by Earl J. Hess
At the end of the day’s operations, McPherson informed Sherman that nothing but cavalry had been in his way and that he was near the main Rebel position fronting Atlanta. Sherman was disappointed, having expected more from his friend and favorite subordinate. At 1 A.M. of July 21, he responded to McPherson’s report and softly criticized him for failing to capitalize on his opportunities.13
The Federals who rebuffed Hood’s first attempt to save Atlanta spent the hot, humid evening of July 20 consolidating the positions they defended. Their commanders advanced skirmish lines as the Confederates fell back from the edge of the tree cover fronting the Peach Tree Creek Line. Amid sounds of moaning coming from the scattered enemy wounded, the Yankees moved entrenching tools forward to their main line and continued to strengthen the position along Collier Road with improved breastworks. In Newton’s division, most work on the fortifications ended by about midnight so the men could catch some much-needed sleep, even though the sounds of pain from the wounded could be heard all night. The 97th Ohio in Blake’s brigade kept one-third of its men awake and on duty to guard against a surprise attack, but the enemy had no intention of trying Newton’s strong position once again.14
Many members of Newton’s division tried to offer help to the wounded on the night of July 20. Confederate details had gathered some of their own injured wherever possible, but still many remained unattended on the battlefield. Ralsa C. Rice of the 125th Ohio established a picket line near the edge of the tree cover fronting the left wing of Newton’s sector and then took time to track down some of the Confederate casualties before darkness ended the effort. “Dead and dying rebels lay strewn over the ground,” he wrote after the war, “a harrowing, pitiful sight. The dead did not have that angry look which we ascribe to men fighting for their lives, but rather a sorrowful, frightful one of death by violence. I followed a trail of blood through the weeds to the creek. Here I found a young man in the agonies of death; grapeshot had torn across the body, disemboweling him. In his pain he had sought the creek and let himself down into the water. Poor fellow, I could do nothing to help him.”15
When a Federal picket heard sounds coming from a nearby ravine, Rice investigated and found a seventeen-year-old Confederate badly wounded by a bullet through the leg. “We gave him hot coffee and food,” Rice recalled, and he took down the man’s name and address. The Rebel died in a Union hospital not long after, but Rice felt comforted in his old age to know “that he had been treated with the utmost kindness on our part.” Rice also struck up a correspondence with the man’s family after the war so they would know what happened to him. Another wounded Confederate taken in that evening was “a mere boy” according to Wilbur F. Hinman. He cried when the Federals treated him gently. “They told us that you-all would kill us if you took us prisoners,’’ Hinman recalled the boy’s words. “I didn’t think you’d be so kind to me!”16
On the sector held by Ward’s division of the Twentieth Corps, work proceeded that night on the breastworks even though the men were exhausted by the battle and the heat of the afternoon. “We worked all night, and a tireder and lamer set of men I never saw,” wrote Hamlin Coe of the 19th Michigan in his diary. “I never suffered so from heat before. My clothes were as wet as though I had been in water.” George A. Newton of the 129th Illinois also had his clothes soaked with perspiration but was told to go on picket duty for the night. He had no opportunity to change or dry his clothes, and the temperature became cool during the night. Newton was “almost chilled to the bones” until a comrade managed to obtain a canteen full of whisky and pass it around. The liquor revived and warmed Newton, and it “possibly was the means of saving my life” he recalled years later.17
While some Federals stood picket, others built earthworks, issued rations, and tended to wounded soldiers on the night of July 20. Benjamin Harrison did not sleep at all after exerting himself strenuously during the battle. His men took care to construct an impressive line of works on the second ridge, in some sectors laying them out in zig-zag fashion so as to fire obliquely at an approaching enemy. In most units men were detailed to work on the defenses while their comrades slept, so that at least some members of each unit would be relatively fresh in case of trouble.18
