by Earl J. Hess
The Federal survivors of O’Neal’s attacks were proud of their reaction to the sudden appearance of the enemy, their stout defense of an uncomfortable position, and their eventual victory on July 20. The Confederates “charged our hole [sic] line in sollade column,” reported William H. Carrier of the 3rd Wisconsin to his wife, and they “tried to brake our lines but could not come it.” James Robinson praised his brigade highly in his official report. “Never was the hardihood and temper of my entire command more completely and thoroughly tested. The battle was sprung upon it at an unexpected moment, and with a fury not hitherto exceeded in the annals of the campaign.” Williams echoed the praise of his subordinates by noting that, “Not a regiment was broken or shaken, but without cover and in a fair field a little over two-thirds of my command received and rolled back the repeated assaults.”47
Williams had some artillery support from Winegar’s and Woodbury’s New York batteries. Winegar fired a total of eighty-four rounds and lost four men and six horses, while Woodbury fired 178 rounds. Neither battery played a key role in defending Williams’s position. The rugged, wooded terrain inhibited gunners’ ability to locate and reach the enemy, but at least the big guns added some degree of reassurance to the harried Union infantrymen.48
Williams never reported his troop strength, but the combined total of men in Geary’s and Ward’s divisions amounted to about 7,000. If that is a guide, then about 3,500 men fought in Williams’s ranks. He lost 580 of them, or 16.5 percent. Knipe suffered very heavily. With a little more than 1,000 men, he counted casualties of 288 troops, or 28.8 percent. In fact, Knipe accounted for nearly half the losses of Williams’s division. Selfridge’s 46th Pennsylvania lost 113 men, while the 123rd New York suffered forty-seven casualties, nearly one-third of all its losses during the four-month long campaign for Atlanta. The 141st New York lost seventy-eight men, including its colonel, lieutenant colonel, major, and adjutant. Col. Warren W. Packer’s 5th Connecticut lost sixty-four men, which was the second highest loss rate it suffered in the entire war (next to the battle of Cedar Mountain). According to William T. Shimp, one company of sixteen men lost eleven killed and wounded that afternoon.49
O’Neal’s Brigade suffered, too, in accomplishing this damage to Williams. Out of 1,050 men engaged, he lost 279 or 26.5 percent. Holland’s 37th Mississippi took 210 men into the battle and lost forty-eight of them, amounting to 22.8 percent. The deep penetration of the Federal position and the fact, as reported by O’Neal, that his brigade took 293 prisoners allowed some Confederates to view the attack as a victory of sorts. “We whipped them in the fight the other day,” Robert W. Banks of the 37th Mississippi told his father. O’Neal also put the best face on his effort. “We drove the enemy nearly a mile, captured some of his works, and had punished him severely, and were executing the order of the major-general to kill or capture everything in our front” when, due to lack of support to right and left, the brigade was compelled to retire.50
Daniel H. Reynolds led the other brigade of Walthall’s Division that participated in the battle of Peach Tree Creek. Born in Ohio and educated to be a lawyer, Reynolds practiced in Arkansas before deciding to serve the Confederacy at the outset of the war. He led the 1st Arkansas Mounted Rifles and eventually rose to brigade command. Reynolds’s small Arkansas brigade had done heavy picket duty along Peach Tree Creek for days before the battle, fighting a fierce engagement on July 19 with Dilworth’s brigade of Davis’s division, Fourteenth Corps. Early the next morning, Quarles’s Brigade of Walthall’s Division relieved Reynolds, and the Arkansas troops took their place in the division line. Because Reynolds did not have the services of his 9th Arkansas, which remained on picket duty and then joined Quarles’s Brigade later in the day, he took only 540 men into action on July 20.51
