The Battle of Peach Tree Creek

by Earl J. Hess

  The members of Coburn’s command remembered the opening of the battle vividly. Crane’s 85th Indiana crossed the small stream inside the ravine and used the shallow bank as cover when they took aim at the Confederates descending the slope. They “poured a deadly and continuous fire into the enemy, who were within fifty feet of the front of the regiment,” as Crane put it. Oatis’s men seemed to be “in a large unorganized mass, pushing forward, and were evidently surprised to find our lines so near them.”23

  Miller’s 33rd Indiana also “poured a rapid and well-directed fire” into the Rebels who came down the ravine slope. Featherston’s men extended farther west than Miller’s line and threatened to turn his left flank. The Union officer refused the two left companies of his regimental line “as quick as possible.” Those two companies fired heavily enough to discourage any flanking movement. Crane worried about the right wing of his 85th Indiana, however, which had lagged a bit behind the left. But Francis Crawford once again helped the brigade by urging on the right wing. Crane “heard a shout and knew then that” his right wing had crossed the stream and was connecting with the left. He then ordered the entire regiment to advance while firing up the ravine slope, and his men did so with a loud yell that could be heard above the musketry.24

  Coburn’s brigade not only stopped the Confederate advance in its front but counterattacked up the ravine slope, the 33rd Indiana and 19th Michigan joining in the movement. The 22nd Mississippi was disorganized and retreated in what Ward described as the “wildest confusion.” Some Rebels lagged behind and were taken prisoner—200 of them if Coburn’s estimate is reliable. Harvey Reid of the 22nd Wisconsin saw the fight from a distance, having been detailed to commissary work with the brigade wagon train. Coburn’s men moved steadily up the ravine slope firing as they went, and the broken enemy dotted “that bare slope” until they made it look like “an ant hill swarming with dark objects hurrying back to the cover of the woods.”25

  On the way up the ravine slope, the Federals encountered abandoned Confederate flags. Pvt. Thomas J. Williamson of Company A, 85th Indiana initially picked one up and waved it a few times but then threw the color down. When asked later, he said “he could not carry it and fire his gun.” Someone else retrieved the flag and undoubtedly received credit for “capturing” it, even though Crane did his best to document that Williamson was the first Federal to lay hands on it. A group of men from the 33rd Indiana and 19th Michigan picked up a Confederate flag and gave it to an officer they did not know, asking him to take care of it for them. They only recalled that the officer served on Ward’s division staff, but they never received credit for the flag.26

  By the time Coburn’s brigade neared the top of the second ridge, where Collier Road and the Union breastworks were located, the men were mingled up. The 19th Michigan merged in many places with both the 33rd and 85th Indiana. A few members of the 22nd Wisconsin had also elected to go in with Miller’s 33rd Indiana rather than fall back to the rear of the division, and they thus participated in the unique uphill attack that afternoon. Featherston’s men fell back farther south, and Coburn occupied the roadbed, but his men quickly restored order by forming two lines to secure the crest.27

  As yet, Wood still had not moved forward fast enough to keep pace with Coburn and there was no support to the east. To the west, Harrison’s brigade was only a few minutes behind Coburn’s fast-paced advance to the second ridge. Harrison, who would be elected president of the United States twenty-four years later, faced the most trying day of his military service. After Coburn alerted him, Harrison rode up to the left flank of Geary’s division line and from there saw the Confederates emerge from the woods at the start of their attack. He quickly rode back to his command, receiving Coburn’s hurried cry that the Rebels were on their way.28

  Benjamin Harrison, a future president, who enjoyed the best day of his Civil War career while leading his brigade forward in an effort to stop Featherston’s Brigade. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-cwphb-03891)

  Harrison’s Brigade

  Harrison’s men had been lounging on the bottomland of Peach Tree Creek before the first indication of trouble, but now they already were formed in line and ready to respond to their commander’s order to move up to the crest of the first ridge. A sense of urgency was readily apparent. Men who had straggled forward before the first alarm came rushing back from the front saying, “O God, boys, they are out of their works! We’ve got ’em now!” Capt. Howard Dunlevy, Harrison’s assistant adjutant general, rode along the brigade line shouting “Forward! They are driving us on the right and left!”29

