The Day Dixie Died: The Battle of Atlanta
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29th Tennessee: Colonel Horace Rice
Wright’s Brigade: Colonel John C. Carter
8th Tennessee: Colonel John H. Anderson
16th Tennessee: Captain Benjamin Randals
28th Tennessee: Lieutenant Colonel David C. Crook
38th Tennessee: Lieutenant Colonel Andrew D. Gwynne (c), Major Hamilton W. Cotter
51st/52nd Tennessee: Lieutenant Colonel John W. Estes
Corps artillery: Colonel Melancthon Smith
Hood’s Corps: Major General Benjamin F. Cheatham
Stevenson’s Division: Major General Carter L. Stevenson
Brown’s Brigade: Colonel Joseph B. Palmer
3rd Tennessee: Lieutenant Colonel Calvin J. Clack
18th Tennessee: Lieutenant Colonel William R. Butler
23rd/45th Tennessee: Colonel Anderson Searcy
26th Tennessee: Colonel Richard M. Saffell
32nd Tennessee: Captain Thomas D. Deavenport
Cumming’s Brigade: Brigadier General Alfred Cumming
2nd Georgia State Troops: Colonel James Wilson
34th Georgia: Major John M. Jackson
36th Georgia: Major Charles E. Broyles
39th Georgia: Captain J. W. Cureton
56th Georgia: Colonel E. P. Watkins
Pettus’s Brigade: Brigadier General Edmund W. Pettus
20th Alabama: Colonel James M. Dedman
23rd Alabama: Lieutenant Colonel Joseph B. Bibb
30th Alabama: Colonel Charles M. Shelley
31st Alabama: Major George W. Mattison
46th Alabama: Major George E. Brewer
Reynolds’s Brigade: Brigadier General Alexander W. Reynolds
54th Virginia: Lieutenant Colonel John J. Wade
63rd Virginia: Captain David O. Rush
58th North Carolina: Captain Alfred T. Stewart
60th North Carolina: Colonel Washington M. Hardy
Hindman’s Division: Brigadier General John C. Brown
Deas’s Brigade: Colonel John G. Coltart
17th Alabama Battalion Sharpshooters: Captain James F. Nabors
19th Alabama: Lieutenant Colonel George R. Kimbrough
22nd Alabama: Colonel Benjamin R. Hart
25th Alabama: Captain Napoleon B. Rouse
39th Alabama: Lieutenant Colonel William C. Clifton (w), Captain T. J. Brannon
50th Alabama: Captain George W. Arnold
Manigault’s Brigade: Brigadier General Arthur M. Manigault
10th South Carolina: Colonel James F. Pressley (w)
19th South Carolina: Major James L. White (w), Captain Elijah W. Horne
24th Alabama: Colonel Newton N. Davis
28th Alabama: Lieutenant Colonel William L. Butler
34th Alabama: Colonel Julius C. B. Mitchell
Tucker’s Brigade: Colonel Jacob H. Sharp
7th Mississippi: Colonel William H. Bishop
9th Mississippi: Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin F. Johns
9th Mississippi Battalion Sharpshooters: Major William C. Richards
10th Mississippi: Lieutenant Colonel George B. Myers
41st Mississippi: Colonel J. Byrd Williams
44th Mississippi: Lieutenant Colonel R. G. Kelsey
Walthall’s Brigade: Colonel Samuel Benton (mw), Colonel William F. Brantly
24th/27th Mississippi: Colonel Robert P. McKelvaine
29th/30th Mississippi: Colonel William F. Brantly (p), Lieutenant Colonel James M. Johnson
34th Mississippi: Captain T. S. Hubbard
Clayton’s Division: Major General Henry D. Clayton
Baker’s Brigade: Colonel John H. Higley
37th Alabama: Lieutenant Colonel Alexander A. Greene (k)
40th Alabama: Major Ezekiah S. Gulley
42nd Alabama: Captain Robert K. Wells
54th Alabama: Lieutenant Colonel John A. Minter
Holtzclaw’s Brigade: Colonel Bushrod Jones
18th Alabama: Lieutenant Colonel Peter F. Hunley
32nd/58th Alabama: Captain John A. Avirett
36th Alabama: Lieutenant Colonel Thomas H. Herndon
38th Alabama: Major Shep Ruffin (w), Lieutenant John C. Dumas
Gibson’s Brigade: Brigadier General Randall L. Gibson
1st Louisiana Regulars: Captain W. H. Sparks
13th Louisiana: Lieutenant Colonel Francis L. Campbell
14th Louisiana Sharpshooters Battalion: Major Duncan Buie
16th/25th Louisiana: Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Lindsay
19th Louisiana: Colonel Richard W. Turner
20th Louisiana: Colonel Leon Von Zinken
Stovall’s Brigade: Colonel Abda Johnson
1st Georgia State Line: Lieutenant Colonel John M. Brown (mw), Captain Albert Howell
40th Georgia: Captain John F. Groover
41st Georgia: Major Mark S. Nall
42nd Georgia: Captain Lovick P. Thomas
43rd Georgia: Major William C. Lester
52nd Georgia: Captain Rufus R. Asbury
Cheatham’s corps artillery (Beckham)
1st division Georgia Militia: Major General Gustavus W. Smith
