The Day Dixie Died: The Battle of Atlanta

by Gary Ecelbarger

  McPherson was instantly consumed by the caution that last overtook him at Resaca ten weeks earlier. He was swiftly arriving to the conclusion that there was not enough daylight for him to complete the job on July 20. He needed much more than the expected two hours that remained. The general practice adopted by both sides throughout the war was not to fight after dark; the few times that was attempted had proved ineffective and sometimes disastrous. Night time was for preparing for morning action, perhaps for some skirmishing and marching, but usually for rest and repose. McPherson decided to postpone his assault of Bald Hill until Thursday morning. Wheeler had figuratively dodged another bullet; Hood’s right was preserved.31

  As afternoon waned to evening, Sherman could not hide his frustration. He was surprised to learn rather late of Hood’s attacks on Thomas and accepted the fact that Thomas could not counterpunch with only a few hours of daylight remaining. Directly in front of him, a Confederate division also showed its artillery strength against the Army of the Ohio. Shortly after 6:00 P.M. Sherman asserted, “I will push Schofield and McPherson all I know how,” but two hours passed without the push he so desperately sought. Sherman assured General Thomas that he would urge McPherson onward, “but [I] think the opportunity on that flank if it did exist is now past.”32

  By nightfall the opportunity had indeed passed and Sherman was forced to plan for tomorrow. He fielded a report from McPherson, describing the day’s events with a dispatch that read as an elaborate excuse. McPherson described the wounding of General Gresham, the difficulty of advancing along the terrain, and an enemy armed with Enfield carbines and four pieces of artillery, but McPherson also admitted that he endured a day that ended with very light casualties, and that only enemy cavalry opposed his left flank. (Several hundred militia were in supporting distance of Wheeler but were not ever called upon.) The dispatch revealed a day of failure, for from the moment of first contact with Wheeler, McPherson had barely deployed one of his three corps against it and at the end of the day Wheeler had remained on his high perch, most certainly destined to be reinforced overnight.33

  Sherman soaked up the events of the day and realized that Hood was going to be as tough a fighter as defined by his reputation. That made the results of the day so unsettling, so unsatisfying. Receiving McPherson’s excuse-laden dispatch made matters worse, but Sherman swallowed most of his disappointment and let the rest flow from his pen in the form of a mild reprimand, a way of putting in writing his Resaca exclamation, “Well Mac, you missed the opportunity of a lifetime!” He rebuked McPherson by writing, “I was in hopes you could have made a closer approach to Atlanta,” highlighting the expectation that he opposed a weaker force and shorter earthworks than would be revealed by daylight, when Hood’s reinforced right would come into view. He ordered McPherson to press the Confederate right, in front of his army, reinforced or not, in an attempt to gain ground for easy artillery range to the inner works ringing Atlanta. Sherman also revealed that because of the expected heavy losses Hood suffered in the Battle of Peachtree Creek, “I would not be astonished to find him off in the morning, but I see no signs looking that way yet.”

  Nor would he. Hood was not going to abandon his defense and Sherman knew it. Hood’s reputation, his past history, and his demeanor suggested just the opposite—a fact Sherman could not avoid in passing while writing McPherson’s attack order, “Hood proposes to Hold Atlanta to the death.”34

  “Death” was destined to be the operative word.

  2

  PRELUDE

  General McPherson’s decision to delay the assault of Bald Hill until dawn of July 21, although sensible in allowing time to reconnoiter and organize an attack force, appears to have cost the Army of the Tennessee an easy and relatively bloodless victory. Unknown to McPherson, a weak line of defense covered that hill and ridge, a force ill-prepared to fend off an infantry attack. Major General Joseph Wheeler managed close to 3,000 horse soldiers—fifteen regiments organized in three brigades—on that line to fend off an army of 25,000 soldiers should they attack him. Some of Wheeler’s men acted like true infantry by instinctively digging into the high ground and making a primitive structure of earthworks that night. The attack Wheeler feared did not materialize in strength but that failed to quell his anxiety over the more than 8 to 1 mismatch he faced.

