The 2nd/24th Arkansas was the recipient of Sander’s wrath. Yankee lead thudded into them without mercy, killing a dozen men outright and wounding four score and more. Within fifteen minutes half of that unit was down and less than 100 men remained, all hugging the ground for dear life among their dead and wounded comrades. One hundred yards west of them, across the Flat Shoals Road, the 1st/15th Arkansas fared little better. Facing off against the 11th Iowa, those Razorbacks had a seemingly impossible task against 2 cannons and a regiment larger than theirs. As bullets and shell fragments shredded their ranks, they countered with volleys of their own, hitting the 11th Iowa with a cross fire as they inched toward the rifle pits on an angle. Colonel Hall attempted to rectify that with more manpower. He ordered up two companies of the 13th Iowa to the left of the 11th, nearly placing them in the roadbed. At the same time two additional companies of the same reserve regiment were sent forward 100 yards to support the 16th Iowa.
Before the reinforcements reached Hall’s men, Arkansas troops had penetrated the works. Private William Bevins of Company G, 1st Arkansas, would never forget the mad rush four of his company mates made against the 11th Iowa:
It was death anyway, so they ran forward firing on the troops with terrible accuracy. One man had a bead on Thomas when Murphy shot the fellow. One hinged for Murphy when Thomas bayoneted him. So they had it—hand to hand. Poor Hensley was killed, Murphy terribly wounded, Baird wounded, but Thomas would not surrender. He bayoneted them until they took his gun, then he kicked and bit until they finally killed him there. Four men had killed 25 Yankees, but only one of the four lived to tell the tale. To question the morale of such men is farcical.10
Those four Razorbacks were hardly alone in their assault against the Union breastworks. Nearly half of Govan’s brigade surged against the 11th Iowa and the 16th Iowa. That left the right flank of his attacking line battling the 15th Iowa. Here Govan’s men were unmolested by Union artillery and they outnumbered the Federals, but not by enough to overrun their works by a bull rush. The abatises between the opposing lines here were so thick and numerous that Govan’s adjutant called them “almost impassable.”11
Colonel John E. Murray of the 5th Arkansas got his men past that creative curtain. Murray took overall charge of his own consolidated unit, the 5th/13th Arkansas and the right wing of Govan’s attack (including the 8th/19th and 6th/7th Arkansas). Murray had been the most impressive subordinate to General Govan. Dubbed the “Boy Colonel” for his promotion to lieutenant colonel at the age of eighteen in 1861, Murray was still a youthful twenty-one years old at the Battle of Atlanta, but was then a full colonel who had commanded Govan’s brigade in brief stints during the previous winter. A brigadier general’s commission seemed inevitable, which would make Murray the youngest one in the Confederate army.
Colonel Murray conquered the abatises but his regiment faced the point-blank fire of the 15th Iowa directly ahead of them and the enfilading musketry of the 16th Iowa to their left. The two-sided assault stopped the Razorbacks in their tracks. In a feat of inspiration, Murray rallied his men by grabbing the flag of his regiment and charged with the 5th/13th Arkansas to the earthworks of the 15th Iowa. Mounting the parapets, Arkansas and Iowa soldiers engaged in a brief, hand-to-hand fight. Murray dropped with a mortal wound. One hundred Arkansans joined him on the casualty list as the Iowans desperately clung to their position.12
Notwithstanding the repulse of Confederates in front, nothing protected the flank of the 15th Iowa, allowing Govan’s right-hand regiments, the 6th/7th Arkansas and the 8th/19th Arkansas, to pass by the Union left, covered by woods and advancing through a protective ravine, while a battalion of the 5th/13th Arkansas crept closer and closer to the front of the Iowa entrenchment. Govan reined in the right-hand units, ordering them to turn to the left to aid his left-flank force in the entrenchments.
