An Iowa Soldier Writes Home: The Civil War Letters of Union Private Daniel J. Parvin
Edited by: Phillip A. Hubbart

Carolina Academic Press 2011
Paper 196 pages $25.00
ISBN: 978-1-59460-978-7 • LCCN 2011002478

Phillip Hubbart, a retired Florida appellate judge, transcribed 117 letters of his great-great-grandfather Daniel J. Parvin, an infantryman who fought with the 11th Iowa. The resulting book makes worthwhile reading for any student of the western campaigns. Parvin saw the elephant at Shiloh (where he was nearly killed), Vicksburg, and in the Atlanta campaign where he was seriously wounded.

Parvin was a passionate and opinionated man who poured his soul and opinions into his letters. This unusually complete collection gives us both a good look at the man, his times, and the army he fought in. Hubbart organizes the book by subject rather than the more usual chronological format, which can be a bit confusing at times but makes it very easy to find what he said about the fighting, camp life, politics, his superiors, and much more. A sociologist would find it most useful.

Parvin’s opinions would resonate today. Although he considered his primary purpose to preserve the Union he also detested slavery and considered abolition a worthwhile, if secondary, objective. His letters also oozed vitriol for the northern Copperheads, whom he considered disloyal and second only to the Confederates as deserving of harsh treatment.

Parvin could have gone home but re-enlisted in 1864. He was horribly wounded and disfigured before Atlanta, losing most of his lower jaw, but lived another sixteen years—a reminder of how tough these men were. He never seems to have regretted his decision to serve.

Overall Hubbart has done an excellent job with the book, and western theater fans will want a copy.

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Review: An Iowa Soldier Writes Home

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1. Weapons of the Second Iowa?
2. Review: Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home
3. Civil War Book Review: The Soul of a Soldier

The Battles of New Hope Church
by Russell Blount Jr.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Pelican Publishing (April 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1589807480
• ISBN-13: 978-1589807488

This is an impressive first book, with much to recommend it.  The author’s writing style produces a vivid easy to read narration.  Couple this with seamlessly switching between participant’s accounts and the author’s narration to produce an enjoyable reading experience.  This combination captures the experience of the battlefield without being unduly graphic.

Another thing to like about this book is the topic.  We do not have many histories in this area.  Much of the Atlanta Campaign concentrates on the siege, battles around the city, the action further north or at Kennesaw Mountain.  New Hope Church, Pickett’s Mill and Dallas, occurring in early May 1864, often get lost.  This book centers on the overall situation when both armies went to ground and fought things out.  In the end, Sherman returns to maneuver and Johnston is forced to retreat.

This book is on the divisional level with the brigade being the smallest unit normally mentioned.  Those seeking regimental alignments, specific information and causalities will be disappointed.  In the heavily wooded terrain, given the poor communications and line of sight problems, the author’s decision to work at the divisional level produces a crisper narration that keeps things moving.

The only “problem” I found was the author’s acceptance of items that are often being questioned.  A bland assertion on Grant’s drinking was the first discordant note.  Dwelling on Hood’s physical condition brought up his supposed opium use.  There are a couple of other assertions similar to this but they do not damage or really detract from the overall good history of the battles.

There are serviceable maps in the front of the book that work with the narration.  A series of period illustrations from Harper’s and photographs appear as needed, end notes, a Bibliography and index complete the book.

This small book provides good value for the price, is informative and a pleasure to read.

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Civil War Book Review: The Battles of New Hope Church

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1. Civil War Book Review: A Little Short of Boats: The Civil War Battles of Ball’s Bluff and Edwards Ferry, October 21 – 22, 1861
2. Review: The H.L. Hunley: The Secret Hope of the Confederacy
3. Civil War Book Review: Commanding Lincoln’s Navy: Union Naval Leadership During the Civil War

Why Are These Summaries Showing Up Late?

Civil War Times Illustrated

Volume 45, Number 10 (January 2007)

Civil War Times Illustrated Web Site

Mail Call…..4

Turning Points: Arming the Confederacy…..9

Josiah Gorgas

by Jeffry D. Wert

This month Turning Points looks at Brigadier General Josiah Gorgas, chief of the Confederate Ornance Bureau.

Gallery: South Carolina Volunteer…..13

Wiliam N. Gaston

submitted by John Porter Gaston III

William Gaston served with the 6^th South Carolina in Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia during the war, serving from Fort Sumter to Appomattox and suffering four different wounds.

Irregulars: The Operators…..17

by Eric Ethier

Telegraph operators faced a hazardous path during the Civil War, with one in ten becoming a fatality.  Despite the dangers, these men were not paid like soldiers or given the same recognition.  Despite the dangers, writes Eric Ethier, these men went wherever the armies did, always trying to keep their side better informed than the enemy.

Civil War Today: Rough Waters for the Museum of the Confederacy…..19

by Michael J. Varhola

The Museum of the Confederacy faces a budget reduction of $650,000, money that had been counted on.  As a result, the Museum has been forced to institute drastic measures such as limiting visiting times and days, limiting new exhibits, and even briefly discontinuing tours of the Confederate White House in downtown Richmond.

Behind the Lines Editorial…..21

by Chris W. Lewis

Editor Chris Lewis discusses the many tasks of a Civil War General, and notes that fighting was just the tip of the iceberg.

A Legend is Born…..22

by Richard F. Selcer

Grant’s ability to learn on the job is explored in the first of a three part series looking at the three campaigns in which an enemy army surrendered to Grant, a record unsurpassed in American history.  The first instance of surrender came at Fort Donelson, Tennessee, where Grant’s pre-war friend Simon Bolivar Buckner was the opposing commander.  Grant’s subordinate and mentor Brigadier General Charles F. Smith mentioned “unconditional surrender”, but Selcer points out Grant never credited Smith as the inspiration for this famous phrase.  Despite scheming subordinates and the Navy looking to gain credit for the surrender, Grant came out of this ordeal as the victor of Fort Donelson.  He did not do so without making some mistakes, according to Selcer, including allowing too many Rebels to be assigned to burial parties, many of whom escaped; not appointing a provost marshal to handle the large number of prisoners; allowing too many other men to write out paroles, even Buckner!; and allowing his own men too much leeway in their behavior.  In the end, it took two full days of talks before the surrender was finalized.  It did not happen without Buckner trying to use his friendship to gain concessions, but Grant held firm on all important points.  Selcer writes that Grant was a man of great compassion and generosity during the surrender, ignoring protocol when it made no sense.  He concludes that the media sensation of the surrender and the term “unconditional surrender” served Grant well and propelled him on to even greater victories.

New York City’s Secession Crisis…..32

by Chuck Leddy

New York City, led by Mayor Fernando Wood and men with financial interests in the South, proposed secession of their own from the United States and the forming of a new independent city-state called “Tri-Insula.”  Wood’s efforts caused him to be viewed with suspicion and dislike in the North.  New York City was highly democratic and pro-South, partially as a result of the enormous profits New York City merchants made off of the institution of slavery.  Once the Civil War started, New York’s threats to secede became unrealistic and faded into the background as patriotic fervor gripped the North.  However, this undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the Republicans and abolitionists never truly went away entirely.  Leddy mentions Wood’s efforts as a Copperhead congressman and the New York City draft riots of 1863 as just two examples of this.

Gettysburg After the Storm…..38

by Gabor S. Boritt

In an excerpt from his book The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows, Gabor Boritt looks at the devastation wrought by the two opposing armies during the Gettysburg Campaign.  Seven thousand dead and 21,000 wounded were left behind at Gettysburg with hardly any surgeons to care for them.  The stench of rotting carcasses was present for months.  In all of this destruction, George Meade took four out of every five surgeons with the Army of the Potomac in their pursuit of Lee.  In the vacuum left behind, the National and Pennsylvania governments did not recognize the extent of the disaster and hardly any official help was forthcoming.  The number of dead grew daily as the ground became ever more hallowed.

‘To the Last Crust and Cartridge’…..46

by George Skoch

Prolific Civil War cartographer George Skoch turns to writing, this time about the action at Greenland Gap on April 25, 1863 during the Jones-Imboden Raid.  Captain Martin Wallace of the 23^rd Illinois commanded the 50 or so men of his company along with 30-odd men from a company of the 14^th West Virginia defending Greenland Gap.  Brig. General “Grumble” Jones’ force of 2000 men descended on the gap, and after bloody afternoon and evening attacks finally forced the Union defenders to surrender.  The raid was a success, but the stand of these Union soldiers prevented the Confederates from achieving even more, according to Grumble Jones.

My War: ‘This Worrisome Mode of Existence’: The Letters of Josiah H. Gordon…..55

edited by Christopher Benedetto

Member of the Maryland Legislature Josiah H. Gordon was suspected of treason by the Federal government in the early years of the Civil War.  As a result, he was held at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor for eight months.  This edition of My War consists of selected diary entries Gordon wrote while imprisoned there.

In Their Footsteps: The Road to Atlanta, Part 2…..60

by Jay Wertz

Jay Wertz continues his driving tour of the Atlanta Campaign, this time from Calhoun to the “Shoupades” of the Chattahoochee River Line.

Civil War Times Album of the Late War…..64

by Chris Howland

This collection of anecdotes includes the fate of Simon Bolivar Buckner, a hygiene kit, a portable checkerboard, and a letter from a man who had been reported killed to his wife!

Book Reviews…..66

1. Contested Borderland: The Civil War in Appalachian Kentucky and Virginia by Brian D. McKnight
2. Military Necessity: Civil-Military Relations in the Confederacy by Paul D. Escott
3. Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac by William Swinson

Frozen Moment: Fort Fisher’s Hot Shot Furnace…..74

The image in this Frozen Moment is the solid shot furnace from Fort Fisher, North Carolina, which was used against a combined arms Union force which attacked the fort in January 1865.