  A stream of messages was exchanged between Wheeler and army headquarters, regarding the tenuous position he held. Receiving Wheeler’s pleas for infantry support, Hood promised his cavalry chief that he would reinforce him in two separate messages that evening, emphasizing to Wheeler to “communicate this to the men and urge them to hold on.” Those reinforcements never came as Wednesday gave way to Thursday, but McPherson saved Wheeler a great deal of aggravation and even more casualties by not pressing him that night.1

  Major General Patrick Cleburne took charge of the defense of Bald Hill at 2:30 A.M. on Thursday, July 21. Cleburne was the star of Hood’s army, at least by standards of accomplishments and by potential. It certainly helped to have the strongest and most successful brigades with talented brigadier generals commanding them. Cleburne had enlisted in the war as an Arkansan, but his Irish birth marked him as one of only two foreign-born major generals in the entire Confederacy. Cleburne excelled as a combat officer, either when pegged to protect a position on a battlefield or to attack it. He was Hood’s most experienced and reliable division commander, having led at that level for two years. He had been overlooked every time an opening was present at corps command—most recently when General Cheatham was picked to head Hood’s corps four days earlier. Perhaps Cleburne’s incredible and ill-received suggestion to arm slaves and muster them into the Confederate service (circulated in a written memorandum back in January) factored into the decision to hold him at division command. Regardless, no division commander on the continent was more savage and successful than Pat Cleburne.2

  His division, recently reduced from four brigades to three by realignment, had been in reserve during the Battle of Peachtree Creek. Cleburne’s command suffered close to 100 losses in that role, mostly as a result of distant artillery fire (except for the wounded and the families of the dead, those losses would be deemed inconsequential relative to the heavily engaged divisions that day). After pulling back southward into Atlanta that night, Cleburne deployed his three brigades in a long, loose line that advanced 2,500 yards eastward, his left moving along the Georgia Railroad. They marched as quietly as possible so as to not attract enemy skirmish fire.

  The clandestine movement was not perfectly concealed and casualties mounted before Thursday’s light of dawn revealed the Georgia landscape. Colonel Samuel Adams of the 33rd Alabama (a regiment with a “Boy Company” composed of at least a score of teenaged soldiers) positioned his command and was inspecting his regiment on foot when one of McPherson’s skirmishers perceived his form and figured out that he was an officer. The Yankee aimed his rifle at Adams and fired. It was a perfect shot, one that tore into his chest. Adams clasped his hands over his breast, dropped to the ground, and was dead before he could receive any medical attention. The loss of Adams, regarded as a top colonel of the division, was an ill foreboding for Cleburne and his command.3

  The southernmost of Cleburne’s three brigades would be the most active that day. Brigadier General James A. Smith led the brigade. Smith had about 1,500 men in six regiments, half of them consolidated units from two former distinct regiments. The brigade was a mix of infantry and dismounted cavalry; all were Texans except the 5th Confederate Infantry, a force formed from two consolidated Tennessee regiments. Before morning’s first light, Smith reinforced the Confederate cavalry on the hill and the rise of ground from where it protruded. There he dug in the best he could, ordering his regiments to carve out some earthworks to protect them from the Army of the Tennessee, already entrenched half a mile east of them. The Confederate brigade stood at the southernmost position of Hood’s infantry deployment, with its right up on Bald Hill and its left extending north
of the knob.4

  Union artillerists were determined to overturn the Confederate defense. At 7:00 A.M. Captain Henry H. Griffiths, chief of artillery for the 4th Division of the XV Corps, chose his former battery to harass Cleburne’s men. Griffiths may have seen an opportunity for redemption here, for the 1st Iowa Battery had suffered from hard luck in recent weeks. Their guns had been temporarily captured at the Battle of Dallas late in May, and only were recovered due to the daring exploits of corps commander “Black Jack” Logan. On July 20, just one day earlier, the Iowans suffered two killed and five wounded artillerists when a Confederate battery opened on their right flank. “I was ordered to remain in this position, and not to fire till further orders,” complained Captain William Gay, who had inherited Griffiths’s battery when the latter was promoted. Those orders never came, inducing Gay to ruefully claim that “for one mortal hour the enemy poured a well directed fire into our silent battery.”5

  On the morning of July 21 Captain Gay received the necessary instructions to exact his revenge. The 1st Iowa Battery was composed of ten-pounder Parrott rifles. These cannons, though not as deadly as De Gress’s twenty pounders, were considered devastatingly accurate when deployed within 2,000 yards of their intended target. Gay unlimbered his battery from high ground a mere 800 yards northeast of Bald Hill. With no opposing fire against his right flank, Gay had 3 of his guns rolled out of the Union works in an open field where he ordered his men to open upon the Confederate left protruding northward from Bald Hill.6