An unexpected prize awaited the flanking Arkansas units. Crossing an east-west wagon road that ran through the woods here, the Razorbacks shocked the two lieutenants leading the 6 cannons of Battery F, 2nd U.S. Artillery, from their original position at the XVII Corps entrenchment line to the endangered XVI Corps position half a mile to the west. The battery was a XVI Corps unit, recalled to assist the other two batteries there. Lieutenant Albert M. Murray made the unfortunate mistake of taking that narrow road when another wagon road, a few hundred yards north of them, would have assured a safe arrival to General Grenville Dodge. Before the guns could be unlimbered to contest the Arkansas infantry at point-blank range, Murray and his entire battery were swept up and escorted to the rear as prisoners of war.13
It was a dire situation for Colonel Hall, who attempted to reinforce the left flank of the 15th Iowa by peeling off more companies of the 13th Iowa and sending them to their aid. Giles Smith ordered Colonel Potts to support Hall’s left flank with regiments from his brigade. Potts chose a battalion of the 3rd Iowa Infantry and two companies of the 53rd Illinois to hustle northwestward and buttress the left of the 15th Iowa. He also sent a portion of 53rd Indiana eastward to do the same.14
It was too late. The Razorbacks were already working their way around the flank before succor arrived. They loosed several heated volleys upon Potts’s reinforcements, killing and wounding several, including Captain Pleasant T. Mathes, the 3rd Iowa commander, whose body was left on the field. Those not shot up in the two reinforcing regiments returned to the safety of the XVII Corps works near Bald Hill. Overwhelmed by Arkansas troops in front and flank, Colonel William W. Belknap, commander of the 15th Iowa, ordered his men to abandon their rifle pits and fall back to a new line several hundred yards northwest of them. That action necessitated the withdrawal of the 13th Iowa, who had dispersed most of its companies as skirmishers and reinforcements and had no remaining strength in its entrenchments.15
Insurmountable pressure forced back the 15th and 13th Iowa regiments, leaving the 11th and 16th Iowa and the 2 cannons in the road to fend off Govan’s surging and swirling hurricane of troops. Giles Smith had already prepared a fall-back position and ordered Colonel Hall to order the remaining regiments to extricate from their works and head to that new line. The 11th Iowa needed not be told twice. Threatened by a cross fire against its arc formation and worried about both flanks being enveloped, the 11th’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel John C. Abercrombie, ordered his men out by the right flank, abandoning their position and heading westward. Some stayed inside, resigned to their fate; others were shot down and fell back into the works. Most of the 11th Iowa, however, successfully escaped, jumping over the line of entrenchments 300 yards off to their right. Safely behind the earthworks, one of the escapees, noted, “From this position we could see the rebel troops closing around the 16th Iowa.”16
Indeed, the 16th Iowa was the lone Union force remaining in that sector, and they had stayed too long. Lieutenant Colonel Sanders insisted that the trapped 2nd/24th Arkansas thirty paces in front of his works had raised the white flag to surrender. Sanders halted his fire and allowed the Arkansas troops to enter his works. If true, that preoccupation with over 100 captures diverted the Iowans’ attention from the remaining regiments of Govan’s brigade who had entered the abandoned works of the 15th Iowa on their left flank and then the 13th Iowa 100 yards behind (north of) them. Then General Govan called on Sanders to surrender his regiment. Only 25 of Sanders’s Confederate captures had been escorted rearward; the remainder posed an additional problem for him—they held on to their weapons. Bolstered by the presence of their sister regiments in the Iowa works around them those “captures” turned the tables on Sanders. With guns raised, they insisted that he surrender.
Sanders refused. From the east side of his works, Sanders bolted westward to encourage his command to escape to the right. An Arkansas officer hurriedly borrowed a pistol from a comrade and fired at the fleeing Union commander. The bullet entered Sanders’s thigh, but the flesh wound did not impede him. In any case, the presence of the 1st/15th Arkansas in the works of the 11th Iowa convinced him t
hat he was then completely surrounded. Unable to cut his way out, Sanders quickly collected his command in the works. Looking to the north they observed Govan’s men prepared to charge upon them with fixed bayonets. It was a hopeless position. Rather than endure the inevitable slaughter of his men, Sanders surrendered his soldiers—all 240 of them in the works. The two companies of 13th Iowa soldiers assisting him were also forced to surrender.
