by Earl J. Hess
The quick response of Logie and Rogers brought their regiments into line in time to blunt O’Neal’s first attack. The ground sloped downward in front of Knipe’s position and was covered with trees but little underbrush. From Rice Bull’s perspective, the enemy was shrouded by a cloud of musket smoke, but “their loud yells could be heard above the roar of their guns.” When the firing slacked off, Rogers told the men in his rear rank to go back and tear down the deserted houses to obtain wood for a breastwork. There was one old log building “loosely put together” with surrounding buildings also made of logs. The New Yorkers managed to make a barricade up to their knees by loosely piling this old timber in a line along their position before O’Neal launched his second attack of the day.20
O’Neal’s first advance was blunted by the 143rd New York and 61st Ohio of Robinson’s brigade and by the 141st and 123rd New York of Knipe’s brigade. O’Neal regrouped his men and soon made a second effort, which bore more heavily than the first, especially upon Knipe’s men. Before pressing forward once again, O’Neal discovered that his brigade line had become extended. Despite the rugged, timbered ground, his line had been “well formed and advanced in good order” during the first attack, except that the 29th Alabama on the extreme left had misunderstood orders and guided left instead of right. This compelled the sharpshooters and the 26th Alabama to extend “almost to a skirmish line.” While O’Neal worried about the weak spot in his left center, the mistake actually benefited his second attack by elongating the brigade line enough to threaten Knipe’s right flank.21
Before beginning his second drive, O’Neal received another regiment to extend his line even further. Col. Ellison Capers led the 24th South Carolina of Gist’s Brigade, Walker’s Division, Hardee’s Corps. The regiment had been left on picket duty along Howell’s Mill Road when the Army of Tennessee shifted to the right earlier that day. Reynolds’s Brigade swept past the South Carolina regiment when it advanced that afternoon. Capers had no orders to join the assault, so he began to pull his men back in order to find his own brigade. But Stewart saw the regiment and stopped it because Walthall had told him he needed more troops. Stewart sent Capers to Walthall, who temporarily assigned his regiment to O’Neal’s Brigade. Just as the Carolinians came under fire, Capers was slightly wounded, and Lieut. Col. Jesse S. Jones took command. O’Neal placed the 24th on the far left of his line in time for the second attack, and it played a large role in the effort.22
The second attack on Williams’s division pressed along the entire Union line. On the left, Horace Boughton’s 143rd New York of Robinson’s brigade intensified its fire. Some Confederates were shot down only thirty yards from the Union line. Farther to the right, Rogers’s 123rd New York of Knipe’s brigade stood behind their quickly improvised breastwork of building timber and delivered heavy fire at the Rebels emerging from the woods. “The boys loaded and fired with such rapidity,” recalled Henry C. Morhous, “that their guns became so heated that they could not hold their hand on the barrel.” When John Smith’s rifle went off before he finished loading it, shooting out the ramrod, Smith had to look for a spare before he could resume firing.23
The Confederates exerted great pressure on Knipe’s right flank, compelling a rush of reinforcements to that threatened sector. Williams ordered Ruger to send help, and Ruger dispatched Col. John H. Ketcham’s 150th New York from his brigade. Ketcham led the regiment forward but could not find sufficient room for all his men. Only three companies managed to worm into the center of Knipe’s line and opened a heavy fire at the Confederates. While Maj. Alfred B. Smith directed these three companies, Ketcham lined up the other seven companies a short distance behind to act as a reserve. “Some of the men loaded and fired so fast that their rifles became overheated,” recalled Edward O. Bartlett. As occurred with Rogers’s 123rd New York, the barrels became so hot they could not be touched.24
Farther to the left, Knipe stood behind the 123rd New York to observe its heavy fire on O’Neal’s men. As Rogers walked toward him, Knipe excitedly blurted “Colonel, the best d-d regiment in my brigade!” When Knipe saw three men skulk from the ranks, he personally caught and forced them back into line, telling regimental officers to shoot them if they ran again.25