Reynolds moved out from the Peach Tree Creek Line at midafternoon, guiding his right flank along Howell’s Mill Road. His regiments marched by the right of companies for up to 500 yards in order to negotiate the heavy timber north of the line. Like all Confederate units that preceded it, the brigade reformed at the Confederate skirmish pits. While waiting to allow for the echelon maneuver, a comforting rumor circulated through the ranks. As Robert H. Dacus of the 1st Arkansas Mounted Rifles (dismounted) put it, “word was passed down the line that General Johnston was in command for that evening. This was done in order to stimulate the men and give them confidence in the move.” Dacus implied that he did not necessarily believe the rumor, but it did no harm to the men’s morale. Walthall had intended Quarles’s Brigade to form to the rear of his other two brigades as a reserve, but Quarles was still too far west to do so. Hood’s major shift of the Army of Tennessee to the right just before the attack took the division a good distance east of Quarles, and there was no possibility of retrieving the brigade soon.52
When Reynolds advanced, keeping west of Howell’s Mill Road, his Arkansas men handily captured the Federal skirmish line like all other Confederate units before them. The Union skirmish pits were located in “a dense thicket of small oaks and undergrowth,” according to Col. Henry G. Bunn, whose 4th Arkansas was on Reynolds’s extreme left. Continuing north, the advance became more problematic. Reynolds’s right wing slowed down with some men staying in the captured Union works and others moving forward, but the left wing moved on in greater unity and zeal.53
Reynolds’s Brigade mostly confronted the left wing of Anson McCook’s brigade of Johnson’s division, Fourteenth Corps. McCook’s left flank barely extended a short distance east of Howell’s Mill Road. Johnson had been waiting all day for Hooker to advance Williams’s division so he could also move forward, but that was not to be. He had placed Moore’s brigade entirely east of Howell’s Mill Road to cover his left flank and ordered McCook to postpone constructing fortifications, anticipating an imminent move forward. When the Confederate attack began, Ruger relieved Moore and allowed the latter to take place in Johnson’s line just to the right of McCook. Ruger’s men now were within firing range of McCook and about even with McCook’s flank.54
McCook’s men were taken by surprise and with only half-finished breastworks. The brigade had formed two lines, but irregularities in the ground compelled one regiment to be separated from the rest. Lieut. Col. Douglas Hapeman’s 104th Illinois held the left flank of the first line just west of Howell’s Mill Road. A ravine passed by his right flank and curved a bit toward the rear of the regiment. McCook’s first line continued with the 15th Kentucky, which was positioned 125 yards to the right rear of Hapeman’s regiment. The 42nd Indiana lay to the right of the 15th Kentucky, and the 88th Indiana anchored the right of McCook’s first line. Behind and some distance from Hapeman’s command lay the 10th Wisconsin, the only regiment of the brigade positioned east of Howell’s Mill Road, with the 21st Wisconsin behind the 15th Kentucky, the 94th Ohio to the right of the Wisconsin men, and the 33rd Ohio anchoring the right of McCook’s second line. To Hapeman’s front, the underbrush lay thick among the trees, making it difficult to gauge the approach of an enemy.55
Hapeman recalled that the Confederates made an appearance only a few minutes after the sound of gunfire could be heard on Hooker’s Twentieth Corps front. Opening fire as much by sound as by sight, the 104th Illinois let loose a volley into the trees. It stopped the Arkansans in their tracks. Lieut. Col. Morton G. Galloway’s 1st Arkansas Mounted Rifles (dismounted), located on the extreme right of Reynolds’s line and just west of Howell’s Mill Road, settled down to exchange rounds with McCook’s troops. But the rest of Reynolds’s Brigade moved by the left flank into the ravine and then marched forward to approach the right flank of Hapeman’s regimental line. The left wing of Reynolds’s Brigade “attacked the regiment square on the right flank,” Hapeman reported. The Confederates had found and exploited the 125-yard gap between the 104th Illinois and the rest of McCook’s command. “They poured a terrible fire along the rear of [the] rude works,” Hapeman continued. He struggled to refuse the regiment’s position, moving Companies A, B, and C
so as to form a new line perpendicular to the other companies. As these companies evacuated their works, the Arkansans occupied up to 100 yards of the abandoned fortifications.56
After refusing his flank, Hapeman looked for support from the rest of the brigade. The men of the 15th Kentucky and 42nd Indiana offered aid by firing their muskets at comparatively long range to disorient the Confederates and compel them to stop for a time, but the Rebels continued to fire toward the Illinois regiment. Hapeman had asked McCook for support even before the enemy appeared in his front, and now McCook was beginning to bring it forward.57