  Harrison’s brigade formed in two lines straddling the narrow valley of Shoal Creek. The 129th Illinois held the left end of the first line with the 79th Ohio in the middle and the 102nd Illinois on the far right and west of Shoal Creek. In the second line, the 70th Indiana lay east of the creek and the 105th Illinois west of it. The creek interfered with Harrison’s ability to maneuver and handle his regiments, but he had to overcome those difficulties in order to fill the gap between Coburn’s brigade and Geary’s division.30

  The men encountered no opposition as they struggled up the slope. Some units worked their way through thickets and blackberry bushes before the brigade reached the ridge crest with its covering of pine trees. By this time Harrison had ridden back to the left flank of Geary’s division line, the best observation post he could find on the battlefield. From there he saw the Confederates coming down the ravine slope. Geary’s guns were pounding them, and 100 men Harrison had contributed to the skirmish line, before the battle, were retreating. From his perspective, Harrison saw that the Rebels were becoming disorganized by all these factors. He even reported seeing some Confederates who plopped to the ground, refusing to continue although their officers “with drawn swords, were trying to steady their lines and push them forward.” The enemy advance seemed to stall about 100 yards from his brigade’s position on the first ridge top.31

  Like Coburn, Harrison quickly realized that he had to advance beyond the first crest and drive the enemy back. He sent Dunlevy to urge forward the three regiments east of Shoal Creek, while he personally moved forward the two regiments west of the stream. As of yet no Confederates fronted the two right regiments; Harrison saw this as an opportunity to connect with Geary’s left flank and gain the crest of the second ridge before his left wing could fight its way up the slope.32

  Believing from the looks of things that the enemy “greatly outnumbered me,” Harrison proudly told his wife about his decision to move forward from the first ridge crest. “I waited till they came close enough, & then without any orders from any one, I ordered my Brigade to charge which they did in splendid style.” Ward also took a great deal of pride in what Harrison’s brigade did that afternoon, for it was his old command before taking over the division from Butterfield. George F. Cram of the 105th Illinois described Ward as the division’s “worthless but doting general,” yet the men treated his weaknesses with amused tolerance, calling him “‘Old Stoughten-bottle,’ and ‘Jack of Clubs’” because of his fondness for liquor. The general rode a white horse and wore “tremendous gloves,” habitually pulling them when agitated. “He was greatly excited,” related John L. Ketcham of the 70th Indiana, who was a member of Ward’s staff, “and jerking first at one glove, then the other, he called out to his aid, Lieutenant [Samuel K.] Harryman of our regiment, ‘Ha’yman, Ha’yman, come hea. Look how the First Brigade, my old brigade, goes in!’”33

  The main Confederate force, Lieut. Col. J. W. Drane’s 31st Mississippi, approached Harrison’s left wing. That wing consisted of Col. Henry Case’s 129th Illinois and Capt. Samuel A. West’s 79th Ohio, with Lieut. Col. Samuel Merrill’s 70th Indiana to the rear as a reserve. Case pushed his regiment forward into the ravine and began to ascend the opposite slope. Part way up he received “a galling fire” from Drane’s Confederates in front of the regiment’s left wing and off to the left as well. His men were temporarily stunned but began to return th
e fire and then resumed their forward movement. The left wing soon ground to a halt in the face of stiffening resistance by Featherston’s men, but the right wing had little in its front and began to slowly wheel to the left.34

  William T. Ward, the doughty commander of the Twentieth Corps division that opposed Featherston. He wisely allowed his brigade leaders to handle their men without interference. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-cwpbh-03168)

  At this point, the ground to Case’s left was filled only with Confederate soldiers of the 22nd Mississippi. Although starting later than Coburn, Harrison’s brigade had surged ahead of him by this time. Case had the unenviable job of dealing with a heavy concentration of enemy troops in his front, enfilade fire from the left, and the uncertainty of not knowing when Coburn’s men would come forward to cover his flank. Rather than hesitate, he simply pushed his command forward and trusted Coburn would soon come up.35