Sensing the intensity of the fight, Col. Francis H. West wanted to do something with his 31st Wisconsin. Not yet assigned to a brigade, West nervously held his men as a general reserve behind Williams’s division until moving forward toward the 123rd New York. The Wisconsin regiment was relatively new and as yet inexperienced. The veterans had subjected it to a lot of nagging ever since the regiment joined Sherman’s army group only a few days before. Now the stout men of the 123rd New York called out “Go back we don’t want you! We can hold this line without help. Go where you are needed, you can’t relieve us.” West got the message and moved his regiment away.26
The Federals were indeed putting up a good fight with a sustained and well-delivered fire that echoed across the rugged landscape and filled the woods with smoke. In the 123rd New York, Rice Bull fired seventy rounds that day and reported that some of his comrades shot off 100 rounds. While some regiments had to be resupplied twice with cartridges, the men of Selfridge’s 46th Pennsylvania also had to replenish their cartridge boxes once during the fight.27
To deliver such prodigious amounts of fire, the Federals continued shooting almost without stopping. There were brief lulls as they took time to let the barrels cool or to swab them in order to remove powder residue. Rice Bull saw more than one musket prematurely discharge as the new cartridge was placed in the overheated barrels. When this happened to one of Bull’s comrades, the man was very much taken by surprise, especially because the premature explosion threw away his ramrod, and he could not immediately continue firing. But the man was so worked up emotionally that he shook his fist in the direction of the enemy and yelled “Take that you _____ and see how you like it.”28
The rapid firing produced a thick cloud of powder smoke that covered the battlefield, made worse by the rapid firing of Winegar’s guns close to the line of the 123rd New York. “The clouds of smoke . . . poured down on us to hide everything but the flash of the enemy’s guns that gave us their position,” commented Bull. The smoke colored the men’s skin. By the end of the battle “we presented a strange appearance, smoke and powder stains had covered our faces and made them look as blue as indigo. The day had been hot and we were as wet as though we had been in the water.” Some of the New York infantrymen were little more than twenty feet from the artillery, and the loud thumping of the cannon affected their ears. “For two days our hearing was almost gone,” Bull reported, and “it was several days before it was again normal.”29
While some men of the 123rd New York had tried to shirk their duty, most stayed in line and contributed to the regiment’s sterling performance on the hot afternoon of July 20. Many slightly wounded officers and enlisted men refused to seek medical aid in the rear. Henry Morhous recalled the story of Pvt. Henry Chapman of Company I, who had enlisted early in 1864 and was shot in the left breast at Peach Tree Creek. He had enough strength to give his rifle and equipment to Capt. O. S. Hall and told him he knew he would “have no further use for them, for I have fought my last fight.” Chapman thanked Hall for being kind to him and then walked a short distance to the rear and lay down. He died less than two hours later.30
Morhous recalled another affecting story of loss at Peach Tree Creek. Capt. Henry O. Wiley of Company K had purchased a bottle of wine while on recruiting service but kept it through the Atlanta campaign. Early on the morning of July 20, he sensed the need to share it with his comrades. Four other officers joined him in drinking the contents at breakfast that day. “We may never all be together again, so I think we had better drink it,” Wiley commented. By the end of the day, two of the party, including Wiley, lay dead, and another was in the hospital badly wounded.31
The noise of Knipe’s battle echoed across the valley of Peach Tree Creek as the Federals stood firm
against O’Neal’s second attack. Bull credited the improvised breastworks made of timber from the deserted houses as playing a key role in his brigade’s stand. It protected many men from the return fire delivered by the Alabama and South Carolina troops engaged on this part of the battlefield, much of that fire delivered at ranges of twenty-five yards according to Rogers of the 123rd New York.32
Col. James L. Selfridge had placed his 46th Pennsylvania on the far right of Knipe’s line with its right flank resting on a little knoll. While the regiment was positioned in the open, a thick cover of timber shielded the ground west of the road. Through this timber, the troops of Jones’s 24th South Carolina began to turn Selfridge’s flank. The left flank of Palmer’s Fourteenth Corps was too far to the right and rear to protect him. When enfilade fire began to descend on the Pennsylvania men, Selfridge refused his right wing, capturing three Carolina Rebels in the process as an indication of how far Jones had managed to creep around the right end of the Union line. Selfridge asked Knipe for help, and Knipe asked Williams to loan him a regiment.33