Still other members of Ward’s division exerted themselves to find and recover wounded Rebels from the field. The moon eventually rose in a cloudless sky to offer some help to these men, who tried all night to aid the unfortunate enemy. Others worked to bury Rebel dead, and still others found a few live and uninjured Confederates on the battlefield. When a Federal picket heard voices coming from a ravine, he called on those who were talking to come out and surrender. An officer and thirteen Rebels emerged. They had gotten into a position late in the battle from which it would have been dangerous to retire in daylight and had hidden in the ravine for hours. When hailed by the picket, they were making preparations to rejoin their regiment but decided to give up instead. Ward’s men also received much needed rations during the night, for it was now safe for commissary wagons to advance within close range of the main line and unload food for each unit.19
The story was much the same for Geary’s and Williams’s divisions. The Confederates fell back late in the evening, taking along all the wounded they could reach. The Yankees’ spirit ran high because of their successful battle as they established a strong picket line in front of the main position along Collier Road. The Confederate pickets fronting the Peach Tree Creek Line stood about 600 yards in front of the Federal pickets. The troops of Geary and Williams also worked hard to strengthen their earthworks that night.20
With most of the battlefield in Union hands, it became possible for the Federals to help the wounded and discover sights never to be forgotten. William Merrell instructed a group of Federals in tearing down a building on the Hiram Embry Plantation, which had been behind O’Neal’s and Reynolds’s positions at the height of the battle. They were surprised to discover a number of dead and wounded Confederates under the building. One man had been shot in the back and had “died in extreme agony. His head clear back between his shoulders, and such an expression of extreme suffering on his countenance, one which I never can forget, though I should like to. . . . His limbs were drawn up and in his death struggle he had clutched the ground with each hand, in which he was holding with death grip, dirt, sticks, etc.”21
Henry C. Morhous of the 123rd New York recalled the story of a wounded Federal skirmisher belonging to the 5th Connecticut who, after the battle, crawled back to the Union line. He was soon followed by a wounded Confederate, but the Federal recognized him, claiming he was the man who shot him. The wounded Yankee became enraged and wanted to kill the Rebel, but Knipe prevented him from doing so.22
To the right of Williams’s position, Richard W. Johnson used some of his men to reinforce other parts of the line. He sent regular troops from Brig. Gen. John J. King’s brigade to help Newton that night and to support Anson McCook’s brigade. Farther to the right of Johnson’s position, the rest of Palmer’s Fourteenth Corps saw little change in their situation from afternoon to night. Davis’s men kept up a lively skirmish fire with the Confederates opposing them all afternoon and evening, and in places the main Union line was close enough to add its fire to that of the skirmishers. The 78th Illinois fired 17,000 rounds that day even though it was not positioned on the skirmish line.23
At Army of the Cumberland headquarters, Thomas finally found time to inform Sherman that a major battle had taken place. Writing at 6:15 P.M. he reported that Hood “attacked me in full force about 4 P.M., and has persisted until now, attacking very fiercely, but he was repulsed handsomely by the troops all along my line.” Thomas hoped that Schofield, Howard, and McPherson would make fast progress in their advance so as to hit Hood’s right flank at an opportune time that day, but it was not to be. The Federals had to be satisfied with a decisive repulse of the attacks—or, as one of Thomas’s staff members put it, “the enemy has been gloriously thrashed.”24
Thomas was a bit late i
n telling Sherman that a battle was under way, and then, as we have seen, it took some time for that news to reach his superior. While Howard’s headquarters received word of the battle at 8:30 P.M., it was not until about midnight that Sherman received Thomas’s 6:15 dispatch. Before then, Sherman was largely in the dark as to developments on his right wing. At 3:25 P.M., just before or after Hood’s attack began, Sherman told Thomas that Schofield, Howard, and McPherson were within a couple of miles of the target city. “All your troops should push hard for Atlanta, sweeping everything before them,” he wrote.25
By 6:10 P.M., when the battle was winding down, Sherman already was thinking about shifting troops to the west and south of Atlanta. McPherson had broken the Georgia Railroad east of the city, and the only remaining line of communications feeding Hood’s army lay to the south of Atlanta. If Thomas could advance and contract his line, Sherman could detach troops to swing around the west side of the place. Given the stiff resistance fronting Schofield, Howard, and McPherson, Sherman hoped Thomas faced little opposition and could move south to prevent the Confederates from digging a new line of earthworks north of the city. As yet he had no information about the Peach Tree Creek Line.26