  Screaming solid shot and exploding shells interrupted the work by the Texans and Tennesseans, who could no longer complete their earthen fort. Gay lauded his gunners for “causing the enemy great discomfort,” but that was about as severe an understatement as one could make. “Their artillery are killing our men very fast,” acknowledged Captain Samuel T. Foster of the 24th Texas, who observed eighteen members of a company of the 18th Texas take cover in a little ditch they had dug to rest and escape the metal maelstrom above them. Foster and several others near him watched in horror as an Iowa round soared into the excavation and exploded, killing or crippling all but one of the ditch dwellers. “Knocked one man in a hundred pieces,” recounted Captain Foster, “one hand and arm went over the works and his cartridge box was ten feet up in a tree.”7

  The terror spread to nearly every company on Bald Hill. Solid shot and shrapnel did not discriminate. It killed Confederates out in the open; it killed those hugging the ground; it killed those in position prepared for it; and it killed those in the rear eating their breakfast. For about five minutes, the Texans endured a hell on earth. Forty men were killed and 100 wounded in less than 300 seconds. General Smith, the brigade commander, paid grudging respect to the Iowa battery, “I have never before witnessed such accurate and destructive cannonading.”8

  By killing, maiming, and terrorizing so many Texans in such a short span with cannon fire and by impeding their defense construction, the Iowa gunners had effectively softened the defense on Bald Hill for an infantry assault. “We worked steadily under that murderous fire, digging trenches and throwing up breastworks,” recalled James Turner of the 6th Texas, “but before our works were more than half completed, heavy masses of infantry appeared in our front.” The attacking foot soldiers hailed from Major General Frank Blair’s XVII Corps. He sent Brigadier General Mortimer Leggett’s division out to take Bald Hill away from Cleburne’s division.9

  General Leggett would be so indelibly linked to the hill that it would bear his name in the aftermath. Leggett was a distinctive man in McPherson’s army. He was neither tall nor short, but his athletic build—particularly his broad shoulders—drew attention, as did his moon-shaped face that was distinguished by his wild, unruly hair and thick beard. Born into a Quaker family, Leggett eventually turned to Presbyterianism and took his religion to heart by shedding all visible vices. He did not drink coffee or tea and he never smoked or drank liquor. As unusual as the lack of those habits appeared for a general, there was no mistaking Leggett’s combativeness. He was a first-class warrior, earning his division command for his aggressiveness throughout the Vicksburg campaign of May 1863 as a brigadier. Leggett was given the post of honor to lead the first brigade into the captured city of Vicksburg on the Fourth of July. One year later, Leggett was “awarded” the opportunity to take Bald Hill with his division.10

  BRIGADIER GENERAL MORTIMER DORMER LEGGETT, U.S.A.

  Leggett was a tough division commander in the XVII Corps. His successful assault and subsequent defense of Bald Hill was the reason that the height was renamed Leggett’s Hill. The hill was essentially destroyed in the latter half of the twentieth century by interstate highway construction. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

  He was already in position before he received the order that morning because he was prepared to attack the night before. Leggett spent the night in the belt of woods between the opposing lines with his brigade essentially deployed to wake up and assault at a moment’s notice. His division consisted of three uneven brigades of eleven regiments and a battalion, 4,000 infantrymen and three batteries of artillery. Directly opposite Bald Hill was Leggett’s largest brigade, two Wisconsin and three Illinois regiments commanded by Brigadier General Manning F. Force (a fourth Illinois regiment under his command was in reserve and not on the field). South of them were the three Ohio regiments of Colonel Robert K. Scott’s brigade, and facing south, perpendicular to Scott’s left flank, was the tiny brigade of Colonel Adam G. Malloy (consisting only of the 17th Wisconsin Infantry and Worden’s Battalion).11