1st brigade: Brigadier General Reuben W. Carswell
1st Georgia Militia: Colonel Edward H. Pottle
2nd Georgia Militia: Colonel James Stapleton
3rd Georgia Militia: Colonel Q. M. Hill
2nd brigade: Brigadier General Pleasant J. Phillips
4th Georgia Militia: Colonel James N. Mann
5th Georgia Militia: Colonel S. S. Stafford
6th Georgia Militia: Colonel J. W. Burney
3rd brigade: Brigadier General Charles D. Anderson
7th Georgia Militia: Colonel Abner Redding
8th Georgia Militia: Colonel William B. Scott
9th Georgia Militia: Colonel J. M. Hill
4th brigade: Brigadier General Henry K. McCay
10th Georgia Militia: Colonel C. M. Davis
11th Georgia Militia: Colonel William T. Toole
12th Georgia Militia: Colonel Richard Sims
Cavalry Corps: Major General Joseph Wheeler
Martin’s Division: Major General William T. Martin
Allen’s Brigade: Brigadier General William Wirt Allen
1st Alabama: Lieutenant Colonel D. T. Blakely
3rd Alabama: Colonel James Hagan
4th Alabama: Colonel Alfred A. Russell
7th Alabama: Captain George Mason
51st Alabama: Colonel M. L. Kirkpatrick
12th Alabama Battalion: Captain Warren S. Reese
Iverson’s Brigade: Brigadier General Alfred Iverson
1st Georgia: Colonel Samuel W. Davitte
2nd Georgia: Colonel Charles C. Crews
3rd Georgia: Colonel Robert Thompson
4th Georgia: Colonel Isaac W. Avery
6th Georgia: Colonel John R. Hart
Ferguson’s Brigade: Brigadier General Samuel W. Ferguson
2nd Alabama: Lieutenant Colonel John N. Carpenter
9th Mississippi: Colonel Horace H. Miller
56th Alabama: Colonel William Boyles
11th Mississippi: Colonel Robert O. Perrin
12th Mississippi Battalion: Colonel William M. Inge
*Key to the letters in parentheses: (k) killed; (p) promoted; (c) captured; (w) wounded; (s) sick; (mw) mortally wounded; (ds) regiment absent on detached service
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1 Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger, eds., Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay (Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997), pp. 221–23.
2 William P. Mellen to Salmon P. Chase, August 10, 1864, in John Niven, ed., The Salmon P. Chase Papers Vol. 4 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1997), p. 421.
3 Lincoln to Grant, June 15, 1864, in John G. Nicolay and John Hay, eds., Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works Vol. 2 (New York: Century Company, 1920), p. 533.
4 Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of A
braham Lincoln Vol. 7 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1955), pp. 448–49; Adam Gurowski, Diary: 1863–’64–’65 (Washington, D.C.: W.H. & O.H. Morrison, 1866), p. 293.
5 John C. Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency (New York: Crown Publishers, 1997), p. 270.
6 Ibid., pp. 251–54; Albert Castel, Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864 (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1992), p. 361.
7 Noah Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time (New York: Century Company, 1895), p. 149.
8 Manning Force diary, July 12, 1864, Manning Force Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Hereinafter cited as LOC); Sherman to his wife, July 9, 1864, and to Philemon B. Ewing, July 13, 1864, in Brooks D. Simpson and Jean V. Berlin Sherman’s Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860–1865 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), pp. 663, 666.
9 Marc Wortman, The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta (New York: Public Affairs, 2009), pp. 69–75.
10 Jay Luvaas, “The Atlanta Campaign,” in Francis H. Kennedy, ed., The Civil War Battlefield Guide (Boston, Mass.: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1990), pp. 173–77.
11 July 20, 1864 Atlanta Daily Appeal reproduced in “The Rebel Account,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 28, 1864, and also in “The War in Georgia,” New York Times, July 29, 1864.
12 Lowell quote in Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln, p. 296.
CHAPTER 1—CLOSING THE VISE
1 William W. McCarty diary, July 20, 1864, United States Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pa. (Hereinafter cited as USAMHI); William Hemstreet, “A Remarkable Stroke of Lightning,” Quincy Whig and Republican, August 5, 1864.