  Harrison was keenly aware of Case’s problems and responded by pushing his two reserve regiments obliquely to the left to extend the brigade line left of the 129th Illinois. Merrill was eager to bring his Indiana men into action. As soon as the 129th Illinois began to leave the first ridge crest and descend into the ravine, the 70th Indiana fired its first volley at the Rebels over the heads of Case’s troops. Then it followed Case, moving “through the sassafras bushes, over a gully some four feet wide and seven feet deep,” and then began ascending the opposite slope. On the way up, as the 129th Illinois slowed and stalled, the 70th Indiana obliqued left according to orders. Lieut. Col. Everell L. Dutton’s 105th Illinois crossed Shoal Creek and followed Merrill’s regiment in the oblique movement. When the two regiments ended their slide to the left, the 70th Indiana was some distance to the left of the 129th Illinois but not far enough to allow all of the 105th Illinois regimental line to fill the gap between the two units. The four companies on the right of Dutton’s line overlapped the left wing of Case’s 129th Illinois, but the two units had done well to extend Harrison’s brigade line and support Case’s hard-pressed regiment.36

  Before the 70th Indiana and 105th Illinois arrived, and before the right wing of Case’s regiment completed its wheeling movement, the left wing of the 129th Illinois had a tough fight. Hand-to-hand combat broke out at one point, as the Confederates stubbornly held on in some timber on the ravine slope. Pvt. George A. Newton recalled that Lieut. Col. Thomas H. Flynn, a veteran of the Mexican War, became so wrapped up in the close-range fighting that he emptied his revolver at the Confederates and then managed to grab a few of them by their arms, “gave them a kick, and, with language more forcible than polite, ordered them to the rear.”37

  While Case later reported that the enemy greatly outnumbered him, the fact was that relatively few of Featherston’s men opposed Harrison’s brigade in its uphill struggle. After a few minutes the combined effect of fierce hand-to-hand fighting, the wheeling movement of his right wing, and the support of the 70th Indiana and 105th Illinois had its desired effect. Confederate resistance in front of the left wing of the 129th Illinois weakened until the enemy fled precipitately. The Federals followed them up by continuing their upward movement, the 105th Illinois taking prisoners and a Confederate flag along the way.38

  Harrison’s right wing contributed to the forward movement of the brigade. Not fronted by resistance, the 102nd Illinois occupied high ground west of Shoal Creek that enabled the men to see much of the action on the brigade’s left wing. Capt. William A. Wilson advanced the regiment until his men could partially wheel left and then deliver long-range fire at the Confederates with their Spencer repeating rifles. West’s 79th Ohio contributed to this oblique fire until Confederate resistance in front of the 129th Illinois broke.39

  The brigade fought its way up to the crest of the second ridge in this way. As the right wing of the 129th Illinois continued to wheel, it reached the top before any other unit in the brigade. Featherston’s men gave way from the crest as the right wing advanced a bit toward the east, compelling other Confederates farther down the slope to hurriedly retreat from the front of Harrison’s extreme left wing. Case was then able to advance his regimental left wing up to Collier Road, followed by the 70th Indiana and 105th Illinois to the left and the 102nd Illinois and 70th Ohio to the right. The Federals took some losses even upon claiming the ridge top. One of George Newton’s mess mates was shot through the body by a Confederate as he reached the fence rail breastworks along Collier Road.40

  “Our advance, though desperately resisted by the enemy, was steady and unfaltering,” wrote Harrison in his official report, “the fighting was hand to hand, and step by step; the enemy was pushed back over the crest in our front and the key-point of the battle-field won.” Rather than continue, he decided to plant his men along Collier Road and stay there. A short time later, Harrison noted signs of trouble in Geary’s division to the right. One of Geary’s officers told Harrison that the division’s right flank had been broken. This brought yet another point of crisis, but Harrison still was determined to maintain his hard-won position on the ridge crest. There was no possibility of retreating across Peach Tree Creek for the stream was too much of an obstacle to be easily crossed. It was either fight or die along Collier Road as Harrison trusted “to the brave troops on our right to recover their ground.”41