At 8 P.M., still without word of the battle that had already ended, Sherman continued to urge Thomas to be aggressive in pushing forward the next day. “If we cannot break in, we must move by the right flank and interpose between the river and Atlanta, and operate against the road south. If you can advance your whole line, say to within three miles of Atlanta, I can throw a force around your rear to East Point.”27
Thomas’s 6:15 P.M. dispatch was still not in Sherman’s hands when he made his almost daily report to Henry Halleck in Washington, D.C. at 9 P.M. “The enemy still clings to his intrenchments,” he wrote, while reporting several small-scale Confederate attacks on Schofield and Howard. He also informed Halleck of his idea to swing part of the Union army group west of Atlanta to hit the railroad. John C. Van Duzer, in charge of Sherman’s telegraph service, also sent daily reports of the campaign to his superior in Washington, who in turn had Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton’s ear. Van Duzer repeated the essence of Sherman’s report at 10 P.M. No one in Washington or at Sherman’s headquarters knew of the battle of Peach Tree Creek before midnight of July 20.28
Hood learned of the outcome of his first strike to defend Atlanta that evening and confirmed the orders of his subordinates to pull away from the battlefield. His men fell back all along the line at about dusk and retired to the Peach Tree Creek fortifications. Some of them received rations upon arrival but were too exhausted to cook and eat. In Maney’s Division the Confederate skirmish line remained within 100 yards of Kimball’s brigade until 10 P.M., when everyone fell back to the Peach Tree Creek Line “silently and in good order,” reported Edwin Hansford Rennolds of the 5th Tennessee.29
For a time, before falling back to the entrenchments, rumors circulated through Mercer’s Brigade of Walker’s Division that a night attack would soon be attempted. Mercer’s men prepared for it. The rumor had at least some validity, for Thomas B. Mackall, serving at Army of Tennessee headquarters, noted in his journal: “At night determined to ‘pierce eny’s centre.’” Col. Charles H. Olmstead of the 1st Georgia lay with his men waiting for the attack order until early in the morning hours of July 21 when the project was canceled. “I must confess to having felt a great sense of relief when the order came for the plan seemed to me to promise nothing but grave disaster,” Olmstead recalled years later. No one outside Mercer’s Brigade mentioned this projected night assault, and the entire program remains somewhat mysterious.30
Stewart had hoped to mount a second attempt at the enemy late in the evening and sent a request to Hardee for Maney’s cooperation with the effort. Before anything could be arranged, an officer from Hood’s headquarters arrived with an order to give up the fight and retire to the Peach Tree Creek Line. Stewart instructed Loring and Walthall to gather all the dead and wounded possible. By 9 P.M., that melancholy task had been done as far as the location of the existing Confederate skirmish line permitted. Earlier than that, at about dusk, John Adams’s Brigade rejoined Loring’s Division from picket duty along the Chattahoochee River. Three companies of the 3rd Mississippi in Featherston’s Brigade had also been detached to Adams for picket duty and now rejoined their regiment.31
Loring ordered his men to fall back from their position at the edge of the timbered ground that fronted the Peach Tree Creek Line where they had held since late afternoon. Leaving that position at 9 P.M., they kept their skirmish line intact until 11 P.M., when the entire division evacuated the battlefield of Peach Tree Creek. During the night, the men were able to recover a number of muskets abandoned on the field by their comrades.32
Walthall had also tried to bring his last brigade into the battle but failed to do so. At 5 P.M., William A. Quarles received an order to move to the support of O’Neal and Reynolds, but it meant disengaging the troops from a picket line that in places was quite close to Palmer’s Fourteenth Corps skirmishers. Delay ensued before that could be accomplished, and then the brigade had to move some distance to reach the scene of action. By the time Quarles arrived, the fighting was largely over, and dusk was rapidly descending. He formed a skirmish line to cover the withdrawal of O’Neal and Reynolds to the Peach Tree Creek Line. They retired much earlier than had Featherston and Scott of Loring’s Division. Although not actively engaged, Quarles lost twenty-four men that day.33