2 For a history of this army, see the fine work of Steven E. Woodworth, Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861–1865 (New York: Knopf, 2005). Title obtained from Jacob Ritner letter to his wife (see page ix of this source).
3 United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion. A Compilation of the Official Record of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901) (Hereinafter cited as OR), 38 (1), pp. 116, 120.
4 John M. Schofield, Forty-six Years in the Army (New York: Century Company, 1897), pp. 125–26.
5 Elizabeth J. Whaley, Forgotten Hero: General James B. McPherson (New York: Exposition Press, 1955), pp. 95, 106–108, 177.
6 Ibid., pp. 142–44; Lloyd Lewis, Sherman: Fighting Prophet (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1932), pp. 345–46.
7 McPherson to his mother, April 4, 1864, McPherson Papers, Toledo-Lucas County Historical Society, Toledo, Ohio.
8 Castel, Decision in the West, pp. 121–23, 135–39; Rowland Cox, “Snake Creek Gap, and Atlanta: A Paper Read by Brevet Major Rowland Cox, U.S.V., December 2, 1891,” p. 13.
9 Tamara A. Smith, “A Matter of Trust: Grant and James B. McPherson,” in Steven E. Woodworth, ed., Grant’s Lieutenants: From Cairo to Vicksburg (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2001), pp. 161–63.
10 OR 38 (1), pp. 115–16, 120.
11 Thomas D. Christie to his brother, July 25, 1864, Christie Letters, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn.; J. G. B. to the editor, July 23, 1864, Canton (Illinois) Weekly Register, August 8, 1864; T. G. T. to the editor, July 26, 1864, Clinton (Iowa) Herald, August 13, 1864.
12 F. McC. to the editor, July 26, 1864, Cedar Valley Times, August 11, 1864; Charles W. Wills diary, July 19–20, 1864, in Mary E. Kellogg, comp., Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, Including a Day-by-Day Record of Sherman’s March to the Sea (Globe Printing Company, 1906: Repr. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), pp. 282–83.
13 William E. Titze diary, July 20, 1864, Titze diary, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois (Hereinafter cited as ALPL).
14 OR 38 (5), pp. 196–97, 207.
15 Ibid., p. 188.
16 Richard M. McMurry, John Bell Hood and the War for Southern Independence (Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), pp. 75–93; OR 32 (2), p. 763.
17 Joseph T. Glatthaar, Partners in Command: The Relationships Between Leaders in the Civil War (New York: Free Press, 1998) p. 130; Mary Boykin Chesnut, A Diary From Dixie, Ben Ames Williams, ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 371–72; Thomas P. Lowry, The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the Civil War (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1994), p. 157.
18 Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants Vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1942), p. 198.
19 Richard M. McMurry, “A Policy So Disastrous: Joseph E. Johnston’s Atlanta Campaign,” in Theodore P. Savas and David A. Woodbury, eds., The Campaign for Atlanta & Sherman’s March to the Sea Vol. 2 (Campbell, Calif.: Savas Woodbury Publishers, 1994), pp. 234–38; OR 38 (3), p. 679.
20 Larry J. Daniel, Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), pp. 142–44; Gill to his wife, July 18, 1864, in Bell Irvin Wiley, “A Story of 3 Southern Officers,” Civil War Times Illustrated (April 1964), p. 33; Martin Van Buren Oldham diary, July 18, 1864, “Civil War Diaries of [Martin] Van Buren Oldham” (University of Tennessee at Martin) http://www .utm.edu/departments/acadpro/library/departments/special_collections/E579.5%20Oldham/text/vboldham_1864.htm.
21 OR 38 (3), pp. 630–31.
22 OR 38 (5), p. 196.
23 Ibid., p. 194.
24 Ezra Warner, Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1995), p. 333; OR 38 (3), pp. 543, 951–52; John W. DuBose, General Joseph Wheeler and the Army of Tennessee (New York: Neale Publishing Company, 1912), p. 371; Thomas D. Christie to his brother, July 25, 1864, Christie Letters, Minnesota Historical Society.
25 John Randolph Poole, Cracker Cavaliers: The 2nd Georgia Cavalry Under Wheeler and Forrest (Mercer, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2000), p. 69; OR 38 (5), p. 895; OR 52 (1), p. 569.
26 OR 38 (3), p. 102; Wortman, The Bonfire, p. 268; Russell S. Bonds, War Like the Thunderbolt: The Battle and Burning of Atlanta (Yardley, Pa.: Westholme Publishing, 2009), pp. 115, 434–35 (n. 3); Wallace P. Reed, ed., History of Atlanta, Georgia: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers (Syracuse, N.Y.: D. Mason and Co., 1889), p. 175.