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Civil War Times Illustrated, January 2007

Related posts:

1. Civil War Times Illustrated, January 2006
2. Civil War Times Illustrated, August 2006
3. Civil War Times Illustrated, June 2006

The Women Will Howl: The Union Capture of Roswell and New Manchester, Georgia, and the Forced Relocation of Mill Workers by Mary Deborah Petite ISBN 978-0-7864-3168-7 McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2008 187 Pages – Hardcover (7 x 10) – $45 Photos & Illustrations, Appendix, Notes, Bibliography, Index

Information wanted: My widowed daughter, Eliza Ray, was sent north by General Sherman in his raid through Georgia from her home near Marietta with her five children. Information on her whereabouts will be thankfully received. Reverend Elijah Roberts, Summerfield, Alabama. —Columbus (GA) Daily Sun December 12, 1867

Thus did a father try to determine the fate of his missing daughter and grandchildren fully two and a half years after the end of the war. Sherman’s army swept through the Georgia mill towns of Roswell and New Manchester in July 1864 during the Atlanta campaign, making the state howl as he had promised. His cavalry, under the command of Brig. Gen. Kenner Garrard, burned the mills, which produced cloth for the Confederate Army. On Sherman’s express orders the Federals arrested and detained some four to five hundred (no one knows the exact number) workers, mostly women, nearly half of whom were 17 or younger. These unfortunates were then summarily deported north of the Ohio River where they were dumped into towns already overflowing with refugees.

I don’t usually read much social history, which tends to be dominated by academics with fixed ideas about class, race and gender. It was refreshing, therefore, to read a book that took a broad yet specific look at a nearly forgotten incident. Author Deborah Petite, a Californian with an interest in the Civil War, stumbled upon the story while visiting her father, who had recently moved to Roswell, in the summer of 1998. He told her the bare outline of the arrest of the women in Roswell, which piqued her interest. “I started doing some basic research in the OR as soon as I returned home to California,” she recalls. “Although there wasn’t a great deal of information, I was soon ‘obsessed’ with the story of the women. I made another trip to Roswell the following spring and toured the mill ruins there and at Sweetwater. Very little had been written and what little was published was inaccurate and poorly researched. Not surprising, very few people had heard the story outside of Georgia. I was soon convinced that the story needed to be told as factually as possible—without all the myth and embellishment. So started the obsession that would change my life and consume almost every waking moment for the next 8 years.”

Petite’s story begins with Barrington King, the visionary entrepreneur who built the mills and who was ironically, a Connecticut Yankee. King built a textile factory town in the then-wilderness of Georgia after the removal of the Cherokee. By the 1840s the mills were in full operation and were “an overwhelming success.” The King family established an aristocratic social order with themselves at the top.

Dickensian conditions prevailed in the mills. Workers were paid in scrip good only at the company store, worked long hours (dawn to dusk six days a week) in dangerous, unhealthy conditions. While this and frequent outbreaks of disease and occupational hazards like brown lung pushed many into an early grave, it did provide employment for the impoverished local population. Surprisingly, the mill owners (there was another mill at New Manchester thirty miles west) preferred free white labor over slaves. Bound labor was more expensive—hired slaves cost the mill owner the same $7 a month as a free laborer, but he had to provide their room and board. Then too, the slave had a powerful benefactor, his master, who saw to it that his property was not abused or mistreated. Free workers, on the other hand, could be hired and fired at will, and the factory owner need have little concern for their welfare. The mill owners hoped further white emigration would continue to provide a source of cheap labor.

Child labor was common, indeed preferred, for their sharp eyes and nimble fingers. Men tended toward skilled and supervisory positions while women and children, most of whom were illiterate or barely literate, tended the machines. Thus, as Petite points out, these women were not in the best of situations even before the war. “Uneducated, unskilled, paid in scrip, with every aspect of their lives under the control of the factory, the mill workers in Georgia lived lives little better than that of slaves.”

As the war continued, conditions across the South deteriorated. There were food shortages by 1862, and Georgia society was riven by political and social discord. Union sympathizers aided deserters and draft dodgers, who haunted the woods. There were food riots and armed robberies of wagons carrying goods. By 1864 almost all the able-bodied men had gone off to war, making the labor of women and children even more indispensible.

Still, it was not just a poor man’s war. “Captain Tom” King, the son of factory owner Barrington King, organized and commanded a local company, the Roswell Grays, even though he’d  been offered a “bombproof” job as a quartermaster. Severely wounded at First Manassas, he returned to duty in spite of being incompletely healed and took the field again at Chickamauga as an aide to General Preston Smith, where he was killed.

The factories were indeed vital to the Confederate war effort. In addition to cloth they produced tentage, cordage, and other critical materials. But as conditions worsened in Georgia, they were also necessary for the survival of the families whose members worked there. Even as the Federal armies approached the line of the Chattahoochee the factories kept working. One owner tried to spare his property by claiming neutrality as evidenced by a paper transfer of ownership to a French national. Sherman was incensed:

I had no idea that the factories at Roswell remained in operation, but supposed the machinery had all been removed. Their utter destruction is right and meets my entire approval, and to make the matter complete you will arrest the owners and employees and send them, under guard, charged with treason to Marietta, and I will see as to any man in America hoisting the French flag and then devoting his labor and capital in supplying armies in open hostility to the Government and claiming the benefit of his neutral flag. Should you, under the impulse of anger, natural at contemplating such perfidy, hang the wretch, I approve the act beforehand…I repeat my orders that you arrest all people, male and female, connected with those factories, no matter what the clamor, and let them foot it, under guard, to Marietta, whence I will send them by cars to the North…The poor women will make a howl. Let them take along their children and clothing, providing they have the means of hauling, or you can spare them.

No question then, that the orders came from the top, nor did Sherman make a secret of it then or later. But surely even Lincoln’s harsh war policy did not contemplate arresting teenage girls who were working not so much to support the Rebellion as their own families. Yet the sentiment seemed to be widespread in the Union ranks. When a woman accused Lt. Col. Jeremiah Jenkins of making war on women and children, he replied: “The women of the south kept the war alive—and it is only by making them suffer that we can subdue the men.”

The Yankees did not act with utter barbarity. They burned the mills—a legitimate act of war—but took care not to include nearby civilian structures in the conflagration. Still, looting was widespread and the workers, mostly young women, were rounded up as ordered. Although Sherman ostensibly saw them as traitors no charges or indictments were ever brought, and Petite was unable to find even a record of those detained. They were, however, subjected to insults and even groping by drunken Federal soldiers. Some federal officers did act humanely—General Grenville Dodge noticed the women in Marietta and gave a hundred dollar bill to the hospital steward there with instructions to employ as many of them as possible.

A fortunate few had relatives north of the Ohio river, but most of the detainees were simply transported north and dumped in cities like Louisville, already bulging with refugees, without money or any means to support themselves. Others were eventually shipped to Evansville and New Albany, Indiana, where as enemy nationals they found scant sympathy in towns already stressed by the demands of the war. As the weather worsened into winter so did their fortunes: “Children,” noted one newspaper article, “have been found dead in the woods—actually starved or frozen to death.” Indiana’s governor asked for federal assistance but was refused by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

As for their individual fates the historian must, of necessity, resort to a certain amount of speculation, as most of the women left no memoirs or letters. They remain shadows with scattered mentions made from a distance in the official records, regimental histories, letters, and local newspapers. Some might merit an anonymous mention if found dead, others would marry and remain in Indiana after the war, and some would eventually return to Georgia. Many, as evidenced by the poignant advertisement above, simply disappeared, their howls wafted away on the winds of history. After the war incidents like this were submerged in the warm glow of national reconciliation, then pushed the furthest recesses of historical memory.

Ultimately, then, Deborah Petite’s effort to “give voice” to the women is a noble failure, although she does an excellent job of describing the nearly forgotten events surrounding the burning of the factories and the travails of the workers. Her writing style is plain, but given the volatile subject matter this is an asset. It would have been all to easy to fill the pages with either postmodern cant or purple prose.

The book itself is handsomely produced, indexed, and filled with unpublished photographs. There is a reasonable selection of simple maps to orient the reader. The book’s biggest drawback is its price—$45 is rather steep for a 187-page book and this will unfortunately limit sales appeal. Nevertheless, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand what the war, and particularly Sherman’s campaign, meant to the common people of the South.

Read more Civil War Book Reviews here at TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog!

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Review: The Women Will Howl by Mary Deborah Petite

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1. Women Will Howl
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3. Review: Southern Storm: Sherman’s March to the Sea

• Gone With the Wind and UFOs? Check it out.

• XDA has a list of the top 45 war movies ever made. I have no idea how these were chosen, but only three American Civil War movies made the list:
  
  1. Glory
  2. Ride With the Devil
  3. The General

• Harry Smeltzer has a nice start to a bibliography for the attempts to take Charleston at Bull Runnings

• Jim Miller at Civil War Notebook provides his review policy for publishers so they know where he stands. This is a good idea and something I’ve been contemplating doing for some time now. TOCWOC’s review policy will appear as a permanent page on the site. After receiving several badly dinged up review copies from one publisher who shall remain nameless, this page is far past due. I’m a collector as well as a reader/reviewer, and I’d like to have at least a Near Fine copy for my troubles. However, you do get what you pay for, so I can’t complain too much.

• Eric at The Edge of the American West discusses how the bloated wartime government of 1861-1865 disappeared after the Civil War, not to return again until after World War II.

• Craig Swain’s thoughtful post on “Archives and Technology” at To the sound of the Guns brought up some points I hadn’t thought of concerning the ability to tamper with digitally stored archives. I supposes this is no different than someone writing in fake “notes” on printed documents, but it is much easier to produce a believable forgery using digitized materials.

