The Day Dixie Died: The Battle of Atlanta

by Gary Ecelbarger

  The feeling was justified. Around 2:15 P.M. Cleburne’s men announced their approach from the southeast to Bald Hill with “demoniac yells,” as Leggett described it. It was the same time that Strahl’s brigade was in the final throes of engaging Potts’s brigade 400 yards southwest of the knoll and also marked the time that the Texans threatened the hill from the woods directly east of it. Bullets flying from all three directions unnerved the Union defenders. Colonel Bryant of the 12th Wisconsin bellowed, “Get into the works, boys! Get into the works!” When asked which side of the earthen embankment they should occupy, the overexcited commander declared, “I don’t care which side, but, Get into the works! And do it quick!”26

  Bryant’s superior officer, Brigadier General Manning Force, proved to be a cooler commander during the Confederate convergence upon his exposed brigade—but it must have appeared to one frightened subordinate that Force had committed to a defeatist response to an enemy threat. Force ordered the young officer to get him a flag. Several minutes later when the flag had not been produced, Force sought out the subordinate and discovered him trying to procure white cloth for a surrender flag—a term lacking from Force’s vocabulary. Normally devoid of emotion, Force was livid at the misinterpretation of his intent and dressed the young man down. “Damn you, sir!” cursed the general, “I don’t want a flag of truce; I want the American flag!”27

  General Leggett shared the mindset of General Force. Deciding that the Confederates coming from the eastern directions posed a more imminent threat than did the Tennesseans losing their contest to Potts’s brigade, Leggett quickly ordered his regiments to jump over to the western side of their earthworks and turn toward the woods, “their faces to the east and their backs toward Atlanta.” The Confederates advanced under cover of the woods and poured into a field less than 100 yards from Leggett’s line. Leggett’s regiments were aided by one regiment from Hall’s routed brigade, the 15th Iowa infantry commanded by Colonel William Belknap, who then anchored the right of Leggett’s eastward-facing line. Belknap’s men were about to engage in their third fight and third direction in one hour. Fewer than 300 Iowans remained in Belknap’s regiment, but the addition of the Iowa regiment brought Leggett’s defense to ten regiments—nearly 3,000 infantrymen.28

  The Confederates rushed toward the Union earthworks, determined to claim the trenches for themselves. Yankee lead tore into Rebel bodies, snapping bones, severing blood vessels, and piercing vital organs. “Their first line was wiped out,” declared one of Leggett’s men, “but by the time we had sprung to our feet and reloaded, another line had come up.” Characteristic of Cleburne’s entire division, Lowrey’s brigade kept up their assault. They did say “die,” but they never said “quit.” A living and breathing symbol of the incredible toughness of that brigade was Joel C. Archer of the 16th Alabama. His skull had been fractured in the battle of Chickamauga several months earlier, yet he continued through the subsequent Georgia campaign carrying a piece of his skull as a souvenir.29

  Leggett’s troops required about half a minute to reload but the Alabamans, Mississippians, Texans, and Tennesseans were upon them before they could level their rifles for a second volley. The left of the Confederate attack line careened into the works protecting the 17th Wisconsin and the 15th Iowa Infantry. One of the Iowans noted, “On came the enemy with volleys of musketry and demonic yells.” Leading the assault against the Union position was the 45th Alabama of Lowrey’s brigade, commanded by Colonel Harris D. Lampley, and the 38th Tennessee of Carter’s brigade, led by Lieutenant Colonel Andrew D. Gwynne. Their troops pulsed toward the Iowans and Wisconsin men. Colonel Lampley was particularly conspicuous as he exhorted his Alabamans forward by waving his light felt hat.

  Ordered not to shoot until each had marked a specific Confederate, the bluecoats silently waited. They loosed their aimed volley with little time and distance to spare. A Wisconsin soldier described that part of the battlefield as “red hot,” but there were no casualties recorded on the Union side. Scores of Confederates—mostly Alabamans—in that sector were cut down at point-blank range before they reached the earthworks, including three color bearers shot down in rapid succession. Somehow Colonel Lampley reached the eastern base of the Union embankment with a few members of his regiment at his side. The Iowans kept firing at them but had to hold their weapons in outstretched hands at nearly right angles to their bodies in order to fire at their enemy below. Colonel Belknap yelled down for Lampley to surrender, but the request was refused. As Belknap mounted the parapet he could see how irate Lampley was as he turned eastward and cursed his nonexistent command as cowards. Escaping enemy bullets that whizzed by his face and through his beard, Belknap seized the opportunity to capture Lampley while his attention was diverted. The burly Iowan reached down and clenched his hands upon Lampley’s coat collar, and—with the help of a nearby corporal—hoisted Lampley up and over the breastwork as a prisoner of war. Belknap berated his opponent for denigrating his troops. “Look at your men!” he pointed out to Lampley as they scanned the carnage, “They are all dead! What are you cursing them for?”30