The Union defense remaining in that sector was the 2 cannons of the 2nd Illinois Light Artillery manned by Lieutenant Walter H. Powell. Surrounded on both sides by Razorbacks in the Iowa rifle pits, Powell could only enable his caissons to escape. He surrendered himself, his 2 Napoleons, and approximately thirty artillerists to the Confederates. Despite the outcome, Powell’s superior officer, Major John T. Cheney, praised the performance of that section of the battery, lauding them for “acting as artillery always should do.” (Powell would survive his imprisonment to join his cousin, John Wesley Powell, on a famous exploration of the Grand Canyon five years later.)17
Less than half an hour from their initial advance, Govan had conquered the longest odds to sweep away Hall’s entire Iowa brigade, killing, wounding, and capturing more than 400 blue-clad soldiers and 8 cannons. The contrast between his brigade’s accomplishment with the ultimate failure of the six Confederate brigades comprising Walker’s and Bate’s commands was striking. He then owned 300 yards of the Union left flank, but the cost was severe. He lamented the loss of over 300 killed and wounded men in twenty minutes of work, including a high proportion of company and regimental officers. None of those was more promising than Govan’s “boy colonel,” John E. Murray of the 5th Arkansas, who was cut down in front of the 15th Iowa earthworks. “His loss is irreparable,” grieved Govan, “and has cast a gloom over the whole command, where he was universally beloved.” As his brigade escorted prisoners and tended to their casualties while manning their hard-fought gains, the rearward brigades of Cleburne’s division were upon the field and filling in the gap between the Union XVI and XVII Corps.18
Even before Hall’s survivors scampered across the XVII Corps earthworks west of the Flat Shoals Road, General James A. Smith’s Texas brigade entered the southern end of the gap between the XVII and XVI Corps. The Texans came in on the right of Govan, part of assisting the Arkansans in front of the 16th Iowa Infantry. Like the Arkansas brigade, the Texans were consolidated into two-regiment pairings. Most of those consolidations still numbered fewer than 200 soldiers, with one only half that size. Smith’s men likely guided themselves along Govan’s right as they moved to exploit the fact that no Federal troops stood in their path. The first troops from that brigade entered the gap between the XVI and XVII Corps at 1:30 P.M.19
General McPherson found himself at the worst possible place and at the worst possible time. He must have heard Govan’s assault upon Hall within a few minutes after Lieutenant Colonel Strong’s departure to escort Wangelin’s brigade into the gap. McPherson trotted on the road toward the line of the XVII Corps, accompanied only by an orderly. Within seconds, Colonel Robert K. Scott, a brigade commander in Mortimer Leggett’s division of the XVII Corps, appeared on the same road within yards of McPherson (Scott was attempting to return to Bald Hill from the guard detail he had posted at the corps hospital train). Also on that road was Lieutenant William H. Sherfy, a XV Corps signalman who could see Cleburne’s Confederates swarming into the wooded gap. He rode ahead of at least three other signal officers to warn McPherson as he watched the general enter the danger zone. McPherson shrugged off Sherfy’s warning and continued westward on the byroad.20
One hundred yards farther down that road McPherson found out that he was trapped. A small body of Confederates had penetrated northward all the way to the edge of the wagon road. These Southerners were mostly Tennesseans serving as a battalion of the 5th Confederate Regiment, commanded by Captain Richard Beard. The unit had recently joined the Texas brigade after transferring from a broken, hard-luck brigade, and then found themselves in a most advantageous position as McPherson reined up in front of them. “He was certainly surprised to suddenly find himself face-to-face with the Rebel line,” wrote Captain Beard of McPherson’s reaction, not yet knowing the general’s identity but discerning that he was at least a corps commander. Less than 10 yards from the Confederates, McPherson stopped as Captain Beard raised his sword as a sign to surrender. Several other members of the company ordered McPherson and his trailing cortege to halt. McPherson refused Beard’s very clear signal. Instead, he raised his hat in a polite gesture, wheeled his horse, and attempted to head northeastward off the road and through the woods to safety.
