while his head dropped upon the other, seemingly freezing the dead colonel in prayer. “They were dropping here and there,” remembered a Buckeye watching the approach from within the fort, “but on they came like cattle facing a storm, and in a few minutes they were masters of the situation outside.”22

  The Tennesseans were fighting the third battle for Bald Hill in thirty-three hours. The latest one appeared the most intense and ferocious of the three. The Tennessee regiments from Colonel Walker’s brigade stormed the southwest and west side of Bald Hill, the region primarily defended by the 30th Illinois, 68th Ohio, and 78th Ohio, three regiments from two different brigades in Leggett’s division who earlier had withstood Lowrey’s assault under Cleburne with some hand-to-hand combat. History repeated itself in a matter of hours as Confederates clashed with Leggett’s men atop the hill. A member of the 78th Ohio revealed, “We fixed bayonets and then and there we had it with clubbed muskets, fisticuffs, and wrestling.” Yank and Reb punched, stabbed, and bludgeoned each other. Officers, who before that moment considered their dress swords “as mere playthings for the parade,” used the ceremonial weapon to hack away at their opponent. At one point, a living body was used for tug-of-war, Confederates pulling at his feet to take him prisoner and Union soldiers yanking him from the other end to save him from capture. It was a melee once again for control of Bald Hill.23

  Families were forever ripped apart and destroyed as a result of that fight. A prime example was seen with the Gochenour brothers of Company B, 78th Ohio. John and James fought side by side on the hill until James crumpled to the ground with a mortal wound. Distraught at the death of his brother in front of his eyes, John scaled and stood on a parapet; according to another in the regiment, he was “crazed with rage” as he sought revenge, but in a few minutes Rebel lead dropped him, too, and he died a bloody death next to the lifeless body of his brother.24

  Flags and their bearers attracted the most attention; as gunpowder smoke hung and thickened at the top of the hill the colorful and lofted standards were some of the only visible beacons in that raging sea of battle. Confederate color bearers defiantly speared their flags into the battle-plowed ground on the crest of the hill—within 20 yards of their Union counterparts—and their men formed and rallied around those planted flags. Union flag bearers risked their lives to keep hold of their regimental colors, a repeat of their afternoon performance. Sergeant Russ Bethel of the 78th Ohio grappled with a Southerner determined to seize his flag. Two possession changes later, Bethel held the flag, but not before sustaining serious injuries to both of his legs and one arm. Another Confederate attempted to bayonet the burly sergeant and put an end to that contest; just before he thrust his blade into Bethel he was cut down and nearly severed in two by Captain John Orr of the 78th Ohio who swung away at other Confederates rushing in and thus kept the flag in Bethel’s possession. Also, the standard bearer of the 20th Ohio almost lost his flag to a Tennessee colonel, but members of the color guard intervened with their bayonets and it stayed in the hands of its regiment.25

  For Henry McDonald, the big and bold color bearer of the 30th Illinois at the southwestern edge of the hill, the struggle for the flag ended far differently. Earlier that afternoon, McDonald retained his flag by shooting down one of Lowrey’s men who had tried to grab it. As the sun dipped toward the hazy western horizon, members of the 27th Tennessee swarmed around McDonald as he stood on a breastwork, defiantly waving his flag. Sergeant Eli Detwiler of the 30th Illinois claimed that all cohesion was lost because “Our brigade was all mixed up and every man appeared to be fighting on his own hook and commanding himself.” Every man fighting around McDonald’s flag was on a mission to save it or seize it. Lives were sacrificed by both sides for that flag, but it was McDonald’s death that finally ended the struggle. John C. Leird of the 27th Tennessee wrested it away and carried it with him back to the Confederate lines. “I must say there never was a braver soldier ever marched under stars and stripes,” lamented McDonald’s brother (also a 30th Illinois soldier), who grudgingly praised Private Leird over the incident, “We regretted very much to lose our flag, but honor the man who went into that ‘death trap’ to get it.”26

  Casualties mounted on the crest, the hillsides, and the base at an appalling rate. Colonel Walker’s men did not discriminate between who or what they attacked. They made two attempts at the Union batteries on Bald Hill, but here they failed miserably. Captain Elliott, in charge of the Black Horse Battery, insisted, “Only a single man of the enemy reached us in two charges. His comrades were mowed down like grain.” The futility of taking out those cannons likely diverted Colonel Walker’s Tennesseans to focus their attack on the opposing infantry on the hillcrest.27