  Major George C. Freeman of the same regiment was also captured as was Lieutenant Colonel Gwynne of the 38th Tennessee. Dozens of Alabamans and Tennesseans and their prized flags suffered the same fate. They were the fortunate ones; just as many of their comrades lay dead on the field; even more suffered battle wounds. One of those injured leaned against the east side of the breastwork, afraid to return to his command and refusing to surrender to the Wisconsin men on the other side of the works. Edward Riley, a private in Company F of the 17th Wisconsin, made the final decision for the vacillating Confederate. Riley borrowed a rope from the regimental cook, lassoed the wounded man, and hauled him in.31

  Cleburne’s assault was more menacing north of that sector, the region surrounding and including Bald Hill. Leggett’s two-brigade defense would be sorely tested over the next two hours by nearly 2,000 Confederates of Carter’s, Lowrey’s, and James A. Smith’s brigades. The Tennesseans of Colonel John C. Carter’s brigade had apparently intermingled with Lowrey’s command, explaining how the 38th Tennessee suffered side by side with the 45th Alabama. To counter, Leggett had the services of nine regiments from Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin. They still had skirmishers fanned out westward, between the earthworks and Atlanta. Those skirmishers then protected the backs of their brigade against what could be a devastating assault from the opposite direction. Fortunately for Leggett’s division, that since the repulse of Strahl’s Tennessee brigade by Giles Smith’s men fifteen minutes earlier, no new Confederate assaults had been generated from the west side of the Union-occupied works.

  Still, Leggett and his men felt no relief over that fact, for that threat would remain with them for the remainder of the day. Never before had those veterans had to look over their shoulders while battling in the opposite direction, and never before was the battle in which they were engaged as intense and deadly as the fight for Bald Hill on July 22, 1864. Here, 4,000 soldiers Blue and Gray waged war for the possession of the prominent knob and the ground surrounding it. Should Cleburne’s men steal the hill away from Leggett, the new toehold would not only signify the loss of half of the Union defensive line, but also serve as the fulcrum from which to plant batteries and roll up the remainder of the Army of the Tennessee—including the isolated XVI Corps east of the hill and the XV Corps north of it. That accomplished, a Confederate-controlled battlefield thus threatened the Army of the Ohio and the Army of the Cumberland at the same time. Both sides realized the importance of that hill the day before and shed buckets of blood to own it. More blanched bodies were destined to be sacrificed the second go around.

  Leggett’s single greatest advantage to hold the position was the skill and experience of his prized brigadier, Manning Force—the pale and impassive general who took the hill from Hood early on July 21. Leggett counted on Force to govern a stalwart defense under pressure not witnessed in previous campaigns in Missouri, Mississ
ippi, and Tennessee. Based on the flag incident at the opening fire upon Bald Hill (when Force berated a subordinate for considering surrender), all indications were that General Force was ready to battle. He sent his adjutant, Captain James B. Walker, to the rear to deliver an order, but the officer had only gone about 20 yards when he dropped to the ground with a gunshot wound to the thigh. General Force immediately rushed to Walker’s side and attempted to help him up when he was also struck by enemy lead. The bullet passed sideways through Force’s mouth, entering just below the eye through the left cheek and exiting at the same point through the right, carrying away a portion of his upper jaw in the process of its destructive path. Writhing in pain, General Force was quickly tended to. He would survive, surprisingly without any loss of speech or sight, but he was out of the fight.32

  BRIGADIER GENERAL MANNING FERGUSON FORCE, U.S.A.

  Leggett’s most reliable brigade commander, Force was wounded in the face defending Leggett’s Hill on July 22, 1864. He recovered from the grievous wound and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1892 for his performance in the battle. (Courtesy of MOLLUS-Massachusetts, USAMHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.)