• Crowdsurfing, the next big wave in historical research?

• How did the North and South harness their respective railroads during the Civil War? Rene Tyree offers up his take on this topic in several parts at wig-wags.

• If you are in the St. Louis, Missouri area this summer, be sure to check out the Grant & Lee Exhibit at the Missouri Historical Society in Forest Park.

• Attack Machine asks, “Do We Still Have Grants and Shermans?“

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Odds & Ends: May 29, 2008

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Books On the Atlanta Campaign & Sherman’s March

I started writing some reviews long before the decision was made to create the American Civil War Gaming & Reading Blog. Because of this, I have a backlog of book reviews that I’d like to share from time to time, mainly at times when I’m too busy to write on a daily basis, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Below you will find easily the longest review and summary I’ve ever written. Honestly, this one is too long. The bottom line is that I went into too much detail in the summary. However, it is still useful for the introduction and the summary at the end. And for those of you who are interested in the Atlanta Campaign, the summary is a nice retelling of the events in Evans’s book. This Thanksgiving week (from today until next Sunday) I will be posting only sporadically, but I do hope to post entries on at least chapters 4 & 5 of Confederate Tide Rising. Have an excellent Thanksgiving everyone.

The following is a review and summary of David Evans’ book Sherman’s Horsemen: Union Cavalry Operations in the Atlanta Campaign (ISBN: 0253329639, Indiana University Press, 1996). It does not cover the entire campaign, but picks up with the numerous raids starting on July 3, 1864 and going to the end of Kilpatrick’s Raid on August 22, 1864. This book came recommended by several people in the “civilwarwest” Yahoo Message Board, so after over 5 years on my shelf, I have finally decided to give this one a try. Credit goes to those guys for getting me to open it and start reading. I’ve never been a huge fan of Cavalry operations in any theater, but the topic is becoming more interesting to me and I’ve bought several other books as well. I am, however, a big fan of the Atlanta Campaign, so this book should fill in quite nicely a missing piece of the overall puzzle for me. Sherman’s Horsemen is on the larger side at 645 pages, with 479 pages of text. The prodigious amount of notes fills pages 481-592, or over 100 pages! I always like seeing this amount of detail in the notes. It usually indicates the author did his work and knows what he is talking about. Pages 593-623 contain the large bibliography, which is another good sign. The index follows and brings up the rear from pages 625-645. There are 24 maps, and the mix is nice with overview maps of raids, followed by tactical level battle maps depicting regiments and sometimes less. And lastly, Evans includes an Order of Battle, which I always consider a must in books of this type. Evans contends that in no other major campaign were horsemen as important as Sherman’s were at Atlanta. He focuses on the six raids Sherman’s Cavalry made around Atlanta and he states, “These raids, Sherman’s motives for launching them, and their impact on the course of the campaign are among the least known and less understood aspects of one of the most interesting and most important chapters of our Civil War”. Evans sets out to educate readers and rectify that situation. Again, all signs point to this being an excellent book. I highly recommend having a map of the Atlanta area handy when reading this summary, as it will not make too much sense without one.

In the introduction, Evans picks up the Atlanta Campaign just after the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, as he describes Sherman screaming at Gen. Kenner Garrard to get his Cavalry Division of the Army of the Cumberland moving after the Rebels. At that point, Evans gives a short biography of Sherman’s life, and details the events in the War that led Sherman to command three Armies in the Campaign for Atlanta. Sherman was a bright young boy and finished sixth in his class at West Point in 1840. He tried to fight in the Mexican War, but by the time the ship he was on reached California the war was over. His wife and father-in-law urged him to leave the Army and become a banker in San Francisco, which he did. After numerous civilian failures, he finally became Superintendent of the college that eventually became LSU. Unfortunately for Sherman, as soon as he found success the Civil War broke out and he headed for the North. Sherman’s less than stellar early war performance is chronicled by Evans, but Grant had faith in Sherman, and he steadily worked his way up the chain of command. By the time of the Atlanta Campaign, Sherman knew what Grant wanted him to do and was determined to do it. Evans recounts briefly the course of the Campaign from Dalton in early May all the way to Kennesaw Mountain in late June, and on to the Chattahoochee by the 4th of July 1864.

In his first chapter, “Crossing the Chattahoochee”, Evans recounts the events of July 1-10, 1864 southeast of Marietta near the Chattahoochee River. First he points out the railroads that ran into and out of Atlanta, and mentions that the railroad line from Montgomery, Alabama to Atlanta was especially vulnerable to Sherman’s Cavalry. Then he talks about the Western & Atlantic Railroad (which ran from Chattanooga to Atlanta) and how this single-track railroad was Sherman’s supply line. Sherman rightly feared for its safety and posted Judson Kilpatrick’s entire Cavalry Division along the line to protect it. And lastly he gives a little background on the Cavalry in Sherman’s Army. Over 11,000 men in four divisions were present, with three divisions in the Army of the Cumberland’s Cavalry Corps, and the remaining division under Stoneman rather grandly labeled the “Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Ohio”. Sherman’s Army had approached the River and was looking for a way to cross. Kenner Garrard’s large 4200-man 2nd Division of the Army of the Cumberland’s Cavalry Corps was ordered east of Marietta to the little manufacturing town of Roswell in order to guard against any possible raids by Confederate Cavalry on the Western & Atlantic. While there, it burned some local mills masquerading as French-owned mills. Garrard fell for the ruse until he inspected one of the mills and saw “CSA” stamped on everything. After that, they were immediately burned, and the women and men who operated them were put into wagons and hauled off to Marietta to be sent north for their trickery. After this, Sherman set about getting footholds on the southern side of the Chattahoochee River. Garrard’s Division crossed a ford south of Roswell under fire and managed to gain a foothold on the south bank. Schofield’s infantry also effected a crossing further south. McCook’s small 1st Division was to the right of Garrard, and closer to the infantry. As of July 10, the Union Armies under Sherman had gained footholds across the Chattahoochee, and were ready to move towards Atlanta.

As Sherman crossed the Chattahoochee, Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau, in charge of protecting Sherman’s communications and headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, proposed a plan to strike at Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. He wanted to keep Forrest’s Confederates busy so that they would not in turn raid the railroad keeping Sherman supplied. Evans states that when the Atlanta Campaign first began Sherman had decided to raid Montgomery as soon as he had crossed the Chattahoochee River. However, this took him much longer than he had expected and it had moved back in importance in his mind. Rousseau wrote Sherman and Thomas about his plan just as Sherman was attacking Kennesaw Mountain. As soon as things quieted down and the Northern Armies had forced Johnston’s men across the Chattahoochee, Sherman approved Rousseau’s plan. Rousseau spent the early part of July getting his selected five regiments to Decatur as a stepping-off point for the raid. He had these five handpicked regiments (although the 9th Ohio came along more because of their large size than for their ability as a fighting unit), and ordered other greener regiments to supply the picked men with some weapons and a lot of horses. A.J. Smith’s 12,000 men of the Army of the Tennessee were to mount an expedition to keep Forrest’s men occupied, and while this was going on, Rousseau would strike quickly and secretly at Montgomery and Columbus, GA, and then try to head northeast along the Chattahoochee to join Sherman. On July 10, 1864, Rousseau’s 3000 plus men set out from Decatur to try to destroy as much track as possible between Montgomery and Columbus.

Sherman, ever the pessimist when it came to cavalry, did not have much faith that Rousseau’s raid would do any damage. As a result, near the same time he ordered Rousseau to go ahead, Sherman told Stoneman to take his Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Ohio (in reality 3 brigades of 2600 men under Biddle, Adams, and Capron) southwest along the north side of the Chattahoochee, with the goal of burning some of the Atlanta and West Point Railroad in the vicinity. Stoneman set out from his camps near Sweetwater Creek and headed southwest on July 11, 1864. He tried to see if the Confederates were guarding the crossing at Campbellton in force, and when he saw they were, he headed west away from the River and out of sight of the Confederates, and then headed southeast again to Moore’s Bridge, over 20 miles southwest of Campbellton along the Chattahoochee. Using captured Confederate uniforms, 9 men from Adams’s Brigade captured the bridge intact, and set up a bridgehead. However, Armstrong’s Confederate Cavalry Brigade came into the area and skirmished with Stoneman. He became afraid of being cut off, and instead of pushing on and trying to destroy some track, Stoneman fired Moore’s Bridge and retreated back the way he had come. Sherman needed the Army of the Tennessee’s infantry to reinforce his bridgeheads over the Chattahoochee at Roswell and Sope Creek, so Stoneman’s men were needed back along the right flank to take up the former positions of the infantry. The Cavalry of the Army of the Ohio were back where they had started by July 18. Stoneman made excuses as to why he was unable to do more, but Evans believes he was too timid on this raid. And he points out that the men in the ranks began to whisper that Stoneman had lost his nerve.