  General Blair’s attack orders were expected at dawn, but they had to be improvised as the division commander, Brigadier General Giles Alexander Smith, replacing the injured General Gresham, familiarized himself with his new duties. The orders arrived and were acted upon closer to 8:00 A.M. Leggett’s attack was not ideally formed. One regiment, the very large 12th Wisconsin Infantry, had never “seen the elephant,” although they had been in service for three years but had joined Leggett’s command less than two weeks earlier. They occupied the front attack line of Force’s brigade, while more experienced and battle-tested men would be supporting them in the second line. No adjustment was made to switch positions, perhaps due to the Wisconsin colonel’s affecting plea to Leggett, “Now, General, if you have any fighting to do, give us a chance.”12

  The 12th would get that chance, sharing the frontline with the 16th Wisconsin on its left while three Illinois regiments formed behind them. The back-line units had been chewed up during the Vicksburg campaign, so much so that two of the regiments had requested to consolidate into one unit, the same structure of necessity adopted within many Southern brigades. The union request had been denied just a few days before the battle, assuring that the two relatively untested Wisconsin regiments well outnumbered the total of the three Illinois regiments behind them.13

  Leggett had what one contemporary called a “great propulsive power over his men.” Never was it more necessary to display that magical power than then. The attackers heard the bellowed orders, “Trail arms! Forward, march!” They paced westward through the protective woods and entered a clearing. Before a destructive fire could be thrown in their faces, the bluecoats disappeared from view. Force’s men reached a creek with steep walls and lined with tall grass on both banks. Veering to the left (southwest) as they splashed through the brook, the Wisconsin men reappeared on the opposite bank and attracted fire—but not just from Confederate infantry. Two batteries from Arkansas and Mississippi unlimbered on the ridge north of Bald Hill during the eight o’clock hour, just in time to place 8 twelve-pound smoothbores in position to fire exploding shells and spew canister at the lines of approaching bluecoats. “My shot struck the enemy in the flank, enfilading his whole line,” wrote Captain Thomas J. Key of the Arkansas battery.14

  Scores of Yankees were mowed down in the open, but suddenly most of the frontline attackers disappeared again when they thankfully received orders to take cover in the tall gra
ss once they completed the climb up the west bank. “It was indeed refreshing and comforting to ‘lie down’ at such a time,” admitted one of the Badgers, “—especially so when we heard the little leaden messengers of death whizzing over us on their way to the rear.” The next order barked by General Force, however, ended their respite, “Fix Bayonets!”15 By attaching those small steel spears to their rifles, the soldiers were preparing for the old style of warfare, the way the patriots of the Revolution fought when they got close enough to the British.

  The unmistakable sound of metal sliding against metal emanated across the quarter-mile lines as the prone infantryman affixed their bayonets to the muzzles of their guns. The anticipated order to charge sent them forward again. As Confederate gunners loaded and fired and infantry and cavalry blazed away, the three blue lines (skirmishers, Wisconsin, and Illinois) rushed one-quarter mile up the slope of the creek valley and up the eastern side of Bald Hill. Three lines quickly became two as the skirmishers in front were absorbed into the Wisconsin line. “Our men fell in bunches,” claimed one in the frontline. Bunches soon became dozens; dozens grew to scores. Still, Force’s brigade pressed on, their general directly behind the first line and his adjutant behind the second—the only two on horseback. “The Rebs kept firing volley after volley at us, and our boys kept dropping all the way up the hill,” recalled a member of the 16th Wisconsin.16

  Enough of them stayed afoot to overwhelm the first line of Southerners on the crest of the hill. The assault was too much for the Confederate cavalry assigned to protect Cleburne’s southern flank, consisting of part of three brigades of Wheeler’s horse soldiers. Alabama cavalry regiments under the command of Brigadier General William W. Allen, Georgians commanded by Brigadier General Alfred Iverson, and a mixed brigade of Alabama and Mississippi cavalry under the direction of Brigadier General Samuel W. Ferguson had fanned out along the defended ridge line. Dismounted to fight like infantry, those cavalry were not experienced as skirmishers. The sight of the onrushing blue wave with their silvery bayonets held high and gleaming in the morning sun was awesome and terrifying at the same time. The Confederate cavalry fired—and then they fled. Ferguson’s brigade was the first to buckle under the pressure, exposing the right flank of the other two brigades and the infantry behind it. Magnifying a small panic, one regimental commander warned the Texans to follow them rearward or “you will all be captured.” In less than five minutes the equivalent of a cavalry division—2,000 horse soldiers—had peeled away leaving Cleburne’s infantry alone to face the onslaught.17