  Under those dire circumstances, the excitable Colonel Bryant inherited Force’s brigade and immediately assumed command. The other brigade of Leggett’s division was also robbed of its commander: Colonel Robert Scott had been captured near where General McPherson was killed, leaving his brigade headless during the opening assaults. Lieutenant Colonel Greenberry F. Wiles, the ranking officer of the 78th Ohio Infantry, eventually led the brigade that day after it was determined that the missing Colonel Scott was indeed captured. Wiles had his regiment and the 20th Ohio Infantry immediately under his control and welcomed the third regiment, the 68th Ohio, which had returned from detached service just as the brigade reversed its formation to face Cleburne’s storm.

  Also reversed and ready to assist the Union infantry were two batteries of artillery from the XVII Corps. Ensconced on Bald Hill were four howitzers of Battery D, 1st Illinois Light Artillery—guns created to fire twenty-four-pound rounds of death. Edgar H. Cooper, known as “the boy captain,” commanded those artillery pieces. One hundred yards south of the hill, on a less prominent elevation, stood Captain Marcus D. Elliott of Battery H, 1st Michigan Light Artillery. That was the “Black Horse Battery,” identified by the jet-black horses that pulled the black steel guns. Elliott had 4 of his 6 rifled Rodmans with him. One section of his battery and an Ohio battery were farther south on the XVII Corps line, the portion overrun by Govan’s Arkansans an hour earlier. One of those 6 guns was captured and the rest were scattered in the confusion of the opening attack. Although only 8 of the original 14 guns remained in line, they were pointed toward the woods east of them and separated only by a twenty-acre field.33

  Conspicuously absent from the Union defense on Bald Hill was General Blair, the corps commander, who was not seen on the contested mound during the afternoon of July 22. After visiting General Dodge at the XVI Corps position, Blair returned to his headquarters several hundred yards northeast of the height and communicated with General Leggett through signal officers. Blair’s traditional style was unlike the other top commanders of the army, Generals McPherson, Logan, and Dodge, who prided themselves on their visibility to their men. Blair’s behind-the-scenes leadership was opposite to the ostentatious displays of his peers at corps command; it also fostered rumors about where he was and what he was doing during the Battle of Atlanta. A Wisconsin soldier in the XVII Corps revealed, “It was a common remark that we never saw General Blair when the bullets were flying.” Soon after the battle, unsupported accusations circulated in Washington about Blair’s conduct on the battlefield. Senator Henry Wilson sent that rumor to the Executive Mansion, writing Abraham Lincoln about how “the drunkenness and incapacity of Frank Blair” hampered the army during the battle, going on to make the preposterous claim that “McPheirson [sic] lost his life on account of [Blair’s] blundering.” Blair had no idea that his muted inspirational abilities and willingness to delegate authority to Walter Gresham, Giles Smith, and Mortimer Leggett would severely wound his reputation. “The fact that the Third and Fourth Divisions of the Seventeenth Corps had such gallant and popular commanders as Generals Leggett and Gresham, compensated largely for the lack of confidence in the corps commander,” surmised a soldier in Blair’s ranks.34

  Cleburne’s assault easily diverted the Bald Hill defenders from seeking out the presence of their corps commander. Hand-to-hand combat was a relative rarity on Civil War battlefields; opposing lines were slaughtered by rifled weapons hundreds of yards from that type of contact. On July 22 the wooded camouflage concealed Cleburne’s attackers until hand-to-hand contact became eventually inevitable. “We were in an open field … lying flat on the ground, when the Johnnies came up with their accustomed yell,” declared W. S. Ayres of the 78th Ohio. “Their first line was wiped out, but by the time we had sprung to our feet and reload another line had come up. We waited until they got within twenty yards of us before we opened fire; and when we did, such slaughter I never saw before or since.” According to a Wisconsin soldier, “we let them have it right in the bread-baskets.” The Union men wiped out the first line of Confederate attackers, including a third of the 32nd Mississippi, which succumbed to a hailstorm of leaden bullets and artillery iron. The Confederate second line fared little better as it was cut down by another unified volley. “It seemed as if no man of all the host who were attacking us could escape alive,” declared an artillerist about the Southern attackers, “and yet, still yelling, they persisted in their desperate undertaking.”35

  The Yankee infantry and artillery did not have twenty to thirty seconds to reload for a third fusillade, for Lowrey’s third line reached the eastern side of the earthworks and found additional protection from a line of trenches dug on their side of the earthen walls (that was the intended Union side earlier in the afternoon). The western side provided only meager protection for Leggett’s men. Taking advantage of the moat, the Confederates crawled undetected along the trench line and within 10 yards of their enemy. Lieutenant E. E. Nutt of the 20th Ohio later surmised, “Many of them were directly opposite us, keeping down to load, then they would rise and fire in our faces, and receive a charge in exchange.” But those point-blank exchanges were brief ones. The opposing forces were so close that they considered it a waste of time to do the requisite multiple steps to load and fire a rifle when the opponent was less than 20 feet away.