In the next chapter, “To The Gates of Atlanta”, Evans moves back to the eastern flank of Sherman’s Armies and Garrard’s Division on July 10. Rumors abounded that the Confederates were going to use McAfee’s Bridge southeast of Roswell to raid Sherman’s supply line. Garrard’s Brigades were ordered north and east of Roswell over the next few days to picket against just such an attack. While they were doing this, they took the opportunity to forage liberally. After Stoneman’s men had returned from their raid, Sherman crossed the Chattahoochee in force on July 17. Garrard was ordered to leave one regiment to help guard the supply train near Marietta, and also detailed a detachment to guard McAfee’s Bridge. The remainder of Garrard’s men pushed south on the 17th and moved towards Cross Keys and Nancy’s Creek. They encountered light resistance but kept McPherson’s left flank covered. On the 18th, as most of the infantry moved further south to Peachtree Creek, Garrard and some of the Army of the Tennessee moved east to Stone Mountain and Decatur. The resistance was a little fiercer this time around, and the Yankees soon learned that Dibrell’s Brigade was contesting their advance. The Lightning Brigade pushed the Confederates towards Stone Mountain, and the rest of Garrard’s men tore up track behind the advance. Eventually, the men neared Stone Mountain. Lightburn’s infantry brigade also showed up and began tearing up track westward to Decatur. As night came on, rumors of reinforcements caused Garrard to retire back toward Cross Keys. On the 19th, Garrard’s men repeated their earlier foray and again tore up even more track. Also on the 19th, the Union commanders learned that Joe Johnston had been replaced by John Bell Hood as commander of the Army of Tennessee. Sherman was elated, and thought that the Confederates might finally come out and fight on open ground. On the 20th, as the XXIII Corps approached Decatur, McPherson’s men tore up track east of that town, and Garrard guarded the far left flank of the Army, Hood proved Schofield’s prediction that he would attack within 24 hours. Hood caught the Army of the Cumberland in a potentially dangerous situation astride Peachtree Creek, but Thomas had just enough time to get his men into a semblance of a line south of the Creek, and Hood’s men were driven back with heavy losses.

In “A Costly Mistake”, Evans recounts the events on Sherman’s left flank on July 21-22, 1864. Sherman was extremely worried that the Confederates might send one Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia by railroad to reinforce Hood’s Army. Sherman was determined to make this as difficult as possible, and he ordered Garrard on July 20 to take his entire Division and move 30 miles east of Decatur, tearing up as much track as possible and burning key bridges, including one over the Yellow River. Sherman impressed upon Garrard the extreme importance of this measure, and Evans notes that Sherman even mentioned to Garrard that he could lose up to a quarter of his men if necessary to get the job done. Unfortunately, as Garrard was on this mission, Wheeler’s Cavalry struck what was left of Garrard’s men and Sprague’s XVI Corps infantry brigade at Decatur with the intent of capturing the supply trains of quite a few Union Army Corps. They nearly succeeded, but for the extreme bravery of a few Union batteries and some of Sprague’s supporting infantry. And as Evans points out, this was not the worst part. Much worse was what happened farther west on the eastern outskirts of Atlanta. Hood attacked the Army of the Tennessee with two Corps of his Army and if not for some bad luck and a late start, might have destroyed it. The Confederates lost 5000 plus men, and the Union lost 3500 or so, but the biggest blow was the death of the Army of the Tennessee’s commander, James B. McPherson. Evans points out that Sherman had made a major mistake by leaving Stoneman and McCook sitting idly on the north bank of the Chattahoochee while sending Garrard off on his mission of destruction. The end result was that no one was there to give the Army of the Tennessee advance warning of Hood’s flank attack. Luckily, someone had seen the Union vulnerability to just such an attack and had sent Dodge’s Corps to form at right angles to the rest of the Army of the Tennessee. If this preventative measure had not been taken, who knows how successful Hood might have been on July 22.

The first part of Rousseau’s raid is covered in Evans’ next chapter. He details the events that occurred between Decatur to Eastaboga from July 10-14, 1864. In an earlier chapter, Evans told how Rousseau had assembled 2700 troopers in two brigades around Decatur, Alabama. He got these men moving south on the afternoon of July 10. The first day’s march contained no urgency and the men camped near Cotaco Creek. On July 11, Rousseau’s men ran into an ambush just outside of camp, but the rest of the day was filled with hard marching. By the end of the day, the men had gone thirty miles, twice as far as the previous day, and camped in a small town called Summit for the night. July 12 was filled with more hard marching up and down mountains along with some confiscation of property. By nightfall Rousseau had made it to within five miles of Ashville, and they again bedded down. Some men of the 8th Indiana were detailed to round up some beef cattle, as rations were beginning to run low. Unfortunately, they failed at this task as the cattle decided in ones and twos to break away and escape. The detail ended up with no cattle at all to show for their hard work. As July 13 dawned, the Union Cavalrymen were about to get a welcome surprise. Rousseau had sent a detail of Tennesseans into Ashville the night of July 12 to ascertain what kind of opposition would greet the main column in the morning. These men scattered what few Southern troopers were present, and secured the numerous supplies in the town. Rousseau’s men, not knowing this and fatigued from the previous three days of marching mostly over mountains, took it easy as they covered the five miles to Ashville. There they all took what they needed and took a much-deserved rest on the afternoon of July 13. Evans recounts a humorous story about the men finding the printing press of an Ashville newspaper, and printing up stories with a pro-Union bent. The break in Ashville was used to adjust the regiments in Rousseau’s two brigades. The unruly 9th Ohio was taken over by its old commander, Col. Hamilton, who had been leading the 2nd Brigade. It also swapped spots with the 5th Iowa, with the 9th moving to the 1st Brigade and the 5tgh moving to the Second. The 5th Iowa’s commander, Lt. Col. Patrick, took over command of the 2nd Brigade. After resting, Rousseau pushed his men forward, knowing he needed to get to the Coosa River as soon as possible. The Coosa was a major obstacle in his path towards the Montgomery & West Point R.R., and he was determined to secure a crossing. A detail from the 8th Indiana retrieved a ferryboat at Greensport, and part of that regiment was ferried over to protect the eastern side of the crossing. Everyone then slept for the night. As July 14th dawned, Brig. General James Clanton split his 200 Alabama Cavalrymen, with 100 of the 6th Alabama going to attack Rousseau’s column at Greensport, and 100 more of the 8th Alabama heading south to watch the potential crossing at Ten Islands. As Clanton attacked Greensport, most of the 8th Indiana with their Spencer repeaters made short work of the fight. As that fight was starting, Rousseau took the rest of the 8th Indiana and his other four regiments south to Ten Islands. As they tried to cross, the Alabamians pinned them down on the islands in the middle of the Coosa. Lt. Col. Jones of the 8th Indiana, worried about what had happened to his men at Greensport, asked permission to attack frontally to drive the Confederates away. Rousseau, not wanting to lose a good man, allowed him to head back north to Greensport and cross there. Luckily, Jones found a ford not far north of Ten Islands, and he found the rest of the 8th Indiana (after their successful defense earlier) had moved south down the eastern bank of the Coosa and had attacked the 8th Alabama on the flank. This drove them away, and Rousseau’s Command was reunited on the east bank of the Coosa at Ten Islands. Rousseau pushed his men even farther that night and ended up at Eastaboga, over 15 miles south of Ten Islands. Rousseau’s men camped here on the night of the 14th, having made good time in the five days they had been marching from Decatur.

Rousseau’s march on July 15-17 from Eastaboga to Loachapoka, which sits astride the Montgomery & West Point R.R., is covered in the next chapter. Rousseau’s men didn’t really see any fighting on these three days. On the first day, the Union raiders marched south to Talladega, where Rousseau seriously considered heading 20 miles west to destroy a railroad bridge at Wilsonville. This would convince the Confederates that he was aiming for Selma, while he then backtracked and headed southeast to Montgomery and his ultimate goal of reaching the Montgomery and West Point Railroad. July 15 was a day of hard marching, and the Federal Cavalrymen trudged 39 miles south and southeast from Eastaboga to Weoguska Creek. Rousseau’s men were really showing signs of fatigue on July 16, because Rousseau didn’t allow them hardly any sleep. Because of this, after seizing a lot of food and material at Soccopatoy, Rousseau gave the men 3 to 4 hours for a nap. After this, knowing he was nearing the last major River in his way, the Tallapoosa, Rousseau ordered his men to make good time and they crossed a ford over the River with some difficulty the night of July 16-17, 1864. The day of July 17 was spent marching mainly south, but Rousseau wanted to fool the Rebels into thinking he was heading southwest towards Montgomery. Therefore he headed southwest several times. In reality, he was heading southeast to Loachapoka, because he had heard rumors of Clanton’s Alabama Cavalry riding out of Montgomery to meet him. At 6 P.M. on July 17, Rousseau’s men finally reached their destination. Evans points out that these men had forded two major Rivers, fought a battle versus Clanton’s men along the Coosa, and had traveled a total of 240 miles. He also states that they needed no orders to tell them what was to come next. They had reached one of Johnston’s lifelines, and they were going to ruin as much of it as possible in the next day or two.

Rousseau spent about 26 hours all told in wrecking the railroad near Loachapoka. About 6 miles west was the town of Notasulga and another 6 or so miles southwest of that was the town of Chehaw. Meanwhile, the town of Auburn lay east of Loachapoka. The Union raiders’ plan was to burn as much track as possible between Chehaw and Auburn, and also possibly destroy a trestle near Chehaw. However, the Confederates had been busy preparing to receive the raiders after news of the raid broke. Pillow was sending two brigades of cavalry from Tuscaloosa, and conscripts from the local populace were raised in Montgomery, the state capitol. These conscripts, along with some Alabama reserves, a couple of hundred men, moved east up the railroad on a train and debarked near Chehaw when told Yankees were near. Rousseau had divided his men into 5 groups and spread them out along the railroad to work on its destruction. The westernmost group ran into the conscripts as they got off of the train near Chehaw. In the ensuing “battle”, the Federals drove the Confederates back, but Rousseau feared that Southern reinforcements would arrive. Meanwhile, the easternmost detachment headed towards Auburn, tearing up track as it went. However, Clanton’s Alabamians, who had fought Rousseau’s men earlier in the raid, made another appearance, moved astride the railroad, and tried to block the Yankees’ progress east. Clanton was unsuccessful, and as part of the Northern troopers stood watch, others ripped up the tracks. By late on the night of July 18, and early into the morning, the Yankees had ripped up 19 miles of track and telegraph wire, and the Yankees all converged to camp out a mile or so east of Auburn along the railroad. A captured engineer from a locomotive making a reconnaissance said he was from Massachusetts, and offered to come along as a guide for the return trip. As the men settled in for the night on July 18, Rousseau prepared for the return trip.