Ruger’s brigade supplied the reinforcement. Already occupying the partially fortified spot just vacated by Moore’s brigade of Johnson’s division, Ruger’s men were busy working on the breastworks when the call for help arrived. Knipe personally chose the regiment from Ruger’s command. According to Edmund Randolph Brown of the 27th Indiana, Knipe “was a mercurial, demonstrative little man always; but now he was wrought up more than common. He was frantic.” He spoke with “loud, impassioned tones, and with many vigorous gesticulations.” Hooker happened to be nearby and saw the commotion. Riding over, the corps commander pointed to a regiment in Ruger’s line. “No-o, no-o, I don’t’ want that one,” Knipe replied loudly and started to walk away. Hooker sent a staff officer to retrieve the excited brigadier and pointed to the 27th Indiana. “All right!” said Knipe, “I’ll take that one.’” He placed himself before the regiment and called out “Twenty-seventh Indiana, I want you. This old brigade never has been whipped, and it never will be whipped.”34
Col. Silas Colgrove moved the regiment forward seventy-five yards, running forward with Knipe ahead of his men so the two officers could point out the position it was to occupy along a dilapidated fence that bordered a ravine. To the left lay the open ground where the 46th Pennsylvania was located and to the right and front “a jungle of trees and bushes.” The ravine lay to the right of Colgrove’s position, and a branch of it covered the regiment’s front. The 24th South Carolina approached through that jungle and settled near its edge to deliver heavy fire on Colgrove’s men, who returned it even though they could hardly see human targets.35
One of the heaviest firefights of the battle at Peach Tree Creek now erupted. Federals who crowded behind the first rank at the old fence reloaded muskets for their comrades in front, as many of the Indiana men fired more than 100 rounds that afternoon. Colgrove became an early casualty of the fight. While lying on his side just behind the regimental line, an unexploded shell hit a tree limb and deflected straight for his position. It hit the ground just under his body and “lifted him up several feet and whirled him over and over,” recalled Edmund Randolph Brown. “It was strange that he was not killed, but he was hurt more seriously than the first examination indicated.” Colgrove suffered a major injury to his arm and a serious contusion to his side. His sword was “bent and twisted like a piece of tin or scrap-iron that has passed through hot fire.” Colgrove was so badly hurt he never commanded the regiment again. Lieut. Col. John R. Fesler took charge of the 27th Indiana.36
Knipe excitedly paced up and down behind the regiment for some time, encouraging the men in their heated exchange with the 24th South Carolina. An Indiana sergeant saw him and interjected an element of humor in the tense situation. “General, have you any chewing tobacco?” he called. Knipe stopped, pulled out a small plug, and gave to the sergeant, who gazed upon it as if deciding whether to take all or nothing. Knipe noticed his expression and “in a perfectly natural, though plaintive, tone,—all of his strained, keyed-up condition entirely gone,—‘That’s all I’ve got.’” The men within hearing laughed as the sergeant produced a pocket knife and cut a small piece off. Knipe retrieved the rest and continued his pacing.37
Williams brought more reinforcements to Knipe’s aid, ordering Robinson to send two regiments from his brigade. Robinson dispatched one of his reserve units, Lieut. Col. Edward S. Salomon’s 82nd Illinois, and detached Lieut. Col. John B. Le Sage’s 101st Illinois from his main formation. Both regiments headed to the far right of Knipe’s line to support the 46th Pennsylvania and 27th Indiana, which were resisting the most serious pressure of any units in the division.38
Salomon moved his men on the double-quick, losing several of them along the way to enemy fire. By the time he reached the vicinity of the 27th Indiana, the Confederates were only thirty-five yards away. Salomon’s troops opened a heavy fire, which, according to Max Schlund, “had a terrific effect” on them. But O’Neal’s men continued to press forward until they were in places only ten steps from the blazing Federal line. When the Rebels fell back, many men of the 82nd Illinois, worked up by the excitement of battle, called out, “Come on Johnny, you coward Southerner!”39
Salomon estimated that the men of his 82nd Illinois fired up to 140 rounds each over a space of three hours during the battle of Peach Tree Creek. If true, that amounted to one round every one and a quarter minutes, which is consistent with rapid firing rates in other Civil War battles. Max Schlund estimated the regiment fired 200 rounds per man.40