27 Janet B. Hewett, ed., Supplement to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies Vol. 7 (Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1994–1998) (Hereinafter cited as SOR), pp. 48, 61.
28 Matilda Gresham, Life of Walter Quintin Gresham, 1832–1895 Vol. 1 (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1919), p. 302.
29 Charles W. Calhoun, Gilded Age Cato: The Life of Walter Q. Gresham (University Press of Kentucky, 1988), p. 34; OR 38 (3), pp. 579–80, 590.
30 Gilbert D. Munson, “Battle of Atlanta,” Sketches of War History, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (Hereinafter cited as MOLLUS), Ohio Commandry, Robert Hunter, ed., Vol. 3 (1890), Reprint (Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1991), p. 214; M. D. Leggett, “The Battle of Atlanta: A Paper by General M. D. Leggett, Before the Society of the Army of the Tennessee, October 18, 1883, at Cleveland,” p. 2; OR 38 (3), pp. 543, 596.
31 Ibid.; General Blair reported that he sent an order to Leggett to attack the hill but it miscarried. Leggett’s and Munson’s accounts refute this assertion. Blair may have been attempting to prevent any blame from being cast upon McPherson for delaying the assault until morning.
32 OR 38 (5), p. 197; Sherman to Thomas, July 20, 1864, in Simpson and Berlin, Sherman’s Civil War p. 670.
33 OR 38 (3), p. 543; OR 38 (5), pp. 208, 895–96.
34 OR 38 (3), pp. 218–19.
CHAPTER 2—PRELUDE
1 OR 38 (3), pp. 951–52; OR 38 (5), p. 896; W. C. Dodson, ed., Campaigns of Wheeler and His Cavalry, 1862–1865 (Atlanta: Hudgins Publishing Co., 1899), p. 209; John W. Dubose, General Joseph Wheeler and the Army of Tennessee (New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1912),
p. 371.
2 Warner, Generals in Gray, pp. 53–54.
3 Irving A. Buck, Cleburne and His Command (Jackson, Tenn.: McCowat-Mercer Press, 1959), p. 232. Cleburne’s brigade commander, General Govan, confuses the history by claiming that Adams was killed at 9:30 A.M. (OR 38 [3], p. 734.)
4 OR 38 (3), pp. 746, 752.
5 OR 38 (3), p. 361; SOR 7, p. 61.
6 OR 38 (3), p. 367.
7 Ibid.; Foster diary, July 21, 1864, in Norman D. Brown, ed., One of Cleburne’s Command: The Civil War Reminiscences and Diary of Capt. Samuel T. Foster, Granbury’s Texas Brigade, C.S.A. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980), pp. 108–109.
8 Foster diary, July 21, 1864, in Brown, ed., One of Cleburne’s Command, pp. 108–109; OR 38 (3), p. 746.
9 Turner quote in Larry M. Strayer and Richard A. Baumgartner, eds., Echoes of Battle: The Atlanta Campaign (Huntington, West Va.: Blue Acorn Press, 1991), p. 220.
10 C. C. Reif, “Mortimer D. Leggett,” Journal of the Patent Office Society Vol. 2 (1919), pp. 543–44.
11 Leggett, “The Battle of Atlanta,” p. 3. The monthly return for June for Leggett’s division showed 4,436 officers and men present for duty (OR 38 [4], p. 653). One of those regiments, the 45th Illinois, was not with Leggett on July 21, reducing his strength that day by about 400.
12 Leggett, “Battle of Atlanta,” pp. 3–4; Henry J. Walker, “In Front of Atlanta,” National Tribune (Hereinafter cited as NT), October 11, 1883; Hosea Whitford Rood, Story of the Service of Company E, and of the Twelfth Wisconsin Veteran Volunteer Infantry (Milwaukee, Wisc.: Swain & Tate, Co., 1893), p. 309.
13 Thomas M. Vincent to General McPherson, July 19, 1864, RG 393 (pt. 1), Letters Received, 1864–1865, Department of the Army of the Tennessee, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (Hereinafter cited as NA).
14 Charles A. Dana, Recollections of the Civil War: With the Leaders at Washington and in the Field in the Sixties (Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), p. 68; Thomas J. Key diary, July 21, 1864, in Wirt A. Cate, ed., Two Soldiers: The Campaign Diaries of Thomas J. Key, C.S.A. December 7, 1863–May 17, 1865 and Robert J. Campbell, U.S.A. January 1, 1864–July 21, 1864 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1938), p. 93.
15 Walker, “In Front of Atlanta,” NT, October 11, 1883; Rood, Story of the Service of Company E, p. 309.