The Confederates, by now fully aware that the Union raiders were ripping up the vital Montgomery & West Point RR, were converging on Loachapoka and Opelika from almost every direction. Armstrong’s Mississippi Cavalry Brigade, which had earlier stopped Stoneman’s raid down the Chattahoochee, rode hard for West Point, on the Georgia and Alabama State line, and about 30 miles northeast of Loachapoka. Volunteer battalions were organized in West Point, and also farther south at Columbus, Georgia, a major manufacturing center. The troops which had fought Rousseau’s men at Chehaw also continued to advance east along the now torn up railroad. Pillow’s dismounted Cavalrymen from western Alabama arrived in Montgomery to try to reinforce the men who had fought at Chehaw. And lastly, Armstrong’s Alabama Brigade of Cavalry was shadowing Rousseau just to the north of his raiders. Unaware of just how much consternation his raid had caused and the Confederate responses to it, Rousseau continued to tear up the railroad as he worked his way eastward towards the junction town of Opelika. Finally, at 1 P.M. on July 19, Rousseau decided it was time to head for home. He set a punishing pace and rode northeast to the town of Bethlehem, stopping at 2 A.M. on July 20. His men were off again at 4 A.M., and stopped again at Rock Mills at noon, both to give his men a rest and to secure some more supplies. The Yankees only stayed for about an hour, and trudged again all day until finally stopping for the night at 9 P.M. a few miles south of Laurel Hill. Rousseau again started early, at 5 A.M. on July 21. He crossed the state line that afternoon and reached Carrolton around 2 P.M. Stoneman’s Division had been here only a few days before on their aborted raid. Rousseau still kept up a torrid pace until he met some Yankee picket’s of Stoneman’s Division, and he stopped 3 or 4 miles north of Villa Rica on the night of July 21. The Yankee Raiders, finally safely inside Union lines, got a (for them) relatively late start at 6 A.M. on July 22, and headed to Marietta. The final numbers of the raid were impressive. Evans writes:

In twelve days they had marched through the heart of Dixie, averaging 34 miles a day. They had destroyed $20,000,000 to $25,000,000 worth of Rebel property, including 26 miles of railroad and telegraph lines, eight or nine boxcars, a locomotive and tender, thirteen depots and warehouses, two gun factories, an iron works, a conscript camp, over 1000 bales of cotton, several tons of tobacco, at least four wagons, and huge quantities of quartermaster, commissary, and ordnance supplies. In addition, they had brought in about 300 Negroes and roughly 300 horses and 400 mules, although estimates of captured stock ranged anywhere from 500 to 1,100.

In addition, Rousseau had lost very few men while fighting two battles at Ten Islands and Chehaw along with numerous skirmishes. Evans concludes that Rousseau’s raid had been the most successful since Benjamin Grierson’s romp through Mississippi the year before. After the raid, Rousseau went back to Nashville to manage his department. His men, however, were needed. They took Stoneman’s place guarding the right flank of the Union Armies, freeing up Stoneman’s men to fight elsewhere.

After Rousseau’s raid, Sherman immediately sent out Kenner Garrard on a raid of his own west of Atlanta. This is detailed fittingly enough in a chapter entitled “Garrard’s Raid”. The troops Garrard had left behind in Decatur when setting out had been the ones attacked a few chapters back. The raid started on the evening of July 22nd, and involved the Brigades of Long, Miller, and Minty. They made it from Decatur to just past the Yellow River at Rockbridge by midnight, and bivouacked near “The Promised Land”, the 956-acre plantation of Thomas McGuire. At 5 A.M. on the 23rd, Garrard moved out. He sent some troops south and then east to burn a bridge over the Yellow River west of Oxford, while he himself first headed east and then southeast into Oxford. After taking supplies in Oxford, Garrard wasted little time in moving slightly southeast to Covington. There a farmer started killing Union scouts, but soon their comrades ruthlessly shot the man down and then executed him with a bullet to his brain at short range. The troopers, wanting revenge, also mistakenly killed George Daniel as a spy. He was really a Confederate soldier but a neighbor identified him as a civilian, sealing his fate. The Yankees spent the rest of the day burning RR track from 2 miles west of Covington all the way to the Alcovy River 3 miles east of the town. Garrard headed for home on the evening of the 22nd, marched through Oxford, and reined in at 10 P.M. near Sardis Church, 6.5 miles north of Oxford. He wasted little time at was on his way again at 6 A.M. of the 23rd. The troopers then marched 9.5 miles north to Loganville and halted there at noon. After one hour, Minty’s brigade headed north towards Lawrenceville, and bedded down 3 miles west of that town on the Yellow River. Miller and Long instead turned southwest and ended up three miles west of Rockbridge at 6 P.M. after coming near that place on the return march. Garrard’s Division again started up at 6 A.M. of the 24th, and was in Decatur again by noon of that day. Wheeler’s Confederates learned of the raid on the 22nd but never did interfere. In fact, Garrard managed to march 90 miles in 3 days, destroying three wagon bridges and one trestle over the Yellow River, 1 trestle and 1 wagon bridge over the Alcovy River, several engines and railroad cars, six miles of track near Covington, and over 2000 bales of cotton at the cost of only 2 men killed. It was a definite success, and Sherman was pleased with the work Garrard had out in. Garrard’s reserve supply train at Decatur had been smashed, but the massive haul of supplies brought in by the raiders more than made up for this loss.

In “Converging Columns”, Evans writes of Sherman’s determination to cut the Macon & Western Railroad, Atlanta’s last link to the outside world. Around July 22, he brought up the remainder of his cavalry. Stoneman’s Division had been picketing the Chattahoochee River fords from Sweetwater Creek to Turner’s Ferry. McCook’s 1st Division was at Vining’s Station to patrol from Pace’s Ferry to Turner’s Ferry. McCook crossed the Chattahoochee at Pace’s Ferry to cover the right of the Army, and ended up at Mason’s Church on the far right on July 23. McCook had around 1500 men in the entire division at the time. Meanwhile Stoneman’s Division had traveled down the northern bank of the Chattahoochee even farther to the right to oversee a crossing at Sandtown, but skirmishing in front of McCook convinced Thomas that a crossing closer to McCook at Howell’s Ferry might be safer. Eventually, Stoneman’s troopers crossed at DeFoor’s Ferry, near Howell’s on July 23. Now that Sherman had all of his cavalry in hand, he wanted to send them on a massive strike at the Macon railroad while his infantry sidled around the western edge of Atlanta. On July 27th, Sherman planned to send McCook and Harrison (Rousseau’s men) west of Atlanta while Garrard and Stoneman moved east of Atlanta, and they would rendezvous south of Atlanta on The Macon & Western on July 28. He wanted them to destroy up to five miles of track and telegraph wire, and then either cut off Hood’s retreat or retreat themselves as circumstances warranted. However, the chain of command was muddles, and this portended bad times to come. In addition, Stoneman begged to be allowed to attempt a rescue of the Union prisoners at Andersonville after the cutting of the railroad, and Sherman agreed. As these preparations and the actual raids got underway, Sherman sent Howard’s Army of the Tennessee around his right in an attempt to get at the Macon & Western, but a fierce and bloody Rebel attack at Ezra Church stopped them cold. It was now up to the Cavalry to reach the railroad. On July 27, Stoneman’s 2150 men joined Garrard’s 4000 troopers as they converged near Decatur and marched southeast 8 miles to Latimer’s Crossroads. The two Divisions were there by 1 P.M. on the 27th. Wheeler’s Confederate Cavalry moved out to intercept them on late on the 27th. He had a slight numerical advantage, but the Northern troops carried repeaters, giving them the massive advantage in firepower. Wheeler’s men hit Garrard’s Division near South River on the night of the 27th. Garrard stayed to fight all day on the 28th to give Stoneman a head start to cutting the railroad. Wheeler sent three brigades after Stoneman, and fought Garrard at South River. Garrard’s men were in danger of being cut off, but they cut their way out of the trap. On the 29th, Garrard sent out scouting parties to try to find where Stoneman, and the Rebel Cavalry for that matter, had gone. He had no success and bedded down for the night. On the 30th, Garrard had had enough. He headed northeast away from Atlanta, and then after awhile, headed back northwest towards Decatur and the left flank of the Union infantry. They reached that spot on the 30th of July. Attention would now turn to the right pincer of the Union raid on the west side of Atlanta led by McCook.