At 7 P.M. French received Stewart’s order to collect the dead and wounded before pulling away from the battlefield. After doing all he could, the division fell back to its former position. While leaving a skirmish line to cover his withdrawal, French marched Ector and Cockrell to a point near the Marietta and Atlanta Road.34
Cheatham had a much different mission on the afternoon of July 20 than that accorded Hardee and Stewart. His job was to hold the east end of the Peach Tree Creek Line and the newly created Outer Line to secure Hood’s right wing and the approaches to Atlanta from the northeast and east. Arthur M. Manigault, a brigade commander in Brown’s Division on the far right of Cheatham’s line, was located about three miles from the scene of combat but knew something was going on because it was possible to “see the smoke rising from the battlefield, and hear the discharges of musketry and artillery.”35
To Brown’s front, the Confederates began to skirmish as soon as Schofield and McPherson approached closely enough for contact to be made that afternoon. To Brown’s left, Stevenson’s Division faced the brunt of Schofield’s and Howard’s push toward the Outer Line. Troops of this division aggressively skirmished with the Federals but could not prevent them from lodging securely within a short distance of the main Rebel earthworks. To Stevenson’s left, Clayton’s Division held the right end of the Peach Tree Creek Line and faced north. Clayton advanced Randall L. Gibson’s Brigade to support Bate’s attack that afternoon. Even though there were no enemy troops in his front, Gibson advanced a short distance into the tangled brush where the two forks of Peach Tree Creek joined and then flowed to the junction of Clear Creek, an area where the vegetation and terrain hid the fact that a gap of one and a half miles separated Sherman’s wings. Gibson remained forward of the Confederate earthworks until midnight before retiring, but his brigade did nothing while out there.36
Hood’s cavalry had a tough assignment in holding back the Federal Army of the Tennessee all day. Joseph Wheeler eventually led 3,500 men after receiving some reinforcements, but he was heavily outnumbered by the cautious McPherson. In addition to his own command, Wheeler cooperated with Brig. Gen. Samuel W. Ferguson’s Brigade of Brig. Gen. William H. Jackson’s Division. Together, Wheeler and Ferguson slowed McPherson’s advance to a crawl and barely covered the vulnerable eastern approach to Atlanta, operating to the right of Cheatham’s Corps line.37
Wheeler’s repeated calls for help in the late afternoon of July 20 were the first indications to Hood that trouble was brewing on the right flank. C
heatham received similar messages from Wheeler. Reacting to one such dispatch at 5:30 P.M., the newly appointed corps commander told Wheeler that his own line was extended to the point that he had only a single rank of troops along a 1,000-yard sector located in the center of the corps, and he already had his leftmost brigade (Gibson’s) in action. Hood’s headquarters told Wheeler to retire, if necessary, to the Outer Line, where Smith’s Georgia Militia and some reserve artillery batteries could support his cavalrymen. By 6:45 P.M. Cheatham wrote with an air of crisis to Wheeler about his own situation. The Federals were pressing him near the angle in the Confederate line pretty hard where his own line was thin. “I am afraid it will not sustain itself. I have weakened my entire line” to extend the corps position southward toward the Georgia Railroad. Cheatham felt he could not do anything more for Wheeler, despite the fact that Hood’s headquarters had instructed him to detach a brigade to help the cavalry.38
This is the situation that compelled Hood to ask Hardee for an entire division to shore up his right flank. That order arrived just in time to prevent Hardee from renewing the attack on Newton and in turn prevented Hardee from arranging cooperative movement between Maney’s Division and Stewart’s Army of Mississippi. Whether there was any real hope that a renewal of the assault could have succeeded so late in the day and after the Federals were in the flush of triumph is highly questionable, but the reality was that another round of assaults was not even possible.
Cleburne’s Division was ready to strike when Hood’s order arrived, and Hardee immediately ordered it instead to move toward Atlanta. The troops initially retired to the Peach Tree Creek Line to rest a bit and after dark marched south. They moved to the center of the city and then directed their feet eastward, bivouacking at the edge of town along the Georgia Railroad. Cleburne was unable to help Wheeler on July 20 but was in position to offer assistance the next morning.39