  Although Harrison tried to keep the trouble affecting Geary’s division secret, other men in his brigade learned of it as well. An unidentified officer, supposed to have been one of Harrison’s staff members, approached Wilson and told him he had better retire the 102nd Illinois from the ridge or face the possibility of being outflanked when Geary fell back. Wilson told him he “didn’t see it” and held his position. In fact, Wilson directed the fire of his men obliquely to the right to give Geary some assistance.42

  Harrison reached the crest of the second ridge a short time before Coburn, and Ward’s remaining brigade reached it a bit after Coburn’s men secured their position on the top. James Wood Jr. had received signals from several directions that the Confederates were preparing to advance. Lieut. Col. Frederick C. Winkler, who had sent some companies of his 26th Wisconsin to reinforce the 22nd Wisconsin on the skirmish line, told Wood of signs that the enemy might be massing in Ward’s front. Coburn did not give Wood any warning, but the sound of musketry to the left where Newton’s division was located, the rush of noncombatants from Newton’s position toward Peach Tree Creek, and the firing of Ward’s skirmish line provided ample proof that a battle was heading his way.43

  Wood’s Brigade

  Wood quickly assembled his brigade in two lines with the 20th Connecticut on the left and the 26th Wisconsin on the right in the first line. Behind those two units, Wood positioned the 55th Ohio on the left and the 73rd Ohio on the right. The 33rd Massachusetts had been detached to guard Ward’s wagon trains and did not take part in the battle. Four companies of the 136th New York were engaged in the fight, but the rest of the regiment was held back as a reserve.44

  Like Coburn and Harrison, Wood ordered his brigade to advance at least to the first ridge crest, and the men set out after the other two brigades had already started. Upon reaching that crest, it became apparent that the Federal skirmishers were retiring, and Col. Jabez L. Drake’s 33rd Mississippi was following them. Wood pushed his men down the slope into the bottom of the ravine where at least the first line lay prone and allowed the Union skirmishers to pass through its ranks. The bottom of the ravine was lined with trees and underbrush, affording some degree of cover for Wood’s troops as they waited for Drake’s men to descend the opposite slope and then opened fire at close range, only ten paces according to George Hoenig of the 26th Wisconsin. Samuel H. Hurst of the 73rd Ohio saw and heard that first Union fire—“a most murderous volley,” he called it—which stunned the Confederates and brought down many men.45

  The ravine slope in front of Winkler’s 26th Wisconsin was open, but off to the left a thick patch of trees allowed many members of Drake’s regiment to take cover and lay down an oblique fire o
n Winkler’s regiment at a range of only sixty yards. As yet, the 20th Connecticut had not advanced far enough to offer Winkler any assistance. Confederate troops in front of the 26th Wisconsin also steeled their nerves and moved closer. “For a time the conflict was desperate,” Winkler reported. “I took every man who could be spared on the right to re-enforce the left.” Drake’s men gained a point as close as fifteen paces from Winkler’s line. “Our men loaded & fired as rapidly as possible & with the aid of officers, who exerted their utmost to spy & point out the points to fire at, made the fire very effective.”46

  This sharp firefight lasted only a few minutes. Drake’s Mississippi regiment came closer to stopping the Federals than any other in Featherston’s Brigade, but it could not stand the intense firing from Winkler’s troops. The Confederates broke and retreated with the Wisconsin boys pushing as rapidly as they could up the ravine slope after them. Drake’s color-bearer fell wounded, and Capt. William John Fuchs of the 26th Wisconsin was the first to grab the flag. Drake also was killed on the battlefield during the retreat of his regiment up the slope. Winkler later counted a total of thirty-four Confederate dead and seventy wounded Rebels on the ground encompassing his fight with Drake. Winkler had 260 men involved in this battle and probably slightly outnumbered the 33rd Mississippi. He suffered forty-five casualties, a loss ratio of 17.3 percent, in the brief fight.47