In this chapter, entitled “McCook’s Raid: Turner’s Ferry to Flint River”, Evans writes of McCook’s raid up to and slightly past his reaching Lovejoy’s Station on the Macon & Western Railroad on the afternoon of July 29th, 1864. McCook had available for the raid the 1400+ men of his own Division (940 in Croxton’s 1st Brigade, 600 in Torrey’s 2nd Brigade, and the 100 odd men of the 18th Indiana Battery), as well as the 1400 men in Harrison’s 5 regiments, for a total of over 2800 men. They left Mason’s Church (just south of the Chattahoochee River) at 4 A.M. on July 27th, and headed north to Vining’s Station. The reason they did this was to use the Chattahoochee as a shield, head southwest, and then recross the big river at Campbellton Ferry. However, on the afternoon of the 27th, McCook found Rebel pickets blocking his way at the Ferry. He bedded down for the night, then moved southwest 6 miles to Smith’s Ferry, and crossed there on the afternoon of the 28th. He sent Major Paine’s Wisconsin Regiment northeast to Campbellton to deceive any pursuers, and headed southeast to the town of Palmetto. Paine’s men found disaster when they faced an entire Rebel Brigade on the 28th. Confederate General “Red” Jackson was alerted to the raid, and was determined to pursue. McCook kept moving and hit the mother lode 7 miles southeast of Palmetto. He found a 600-wagon Confederate commissary train and destroyed it, along with the mules pulling it. He pushed on to Fayetteville, only a few miles down the road, reaching there at daylight of the 29th. McCook kept pushing, and his men found 500 more wagons (this time of Loring’s Confederate infantry Corps) a few miles east of Fayetteville. McCook’s constant urging paid dividends when he crossed the Flint River and then reached the all-important Macon & Western Railroad at Lovejoy’s Station around 7 A.M. on the 29th. His first troops to reach that point cut the telegraph wires, destroyed the depot, water tower, and woodshed, $300,000 worth of cotton, $100,000-$120,000 worth of tobacco, bacon, lard, salt, and ordnance, and a mile of railroad track. Harrison’s regiments brought up the rear, and reached Lovejoy’s around 11 A.M. on the 29th. At this point, the Union troopers tore up several 1.5 mile sections of track, and then lay down to get some much-needed rest. McCook, having reached the Macon & Western a day late, looked for Stoneman to the east, but he was nowhere to be found. To make matters worse, word of Paine’s disaster reached him along with a warning that Wheeler’s Cavalry was north and east of him and heading south in a hurry. McCook stayed until 2 P.M. on the 29th, and then headed back west towards Fayetteville. His plan was not to recross the Flint at the same point east of Fayetteville, but instead to turn left (to the south) just before the river, and take the crossing at Glass Bridge a few miles further south on the river. Most of his men made the turning point with ease, but Croxton’s men tarried on the railroad waiting in vain for McCook to show. Croxton’s first regiment reached the turn in the road just as “Red” Jackson’s Confederates attacked them from the east. Jackson’s men had ridden through Palmetto and Fayetteville in not-so-hot pursuit, and they had Croxton almost cut off. However, Croxton’s Brigade, with the help of one of Torrey’s regiments, extricated themselves from a tough spot and all of the Federals were across the Flint River at Glass Bridge by 6 P.M. on the 29th of July. As the chapter ends, Glass Bridge had just been burned, and McCook had prepared to head west and cross the Chattahoochee further south at Moor’s Bridge. However, he was unaware that Stoneman had burned this bridge while picketing the Chattahoochee several weeks earlier.

“McCook’s Raid: Flint River to Newnan” is the title of Evans’ next chapter. In it, he recounts part of McCook’s retreat from the Flint River westward to the town of Newnan, only nine miles from the Chattahoochee River, and escape. At this point in the narrative, Evans gives a brief biography of “Fighting’ Joe” Wheeler, Hood’s Cavalry commander. Wheeler, although mostly successful, was looked down upon and called stupid by no less a man than Nathan Bedford Forrest. Wheeler had other detractors as well, but was at this point a Major General with massive responsibilities. Specifically, he was facing 10,000 Yankees, many with repeaters, in several columns with only the 3800 troopers under his command. His dilemma was trying to decide whether to use all of his men on one column, thus letting the other columns wreak havoc on the railroad, or to divide his men and risk letting them get defeated in detail. At 6 P.M. on the 29th of July, McCook headed west from Glass Bridge on the Flint River, taking a little-known back road west toward Newnan around 20 miles west. He wanted to avoid taking his earlier route through Fayetteville to throw off his pursuers led by “Red” Jackson and Wheeler. Part of the 5th Iowa blocked the road north to Fayetteville for three hours to discourage pursuit there. By midnight, McCook was within 25 miles of the Chattahoochee, but his mule train of captured goods and Confederate prisoners was slowing his column down considerably, not to mention the fact that his men hadn’t slept in over 60 hours. Whitewater Creek was the first major stream of two between Glass Bridge and Newnan, and John Croxton detailed a company of the 4th Kentucky Mounted Infantry to burn the bridge there and hold Wheeler’s pursuit until morning. While the company did manage to delay Wheeler for over an hour, pretty soon it was running away at a gallop with Wheeler in slower pursuit since he first had to repair the bridge. Three miles to the west, at Shakerag, the Upper and Lower Newnan roads came together. It was here that Lt. Col. Kelly and the rest of the 4th Kentucky Mounted Infantry were told to hold the Rebels until daylight. He succeeded in doing so, but at the cost of 150-200 of his command and himself captured. Jim Brownlow’s 1st Tennessee became the new rear guard at Line Creek, the second major obstacle between the Flint River and Newnan. At 8 A.M. on July 30th, McCook’s advance guard reached Newnan, only to find the 550 men of Roddey’s Confederate Cavalry Brigade waiting on a train at the town’s depot and getting ready to head north. These men had been detailed from Forrest to help Hood replace losses suffered in the big battles around Atlanta, and luck had placed them directly in the way of McCook’s raiders at a critical juncture. McCook decided not to attack them, and instead sent Major Owen Star’s 2nd Kentucky 2.5 miles south of Newnan to Wright’s Crossing. Owen burned the depot and some rails at that point, and sent messengers to McCook saying he could successfully bypass Newnan by heading on a road northwest from Wright’s Crossing. Croxton’s rear guard had managed to outdistance Wheeler around 9 A.M. on the 30th, but Wheeler caught them again by noon, just two miles east of Newnan. Croxton managed to head south just before Newnan, and Wheeler rode into the town in the early afternoon. He knew the Yankees had gone south, and were probably trying to detour around Newnan, so he told his weary men to mount up. He intended to attack the Northerners in their right flank as they marched northwestward, and he hoped to get some men in front of the Federal column to trap them and capture them all.

In “McCook’s Raid: Battle At Brown’s Mill” Evans recounts how Wheeler successfully attacked and held up the Yankee column a few miles southwest of Newnan. The Yankee horsemen were traveling west on the Ricketyback Road, heading for the Corinth Road, when the Rebels hit. Torrey’s 2nd Brigade was stampeded, Torrey was wounded, and a good chunk of the survivors immediately headed west under Major Purdy of the 4th Indiana. Harrison and Croxton then formed their men in line facing north to counter the threat. Early in the fighting, Wheeler’s men drove back Harrison’s regiments, capturing Harrison and the wounded Torrey along with 250 of Harrison’s men. Before 3 P.M., the Rebels had blocked Ricketyback Road to the west, and the 8th Iowa was ordered to charge and reopen the road. In furious fighting, the road was taken and retaken, and the Yankees eventually had to fall back to the south when Wheeler’s reinforcements under Robert Anderson, Roddey, and stragglers brought his strength to 1800 men, or roughly equal to the Federals under McCook. By 5 P.M. of the 30th, McCook wanted to give up. But Jim Brownlow of the 1st Tennessee talked him out of it, and the Federals formed into two columns, one under Croxton and one under Fielder Jones, now in charge of what was left of Harrison’s five regiments. Before retreating, the guns of the 18th Indiana were disabled and left behind. The men headed south and broke through, but the 8th Iowa, acting as the rear guard, was mostly surrounded and forced to surrender. The Yankees headed for the Chattahoochee in three groups that night. The first, under Purdy, headed northwest and crossed the big river at Williams’ Ferry, north of Franklin. Jim Brownlow led a few hundred men west and crossed further south than Purdy, though still north of Franklin. A good number of Brownlow’s men were captured, and he barely escaped himself. The largest force, the 1200 men under McCook, headed southwest down the Corinth road, reached Corinth, and headed northwest to the Chattahoochee. They crossed at Philpot’s Ferry, although they lost 200-400 horses and mules plus the 80 or so men of their rear guard. McCook was scared, and wanted to leave everyone on foot behind while the men without mounts fended for themselves. Meanwhile, Wheeler was furious at the men in charge of the pursuit because they had let their men sleep until daylight. They didn’t reach Philpot’s Ferry until 8 A.M. on July 31st, and as a consequence did far less damage than they could have.

The last chapter detailing McCook’s Raid was entitled “McCook’s Raid: The Chattahoochee to Marietta”. In it, Evans first details the fallout from the Battle at Brown’s Mill. The Union troopers lost around 100 men, while the Confederates lost around half that number. However, the number of Northern prisoners was large, around 587 on and near the battlefield, and just under 1300 in all by the time other stragglers from the raid were rounded up. Newnan was used as a hospital for the wounded of both sides, and saw the carnage of war firsthand. The Rebels had captured two cannon, eleven ambulances, several hundred horses and mules, and enough equipment to allow the Texas Brigade to replenish worn or missing supplies. In addition, the regimental colors of the 2nd Indiana, the 4th Tennessee, and the 8th Iowa had all been taken. Major Purdy’s group from Torrey’s Brigade was the first to reach Marietta, doing so around noon on August 1, 1864 with 283 men. Jim Brownlow came shortly afterward with only 19 men bearing the terrible (although incorrect) news that McCook and the rest of his men had been captured. Sherman was shocked and wondered how McCook and 300 handpicked men could almost all have been captured. He sent some of Garrard’s men to Decatur to act as a decoy to help all of his raiders, and also to see if they could find any information on McCook and Stoneman. McCook left his dismounted men behind to make their way back to Atlanta as best they could, and he reached Wedowee, Alabama on the night of July 31st. The town was a Union hotbed, but the men still took everything they could get their hands on. McCook learned that Rebel Cavalry was located about 20 miles west, quickly headed north, and reached the Big Tallapoosa River on the night of August 1st. After some hard marching, the remnants of McCook’s raiders reached Marietta at 5:30 P.M. on August 2nd. Evans writes that now that McCook and Garrard were back, everyone wondered where Stoneman was.