Reynolds versus McCook
Before help arrived, Hapeman’s troops suffered a great deal. His left wing was comparatively sheltered from the fire to his right because the ground crested slightly about midway along the regimental line, but the right wing was punished severely by the Confederate fire. William Wirt Calkins believed up to half of the men in the regimental right wing fell in this fire. Hapeman’s adjutant was shot through the head while rallying the troops and Capt. William Strawn of Company F later concluded that the veteran coolness of the men was the only thing that saved the regiment. As Calkins put it, they “took it for granted that to simply obey orders was the surest way to come out all right.”58
McCook could bring many more men into this fight than Reynolds, and soon the blue tide came rolling forward. Capt. Jacob W. Roby’s 10th Wisconsin moved forward from its position anchoring the left end of McCook’s second line, but it took position to the left and rear of Hapeman’s embattled regiment where it was not really needed. Hapeman asked again for help, but to his right, and before long Maj. Michael H. Fitch’s 21st Wisconsin began to move forward from the second line. But before it arrived, Hapeman felt he had to do something extraordinary to save his regiment. He personally led a countercharge against the Confederates pressing his right wing. Hand-to-hand combat erupted, and the Illinoisans took a Rebel flag. For their part, Reynolds’s troops suffered from an enfilading fire delivered from the west by several of McCook’s regiments. They even received some stray rounds fired by the 1st Arkansas Mounted Rifles (dismounted) from the east. The Confederates finally gave way and retreated about eighty yards before holding firm.59
Just after the Confederates fell back, Fitch’s 21st Wisconsin arrived on the scene. The men had tried to rush forward as fast as possible, moving through the ravine at double-quick. Col. Marion C. Taylor’s 15th Kentucky also moved forward with the 21st Wisconsin. The 42nd Indiana remained in line but had already contributed its fire to help the 104th Illinois. The 88th Indiana also remained in line but lost four men to stray bullets. The 94th Ohio and 33rd Ohio took no direct part in the action but lost a handful of men. The 3rd Wisconsin of Ruger’s brigade also contributed in a small way to the saving of McCook’s command. Several of its companies were able to fire obliquely in support of the embattled 104th Illinois.60
As soon as the Confederates gave way, McCook reestablished his skirmish line, and Hapeman’s men began to collect abandoned muskets from the battlefield. In his report of the campaign, filed in early September 1864, Hapeman claimed the 104th Illinois lost thirty men, all of them from the right wing. But he set the losses at forty-six in his diary entry made the same day of the battle. “The losses were appalling for so small a command,” asserted Calkins, “and cast a shadow of gloom over the Regiment.” Capt. William Strawn consoled his friend Capt. John S. H. Doty, one of three company commanders lost in the brief but vicious fight with Reynolds. Doty was hit by five bullets and asked Strawn to pray for him. “His blood saturating my clothing,” recalled Strawn, “I held him until he was carried to the rear on a stretcher.” While burying the dead of the regiment, several bodies were found to be pierced by bayonets.61
Everyone praised Hapeman’s conduct during the fight. A modest, unassuming man, Hapeman did not mention his personal leadership of the countercharge that finally broke Rebel resistance in his official report. Three decades later, his men decided that his action should be rewarded. They wrote to the War Department and secured a Medal of Honor for Hapeman in 1897.62
Many members of the 104th Illinois criticized McCook for leaving them exposed and unconnected to the rest of the brigade. William Wirt Calkins nursed his feelings quietly for a few days after the battle until an account appeared in a Cincinnati newspaper praising McCook’s handling of his command. “Bah!,” Calkins wrote in the regimental history. “The Brigade having been placed in an awkward position and made to believe there was no enemy within striking distance, when the time came, handled itself!”63
Despite the problems of unit placement, McCook reacted well enough to support Hapeman’s heroic stand, and the left end of Johnson’s division held firm. There are no casualty statistics for the 15th Kentucky, 10th Wisconsin, or 42nd Indiana, but the other five regiments in McCook’s brigade lost a total of sixty-seven men. The 104th Illinois accounted for 68.6 percent of the brigade losses. Hapeman’s regiment did most of the fighting for the brigade that day and understandably felt proud of its achievement in repelling Reynolds’s Brigade.64