  At that point the soldiers’ romanticized vision of exchanging infantry volleys while standing in well-dressed lines gave way to a rudimentary gang fight. “We fixed bayonets,” recounted an Ohioan, “and then and there we had it with clubbed muskets, fisticuffs, and wrestling.” Swarms of soldiers attempted to pull their opponents across the breastworks, much like Colonel Belknap had done with Colonel Lampley. Appearing as angry as they were desperate, the Mississippians, Alabamans, and Texans mobbed the blue-coated defenders of Bald Hill. The brawl intensified around the color bearers of the opposing regiments. Two of the flag-carrying members of the 32nd Mississippi were cut down seconds from each other; 2 men of the 5th Mississippi met the same fate carrying the colors of their regiment. Another Confederate flag bearer rushed up to the Union earthworks and stuck his regiment’s colors into the ground as a beacon to rally his regiment around it. As the Southerners coalesced around that planted flag, Captain John Orr of the 20th Ohio led a few men from his company over the wall, cutting down several Rebels with his sword and annihilating the enemy’s attempt to get a foothold on the hill. Within minutes the Rebels in front of the Ohioans receded back to the base of the hill while Captain Orr escorted about fifty of them as prisoners of war. Neither Orr nor his sword were done for the day.36

  Undoubtedly the most conspicuous flag bearer on the field was Henry McDonald of the 30th Illinois, a big burly man whose size alone attracted enemy guns and fists. The giant held the flag of his regiment in his left hand and on h
is right side he wielded a carbine, a short-barreled cavalry rifle that was captured close to the same spot the previous day. One of Lowrey’s men seized McDonald’s left arm to capture his flag but was oblivious to the weapon the Yankee held to keep possession of it. The Rebel was destroyed by a gunshot traveling the shortest distance to its mark that day.37

  The opposing infantry totaled nearly 2,000 men per side on and surrounding Bald Hill. That placed Leggett’s men at a substantial advantage over Cleburne, but no one told the Confederates that the odds were stacked against them. Gunpowder smoke from rifles and cannons formed a sulfurous fog that enveloped the participants and cut their view so severely that an infantryman complained that “we could not distinguish friend from foe five feet off.” One of the Illinois artillerists claimed, “Only as the breath of a passing breeze blew the smoke away could the movements of the enemy be discerned clearly; but his unearthly yell could be heard above the sound of muskets and cannon.” The smoke enabled some soldiers to liberate captured comrades and others to club or bayonet their enemy once they were sure they were striking someone who hailed from the other side of the Mason Dixon line.38

  Confusion reigned on Bald Hill at 3:00 P.M. when artillery rounds rained over the contestants. The Union defenders quickly discerned that the menacing rounds emanated from the direction of Atlanta. That confirmed their worst fear—attack from two directions. An Illinois soldier vividly recalled that “the two lines were so close together the cannon balls went into the Confederate lines, killing their own men. They would dodge from these balls and the boys would holler at them not to dodge, that it was their own guns.”

  Lowrey’s men really weren’t dodging at that point, however, they had begun to give up the fight, for the casualties had swayed the momentum considerably. Colonel John C. Wilkinson of the 8th Mississippi was killed near the works along with eight other commissioned officers of the brigade. At least three dozen other officers in the brigade were wounded and ten were missing. Those losses would normally paralyze an attacking force, but the gang-style fighting at the trench line ironically overshadowed the dearth of leadership. The mounting casualties in the ranks were even more telling. Too many Confederates were cut down to sustain the fight. In less than an hour, Lowrey lost more than 500 gun-toting soldiers—over 40 percent of his engaged command. Union casualties were significant but proportionately less, perhaps half of the Southerners in that sector of the battlefield.39