The beginnings of George Stoneman’s raid east of Atlanta towards Macon are detailed in “Stoneman’s Raid: Latimer’s Crossroads to Clinton and the Oconee River”. Stoneman left Latimer’s Crossroads on July 27th, 1864, on the same day Garrard’s men left that same location. Stoneman crossed the Yellow River and halted 2 miles west of Covington, Georgia that night. On the morning of the 28th, Stoneman’s troops looted Covington and were on their way south to Monticello by 8 A.M. Adams’ Kentucky Brigade took a westerly route to Monticello to scout for Southern pursuers, while Stoneman, the two remaining brigades, and the artillery took the direct road south. Stoneman reached Monticello and stopped for the night of the 28th, but Silas Adams did not reach that place until 4 A.M. of the 29th, and he had bad news. Stoneman had wanted to cross the Ocmulgee River somewhere between Monticello and Macon to be able to ride west and rendezvous with McCook at Lovejoy’s Station as agreed upon, but there were no bridges over the Ocmulgee between the two towns, and the ferries which existed would have taken too long. Reluctantly, Stoneman headed south at daylight of the 29th towards Clinton on his way to Macon. He figured he could at least burn the railroads near Macon and Milledgeville, and also release the 1500 Union officers being held prisoner at Camp Oglethorpe in Macon. He again sent Adams west to scout and keep an eye on his right flank, while he took the rest of the Division due south to Clinton. Just before he reached Clinton, he detached Major Francis Davidson and 5 companies of the 14th Illinois with orders to head 18 miles southeast to Gordon, where a branch line and the Central Railroad intersected. Davidson was to destroy as much track and public property as possible. Once at Clinton, Stoneman got more bad news. The bridge over the Ocmulgee at Macon had been washed away in June. At this point, Stoneman had his men dismount in Clinton, and they plundered to a whole new level, with many men getting drunk. At this point, Evans turns to Confederate preparations and countermeasures in Macon. Gen. Howell Cobb commanded the 5th Georgia Reserves, and he was in de facto the leader of the defenses at Macon. His first order was to ship 1200 of the 1500 Union officers in Macon east to Charleston, South Carolina. They all left Macon on July 28th. He then gathered together some of the Georgia Militia which had been detailed to be sent north to Atlanta, and also made some battalions out of the townspeople of Macon. At 5 P.M. on July 29th, he sent a cavalry company to scout north to Clinton. And at 8 P.M., he led Mallet’s Macon Battalion (350 strong), 1500 Georgia Militia, and the remainder of his 5th Georgia Reserves north towards Clinton. Gen. Wayne’s Georgia Militia was sent east on the railroad to Milledgeville by way of Gordon, and he reached Gordon at 9 P.M. of the 29th. Francis Davidson and his 14th Illinois were just north of town, and they saw the Confederates pull in. They waited until all trains were past, and then they charged into town, burning track and the turntable, and destroying as much rolling stock, engines, and private property as possible. That night of the 29th, Davidson moved east to McIntyre and Toomsboro, burning track along the way when possible. When he got east of Toomsboro, he burned the railroad bridge over the Oconee River which led ultimately to Savannah. Evans records that this was an important event, for it had truly isolated Atlanta from the outside world. No direct rail route connected it with any of the other cities of the South from this point forward.

Gen. Stoneman’s advance from Clinton and fight in front of Macon are recounted in “Stoneman’s Raid: Clinton to Walnut Creek”. Francis Davidson’s men moved north of the railroad bridge over the Oconee and crossed it heading east 22 miles to the north at Tucker’s Ferry at 2 A.M. on July 31. This would have unexpected consequences later. Milledgeville had received a telegram from Macon warning of the raider’s approach on the afternoon of July 29. At the time, the Capital had only 120 men in three militia companies to defend it. Luckily, Gen. Wayne’s train from Macon arrived in Milledgeville at 1 A.M. on July30. Meanwhile, Gen. Cobb in Macon had sent scouts north on the night of the 29th to look for the Yankees rumored to be near Clinton. Gen. Stoneman had left Clinton late on the afternoon of the 29th, sending scouts ahead down the Lite N’ Tie Road. Capron’s and Biddle’s Brigades followed close behind. Silas Adams Kentucky Brigade, bringing up the rear along with the Pack Train, was sent on the more direct road to Macon to the right of the Lite N’ Tie Road. At 10 P.M. on the 29th, Adams ran into Cobb’s Confederate scouts and a sharp running skirmish ensued. Stoneman sent some men over to the right to see what had happened and they accidentally fired on Adams’ men briefly before order was restored. Adams got to within 5 miles of Macon by dawn on the 30th, and then was ordered to probe for fords northeast of Macon. By daylight, the left wing of Stoneman’s men had gotten to within nine miles of Macon. Stoneman sent Capron’s Brigade southeast to the railroad near Gordon and Griswoldville to destroy track. After this was accomplished, Capron joined Biddle, who had gotten within 1.5 miles east of Macon, behind Walnut Creek by 6 A.M. of the 30th. Here Stoneman had a conversation with a Mrs. Dunlap, who told him the prisoners at Camp Oglethorpe had all been moved. This was untrue, as 300 men still remained, but Stoneman chose to believe the woman. Gen. Joseph Johnston, recently removed form command of the Army of the Tennessee, was in Macon on July 30th and acted as an advisor to Gen. Cobb. Cobb had decided to cross the Ocmulgee River and fight the raiders with his back to it. Evans believes he might have done this to prevent his raw militia from running. Col. Lee’s men held the right along the Garrison Road, and Col. Cumming’s men blocked the Clinton Road on the left. Skirmishing started at 7 A.M., and continued throughout the day. A Federal attempt to turn the Rebel right was foiled by the Macon City Battalion at 9 A.M. Fighting ended at 3 P.M. with very light casualties, as Stoneman had decided he had done enough and would head southwest 60 miles to Andersonville. He soon learned that Confederate cavalry blocked his path, so he then decided to head back to Atlanta via Milledgeville to foil pursuit. However, Davidson’s raid to the Oconee had drawn Rebel pursuers toward Milledgeville, and Stoneman decide to retrace his steps due north all the way to Hillsboro. As he set his men in motion north at 5 P.M. on July 30th, Stoneman’s men were worried about the prospect of facing Wheeler’s Cavalry, who had surely been notified of the raid and must be in hot pursuit by now.

Stoneman’s raid comes to an ignominious end in “Stoneman’s Raid: Cross Keys to Sunshine Church”. By 9 P.M. on July 30, Stoneman’s advance guard from Horace Capron’s Brigade was three miles north of Clinton. At that point, the advance guard collided with Brigadier General Alfred Holt Iverson’s 1400 men consisting of three brigades and 4 guns from two batteries. Iverson had been farther west almost due south of Atlanta when Gen. Wheeler had caught wind of the raid and ordered Iverson east to attempt to intercept it. As Iverson was heading east to Milledgeville, his men ran into Capron’s advance guard south of Hillsboro. Iverson was a known blunderer and a fool, according to Evans, but he relates that “fate was going to give him a second chance”, and near his birthplace of Clinton coincidentally. Capron’s men pushed the Rebel scouts northward early that night, but they were stopped by heavier firing around midnight. Adams and Biddle followed farther behind, moving through Clinton shortly after dark and at 11 P.M. respectively. At 3:30 A.M. on the 31st, Capron was ordered to advance again, and by the time dawn broke, the Federals had pushed their Confederate counterparts just north of Sunshine Church, where Wirt Allen’s Confederate Brigade had blocked the road in force. As both sides moved their respective forces up and deployed, an artillery duel broke out that lasted until 8 A.M. Stoneman stubbornly attempted to push Allen out of the way and keep moving, but his officers and men worried that this would lead to their destruction. Iverson tried to flank Stoneman, but Capron sent out a few companies to deal with the threat. Stoneman’s original left wing consisting mainly of Adams’ Kentuckians had “skedaddled” under Southern pressure, so Stoneman brought up reinforcements. At this point, the Northern officers, led by Col. Butler of the hard-fighting 5th Indiana, begged Stoneman to break off the engagement and head east towards Milledgeville to escape, but Stoneman insisted they would fight it out there. At this point a lull settled over the battlefield for the remainder of the morning. Finally, at 12:30 P.M., Stoneman had Adams and Capron strengthen their lines and prepare to advance. Iverson, meanwhile, had decided to bunch his men for a knockout blow to the Federal right center. At 1 P.M., Iverson attacked, and his men did indeed punch through the center and then wheeled left and right too flank the rest of the Yankee line. As his brigade dissolved, Capron fled eastward with about 100 men, the remnants of the 14th Illinois. Adams’ Brigade fled southward, a wrecked mob. Stoneman watched as his Division was mauled. Evans states that “a third of his command had run away. Another third cowered uselessly in the rear”. It was up to Tom Butler and his 5th Indiana to save the day. But unfortunately for the Union troopers, even the 5th Indiana wasn’t up to the task this day. Stoneman, his Division smashed and ammunition running out, decided to surrender. Silas Adams and his Kentuckians counted many Confederate deserters in its ranks, and they refused to surrender. Adams led his men eastward and escaped. Three hundred men of the 6th Indiana also managed to get away before the surrender proceedings. In the end, Stoneman and 440 of his men laid down their arms and were captured near Sunshine Church.