Thomas H. Ruger, whose brigade supplied Knipe the 27th Indiana, had graduated from West Point but entered the law profession before becoming colonel of the 3rd Wisconsin. He had already sent the 150th New York forward before dispatching the 27th Indiana. The rest of his brigade remained in place waiting for the call to go into action. The 3rd Wisconsin held Ruger’s right flank fairly close to the left flank of Johnson’s division, Palmer’s corps. In fact, a few of the right companies of the 3rd Wisconsin fired obliquely to help Fourteenth Corps troops when Daniel H. Reynolds’s Arkansas brigade attacked them soon after O’Neal’s men moved against Williams. Although not really engaged, the 3rd Wisconsin was exposed to much random fire and lost three men in the battle of Peach Tree Creek. The story was much the same for the other regiments in Ruger’s brigade, with some suffering the loss of several men even though they were not really part of the fight.41
Capt. William Merrell of the 141st New York of Knipe’s brigade had been working diligently on making a bridge over Peach Tree Creek when O’Neal initially struck the Federal line. Suddenly a flood of refugees from the division, “camp followers, pack mules, darkey servants, and some of the skirmish line” came rushing toward the creek. Most of Merrell’s pioneers got caught up in this rush and went north of the stream with it, leaving him only three men on the south side, who tried to run away, too. Merrell managed to get in front of these men and physically force them to remain. “I suppose they thought it another Bull Run for Washington,” Merrell wryly commented in his memoirs. Just then an ordnance officer appeared and asked if he could cross his wagons over the bridge. Merrell allowed him and was hugely relieved to see that the long stringers he had used as the main supports held under the weight of three loaded wagons and their six-mule teams.42
An order arrived that Merrell should form a line and stop all stragglers from crossing to the north side of the creek, but he also learned that the 141st New York was heavily engaged. Anxious to help, he left another officer in charge of the bridge and made his way forward to Knipe’s position. He arrived to find that Capt. Elisha G. Baldwin’s 141st was short of ammunition. Merrell volunteered to procure more, carrying an ammunition box to the regiment, breaking it open, and distributing the cartridges along the line. He then took an abandoned musket and contributed to the regiment’s fire. When he had time to contemplate the effects of Peach Tree Creek on the 141st New York, Merrell was stunned. Colonel Logie, “a young lawyer
from Gorning, N.Y., a graduate from a military school and a strict disciplinarian, was riddled with Minnie balls. Our lieutenant colonel [McNett] lost his right arm close to the shoulder. Our major [C. W. Clanharty] was shot through the thigh and our adjutant was shot through both thighs, only myself and Captain Baldwin left of the line officers for duty.”43
Williams’s division had indeed fought one of the hottest fights in the battle of Peach Tree Creek. O’Neal’s Brigade drove deep into the Union formation and held in the woods for some time while punishing the 141st New York, 27th Indiana, and several other Federal regiments. The Confederates could not push Williams’s men away, but they held at high tide and did all they could.44
Washington Bryan Crumpton and a handful of his comrades in the 37th Mississippi had also tried their best that afternoon. After O’Neal ordered the regiment to wheel and face the enemy soon after crossing the Union skirmish line, Crumpton and his mates fired rapidly for what seemed like an hour. They scrounged ammunition from the dead and wounded and adopted a quick-loading plan—striking the butt of their muskets on the ground rather than using a rammer to push the charge home. “It was almost like a repeating rifle,” Crumpton later reported.45
When the pressure grew too much, Crumpton and his comrades fell back, firing at a line of Yankees that had taken position to the north, and soon came across Walthall. The division leader told them to take post on Howell’s Mill Road, and he rounded up more stragglers until nearly 500 men had gathered. An unidentified colonel showed up, “drunk as a fool,” Crumpton insisted, and led them in an advance on the enemy. Crumpton guided the group forward toward the same position he and his comrades had vacated, but by then Federal troops barred the way, and many in the improvised unit fell under close-range rifle fire and retired. Crumpton’s story demonstrated the finality of Confederate defeat. Regimental commanders reported that they had no support to right or left by this stage of the fight and decided that retiring was the best course of action. O’Neal confirmed that decision, as his scattered men retreated by about 7 P.M., according to most Union observers.46