In contrast, gloom pervaded the ranks of Reynolds’s command. “Thus we had made a desperate charge,” wrote Robert H. Dacus, “lost many of the best men in our corps and accomplished nothing.” The brigade could do little more than hang on near McCook’s position and fire at the Yankees. Members of the 1st Arkansas Mounted Rifles (dismounted) fired up to 100 rounds each during the course of the battle. At 5 P.M., several regiments in the brigade unaccountably fell back. When Galloway inquired, he was told it was by order of Reynolds, so he pulled the 1st Arkansas Mounted Rifles back as well. When Reynolds realized what was going on, he stopped the retrograde movement, claiming to have issued no such order. The regiments moved back to their close position and stayed there. Galloway was keenly aware that O’Neal’s Brigade east of the Howell’s Mill Road was nowhere to be seen. He posted pickets along the roadway to screen his exposed right flank until Reynolds pulled the entire brigade back to the Peach Tree Creek Line by 9 P.M. Reynolds reported losses of 67 of the 540 men he took into battle, or 12.4 percent.65
Walthall tried to bring Quarles’s Brigade into action, but it proved impossible. He sent a message for the men to hurry over to Howell’s Mill Road, creating an air of crisis in the ranks that spurred the troops to march as fast as possible. Arriving about dusk, just when O’Neal and Reynolds fell back, Quarles’s men prepared to attack, but the order was never issued.66
Ending the battle at dusk, Walthall felt his men had done all they could that day, and Stewart supported that view in his official report. Walthall noted that his two brigades captured the enemy skirmish line and pressed hard against the main Union position near Peach Tree Creek. He blamed their failure to capture that position on lack of support from neighboring units, a common complaint among Rebel commanders. “If the whole of our line had pressed forward with the same energy and determination which the troops of this division did,” argued O’Neal, “we would have carried the day and driven the enemy in confusion across the creek.”67
Anson G. McCook, whose brigade repelled Reynolds’s Arkansas troops even though the 104th Illinois was in a detached position from the rest. Many of his men blamed him for the positioning that endangered the Illinois regiment. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-cwpbh-03858)
Stewart’s Army of Mississippi had not yet expended all efforts that day. His artillery came into play and pummeled the opposing line for some time. Maj. William C. Preston, who commanded one of four artillery battalions assigned to Stewart’s Army of Mississippi, brought the guns of Selden’s Alabama Battery, now under Lieut. Charles W. Lovelace, into action. Preston placed them just west of Howell’s Mill Road and behind Reynolds’s Brigade after the Arkansas troops had moved forward for the attack. Lovelace had the disadvantage of being in an open field on a descending slope and was heavily damaged as a result, but his gunners returned fire with vigor. Preston personally directed some of this fire until he was killed by an artillery ro
und. He was the son of Brig. Gen. John S. Preston and the brother of Sally Buchanan Campbell Preston, who was widely believed to have been the intended fiancée of John Bell Hood.68
The men of Selden’s Battery experienced what Lovelace called “the first serious engagement in which the battery had ever been engaged, and the ordeal was a severe one.” But the Alabama gunners “behaved with a courage and coolness which could not have been surpassed.” They continued firing until running out of ammunition. Maj. John D. Myrick’s Battalion of Stewart’s Army of Mississippi provided relief for Lovelace’s hard-pressed men. The Lookout Battery of Tennessee under Lieut. Richard L. Watkins rolled forward to relieve Selden’s Battery. The more experienced gunners of the Lookout Battery delivered a scorching fire at Federal guns that posed the greatest threat to their position. Watkins directed the fire of his four Napoleons with precision, largely silencing the Union guns in about half an hour. He continued to pound the Federal position until a bit after sunset, putting up with Federal skirmish fire the entire time. Watkins fired a total of 260 rounds, or sixty-five projectiles from each gun. He lost fifteen men wounded, two horses killed and one horse wounded on July 20.69