Captain Beard was not going to let him get away. He had a sure-shot corporal at his side, a Mississippian named Robert Coleman whom Beard ordered to fire upon the general. Coleman dutifully complied and aimed at McPherson just as the general bent over the neck of his galloping horse to minimize his exposure. It didn’t work. Southern lead struck McPherson through the right side of his back and—because of his bent position—it penetrated diagonally upward through his torso and exited his left breast. The bullet unhorsed McPherson 20 yards north of the wagon road as the rest of the Confederates in Beard’s command loosed a volley at the other Union soldiers near him, trying to scatter away from him. Their shots struck more horses than men. Three bullets struck McPherson’s beautiful black horse; it limped away and escaped. Colonel Scott’s horse was shot out from under him and incapacitated the colonel as he slammed to the ground. McPherson’s orderly and two signal officers were run into trees by their spooked mounts, including Lieutenant Sherfy—the man who had warned McPherson minutes earlier to no avail. Dazed and injured, but able to walk, the signalman returned to his feet and wobbled into the woods. (His pocket watch was permanently damaged, stopping perhaps twenty minutes later at 2:02 P.M.)21
Captain Beard walked up to the fallen general, believing him killed instantly as he lay motionless with his knees and face pressed into the road dust. The Confederates still did not know exactly who he was. Beard then approached the fallen Colonel Scott nearby and asked him who the fallen general was. “Sir, it is General McPherson,” responded Colonel Scott with eyes swimming in tears. “You have killed the best man in our army.”22
STEREOPTICON SLIDE (AN EARLY FORM OF 3-D) OF THE PLACE WHERE GENERAL MCPHERSON FELL.
The small white square of paper on the thin tree in the background denotes the spot where McPherson was struck. A monument stands on that spot today, surrounded by houses and streets instead of woods. The wagon wheel placed across the simple byroad is close to the spot from where the Confederate soldier who shot McPherson aimed and fired eastward at the fleeing army commander. The woods surrounding the road filled in nearly the entire half-mile gap between the Union XVI and XVII corps. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
McPherson, in fact, was not dead, but death in minutes was inevitable. McPherson’s orderly had been knocked off his horse when the young man’s head struck an overhanging limb. He had fallen hard, right next to his general, knocked senseless for a moment or two. When he came to, he could see McPherson lying on his right side, his hand lifted up to the hole in his chest, “while the blood flowed in streams between his fingers.” The dying commander shifted onto his back as the orderly was jerked away before he could tend to his general. Members of the 5th Confederate helped themselves to some of McPherson’s personal effects—including his hat, field glasses, a dispatch book, and his sword belt (McPherson did not have his sword with him that afternoon). They took his watch, but left the diamond ring glistening from his pinky finger and they also overlooked a money-filled wallet.
Captain Beard ordered his men off to continue their pursuit westward, taking Colonel Scott and the orderly with them, but McPherson was alone for only a few minutes. Private George Reynolds of the 15th Iowa of Hall’s overrun brigade was making his way back to the corps hospital to tend to his bullet-shattered arm when he stumbled upon McPherson lying on his back in the thick underbru
sh. Not knowing how fortunate he was to be passing through an interval with no Rebels in the woods near him, Reynolds folded a blanket to prop McPherson’s head and moistened the general’s lips and forehead with his canteen water. Reynolds alone was there when McPherson died. Unfortunately he could not prevent another Union soldier, an unnamed vagabond, from rifling the dead commander’s coat and stealing the money that was overlooked by Beard’s Confederates.23
At the same time Private Reynolds witnessed McPherson take his last breath, the gap was invaded by Union soldiers charging from the east. That was the second thrust parried by General Fuller, commander of the 4th Division, XVI Corps, who determined to kill the new threat to Dodge’s right flank. His infantry, represented by Morrill’s brigade, had been facing westward toward the woods since attacked there less than an hour earlier by Gist’s brigade, which had apparently pulled back after the death of General Walker and the wounding of General Gist, but James A. Smith’s Texans posed a new threat, for they then covered the wagon road connecting the XVI and XVII Corps. More than that, by seeping northward into the woods, Smith’s Confederate brigade then enveloped Dodge’s flank again.
Fuller sent an aide eastward across the ravine cut by Sugar Creek to order Laird’s battery to fire over their heads into the woods. Under that canopy of artillery rounds, Fuller ordered the 64th Illinois on a solitary mission—to enter the woods and open a flank fire on the rebel line. Ostensibly, Fuller’s goal was to send one regiment on the flank while the others, particularly the 18th Missouri, opened up on the Confederates of Smith’s brigade from the front. According to General Fuller, “Lieut. Laird soon began to drop shells beautifully into the edge of the forest.” Then the cannons ceased and the infantry charged into the woods.24
The Day Dixie Died: The Battle of Atlanta Page 14