The Day Dixie Died: The Battle of Atlanta

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The Day Dixie Died: The Battle of Atlanta Page 29

by Gary Ecelbarger


  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.

 

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