  Action swirled and intensified around the U-shaped fort on the hill. According to Lieutenant Edmund Nutt of the 20th Ohio, the Tennesseans “tried to crowd in through the embrasures, and would load behind the earth embankments and fire in at the embrasures—a deadly fire as the fort was full of men.” Most of those men were from the 11th Iowa, led by Captain Anderson, who had effectively repulsed Govan’s brigade and then had to contend with that awesome threat. Here Anderson lost more than 100 men, but he kept calm control of his soldiers in the works. Lieutenant Nutt also led here; dozens of the fort’s occupants were 20th Ohioans under his command. To stop the annihilation, sharpshooters were posted to pick off any Confederates “on the first appearance” in front of the earthen walls, while others loaded guns and handed them to the shooters. When the pressure against the fort waned, other sharpshooters climbed atop the earthworks, fired their weapons, and passed them back to be reloaded. That procedure was effective and efficient; a rolling, continuous discharge kept the fort in Union hands as gray- and butternut-clad bodies filled the passageways and other areas where a line of sight ended their lives. “The fort was held,” concluded a relieved Lieutenant Nutt.28

  That stage of the fight entered its third hour as the sun set ten minutes before 8:00 P.M. General Cleburne and General Maney had already fed in reinforcements, but they merely served as supports for the brigades of Govan, Guyton, and Walker. The Texas brigade, commanded that evening by Lieutenant Colonel Robert B. Young, extended Govan’s right, but far to Govan’s rear. With no brigades supporting east of them, the Texans could not advance against Blair’s XVII Corps line. The assault could not be sustained and it began to ebb as organized Confederate commands pulled back behind the closest protection they could find and disorganized pockets of troops made themselves as inconspicuous as possible by flattening against the Georgia clay, fleeing to the woods from where they started, or crowding behind other works.29

  Darkness failed to relieve the tension of a hard day’s battle, as it had done in all the other battles of the campaign in northwest Georgia. Instead, the night intensified the harrowing experience suffered by both sides of that hard-fought contest on and surrounding Leggett’s (Bald) Hill and Leggett’s Fort (names universally applied to them by their defenders). The adjutant of the 11th Iowa respectfully observed, “Behind a small embankment about three feet high and seventy feet long, immediately in front of Leggett’s Fort, a lot of brave rebels had collected.… All night long they kept firing at us, and we in turn at the flash of their guns.” An Ohioan in the fort claimed, “Men went to sleep loading guns or waiting for them to be loaded, and snoring was a soothing refrain to musketry.” The Confederates enjoyed no such refrains. “We remained all night in the work greatly exposed to the fire of sharpshooters. The position being raked by the enemy’s artillery,” complained a Georgia captain from Guyton’s brigade in his journal. Here they would remain until the predawn hours of Saturday.30

  Colonel Francis Walker topped the list of
53 Tennesseans killed and wounded in their failed attempt to seize Bald Hill. Based on the ratio of wounded and missing to killed in other engaged Confederate brigades that day (approximately 5 to 1), Walker’s brigade must have suffered at least 250 casualties. They shed the most blood of any brigade of Confederate attackers, but Govan took nearly as many losses. Guyton’s Georgians suffered over 150 in killed and wounded; thus, the cost to the Confederates exceeded 600 men in conducting that two-hour assault and withstanding the overnight retreat.31

  Although ultimately unsuccessful, Cleburne and Maney inflicted an appreciable beating upon the Union defenders. Most of the 170 losses suffered by the 30th Illinois occurred in that evening assault; the 11th Iowa lost more than 100 men here; the 68th Ohio had 60 killed and wounded—every fourth man of that regiment was rendered hors de combat; the 78th and 20th Ohio suffered about 200 losses between them in those two hours. Adding in the small number of casualties from supporting units, Blair suffered 550 losses in the evening and night defense of Bald Hill, a result that brought his two-division corps losses to 1,800 for the entire Friday fight and 2,500 in a span of thirty-five hours.32