The flight of Adams, Capron, and others is recounted in “Stoneman’s Raid: Sunshine Church to Marietta”. As the surrender proceedings progressed, the Union officers were separated from the men and ate diner with General Iverson and his staff. Silas Adams and his Kentuckians followed the Milledgeville Road to Blountsville, and then turned north to Eatonton, reaching that place shortly after midnight on August 1. An hour later, the 8th Michigan and the 6th Indiana rode through town. Just before dawn on August 1, Adams halted five miles north of Eatonton. By 9 A.M., Adams was 22 miles north of Eatonton in Madison. The 8th Michigan was close on their heels to Madison, but the 6th Indiana didn’t get there until 2 P.M. Adams went 50 miles in 21 hours when he reached the crossroads hamlet of Fair Play. Early in the afternoon, the 8th Michigan caught up to them there. The 6th Indiana and 300-odd men from Capron’s Brigade also rendezvoused there. Capron’s Brigade had been the first to flee from the battle at Sunshine Church, and by the time he stopped and gathered stragglers, he had 300 men with him. They fled north but stayed west of Eatonton because of some (false) rumors about Confederate militia being there. At 9 A.M. on August 1 they met up with Davidson’s raiders from the 14th Illinois. After Capron and Davidson met they headed northeast and linked up with Adams. Capron, who was the ranking officer, took command, though not without some grumbling by Adams. Capron chose to head northeast towards Athens. The Yankees reached High Shoals, twelve miles northeast of Fair Play, at midnight on August 2. Union scouts dressed as Confederates caught some Rebel pickets by surprise in front of the town of Watkinsville, the Yankees ransacked the town in front of the shocked townspeople, and then they continued their journey towards Athens. They stopped just north of Watkinsville for some rest, and then pushed on. They decided to head straight into Athens, but the town had heard of their approach as early as 10 A.M. that day. The Athens militia, several hundred strong, took up positions in trenches south of town. Adams found the way blocked, and then got lost and lost contact with Capron. Capron halted at 9 P.M. at Jug’s Tavern, let his men rest an hour, and then moved again. At 1 A.M. on August 3, Capron stopped at King’s Tanyard on Rocky Creek. He insisted later that he had given orders NOT to take off saddles, but the men did this and also took off their boots as they went to sleep. A picked group of 85 men led by Col. W. C. P. Breckenridge caught up with and surprised the Yankees here. As Capron’s men fled and also got into a running fight with Breckenridge, Adams’ Brigade appeared and beat back the Southerners. Adams and what was left of Capron’s Brigade now headed for the Chattahoochee River. They reached that natural barrier of safety an hour before sundown on August 3, and everyone was across by 9 P.M. that same night. The column reached Marietta at 11 A.M. on August 4, and Sherman was informed of the partial disaster that had befallen Stoneman. He wired back, “Tell Colonel Adams to make a minute report of the facts and let me draw conclusions”.

Individuals and groups of desperate Yankees try to make their way back to Atlanta in the next chapter, entitled “Back from Oblivion”. On August 1, the captured Union officers at Sunshine Church started for Macon with their Confederate counterparts, and reached that place late that afternoon. There, the Union officers were all searched and had their valuables taken, but James Biddle was able to hide $1,000 in Confederate money which would serve Stoneman and his staff well in their upcoming captivity. The enlisted men were also marched to Macon, but they stopped 8 miles short to the east on the night of August 1. The next morning was rainy, and the guards demanded most of the Yankee troopers’ clothes and rain gear. They reached Macon at 10 A.M. on August 2, where 442 of them were immediately shipped off to Andersonville. Some of the men of McCook’s Division reached that place on August 3. Some of Iverson’s men in various places such as Macon and Athens were given celebrations in their honor. Iverson’s command was given over $2,000 in appreciation for what they had done at Sunshine Church. Soon, however, the local populace grew disillusioned when Confederate cavalrymen refused to give back horses and mules captured from Yankee riders, who only days before had taken the mounts from the civilians. Over two hundred Yankees were held captive in Athens for awhile, and over 430 men were rounded up in the area and sent to Macon and Andersonville. Evans recounts the journeys back to the Union lines of many groups of Union soldiers, featuring the journeys of Horace Capron and his son Osmond, and John Croxton and his aide Johnny. McCook and Stoneman’s raids had been a disaster. McCook had lost 1230 of the 3000 men he had started with, and Stoneman had lost 1329 of 2144. Far from reaching Andersonville and Macon to rescue prisoners, the raids only added more Yankee troopers to the already overcrowded Rebel prison pens. Sherman took the news of the twin disasters surprisingly well, and even accepted McCook’s explanation for his failures. Evans concludes the chapter by stating that Sherman’s wrath was saved for one man: Kenner Garrard.

Some of Sherman’s horsemen are forced into the lines northeast of Atlanta in “Troopers in the Trenches”. Kenner Garrard had done little to nothing at Flat Shoals while McCook and Stoneman went on their less than successful raids, and he lost barely any of his 3500 men. Sherman wanted to remove Garrard because of this, but Gen. Thomas intervened and Garrard kept his job. On August 1, 2000 of Garrard’s troopers relieved 11,000 men of Schofield’s XXIII Corps in the trenches to the northeast of Atlanta. For the first time in the campaign, troopers were acting as infantrymen, and they didn’t like it one bit. Schofield’s men and Palmer’s XIV Corps were moved to Sherman’s far right in an attempt to get around Hood’s left, but were stopped short at Utoy Creek. As Garrard’s troopers settled into the routine of trench warfare, Eli Long’s Brigade remained behind and out of the trenches at Buckhead, where they faced equally dangerous bands of roving Confederate bushwhackers and cavalry. Gen. Hugh Judson Kilpatrick returned to the campaign in late July, after partially recovering from an earlier wound. His arrival was fortuitous in that Sherman was looking for someone aggressive, and Kilpatrick’s troopers guarding Sherman’s supply line were much fresher than McCook’s and Stoneman’s ruined Divisions. So McCook replaced Kilpatrick guarding the railroad, and Kilpatrick brought his men to a point just north of the Chattahoochee by early August. While biding his time there, Kilpatrick reshuffled his command into brigades led by Colonels Klein, Jones, and Murray. On August 8 Kilpatrick was ordered to feint on Hood’s left near Sandtown in order to prevent Rebel cavalry from harassing Sherman’s right flank, and he moved out on August 9. Meanwhile, Kenner Garrard on Sherman’s left was to throw out a brigade to Decatur to further occupy the Confederates. Garrard’s older brother Israel was given command of a newly-formed Brigade created by bringing together individual regiments belonging to the Army of the Ohio. Kenner Garrard’s Division received orders removing them from the trenches on August 14 and 15. The reason was that Wheeler had taken a bunch of his Confederate Cavalry north to raid Sherman’s supply line, and Sherman saw an opportunity to strike while he was absent. He ordered Kilpatrick to scout around Hood’s left, and Garrard to go around his right. Garrard’s feebleness again shown through and this time Sherman convinced Thomas to remove Garrard and replace him with Eli Long. Then Sherman ordered Kilpatrick to scout in the direction of Fairburn on the Atlanta and West Point Railroad. Kilpatrick, eager to finally join the fray, moved out at 3 A.M. on August 15. He crossed the Chattahoochee by 10 A.M. near Sandtown, fortified a bridgehead, and met up with Israel Garrard’s Brigade near Owl Rock Church. Sul Ross’s Texas Cavalry fought with Garrard, who kept the Texans occupied long enough to let Kilpatrick destroy property and track near Fairburn that day. “Kill Cavalry” then retreated 4 miles back the way he had come. At 6 A.M. on August 16, Kilpatrick headed back towards Sandtown but kept a lookout for Red Jackson’s Cavalry Division. Not finding him, Kilpatrick returned to camp at Sandtown at 3 P.M. on August 16 and filed his report. As a result of this raid, Sherman decided to give Kilpatrick two of Kenner Garrard’s brigade in addition to his own Division, and then ordered him to head towards the Macon & Western Railroad near Rough and Ready. Sherman hoped to force Hood to abandon Atlanta by cutting his one last supply line. The last Union cavalry raid of the Atlanta Campaign was about to begin.

General Sherman is determined to cut Hood’s last supply line once and for all in “Kilpatrick’s Raid: Sandtown to Stevens’ Crossroads”. Sherman ordered Kilpatrick to march from Sandtown to the Macon & Western Railroad near Jonesboro with his own Division and two of Kenner Garrard’s Brigades led by Col. Bob Minty. Sherman wanted Kilpatrick to tear up as much track as possible while he kept Hood busy in front. “Cump” stressed to Kilpatrick that it was not a raid, but an expedition to utterly destroy Hood’s last link to the outside world. Accordingly, Sherman told Kilpatrick to stay away from Rebel infantry and artillery. Two of Garrard’s Brigades, totaling 2398 men and four guns, broke camp at 1 A.M. on August 18 and headed west to rendezvous with Kilpatrick at Sandtown. They halted at Utoy Creek at 6 A.M., and Minty rode ahead to get instructions from Kilpatrick. “Kill Cavalry” planned to reach the West Point Railroad by nightfall of the 18th, and the Macon & Western by the afternoon of the 19th. His Division would tear up track while Minty’s Division faced north in line, and they were to keep moving south and repeating the process for as long as they could. The two divisions left Sandtown at 6 P.M. sharp on the evening of August 18. Kilpatrick had 4500 men and 8 guns in two batteries. Half of the fourteen regiments carried repeaters, and Evans comments that “it was more men, more firepower, and more formidable than any mounted column Sherman had ever assembled”. Kilpatrick’s advance guard scattered some pickets of the 6th Texas Cavalry at Camp Creek that night, and he rolled into Stevens’ Crossroads, two and a half miles farther south, around 11 P.M. that night. Once at Stevens, he had his men rest. At this point Kilpatrick changed his plans slightly by sending Col. Klein and his Brigade south to Fairburn, and then on to the Macon & Western as a diversion. Klein reached Fairburn at 1:30 A.M. on August 19, and struck the Macon & Western at Bear Creek Station around 11 A.M. that same day. Here he tore up some track, wrecked a train in town, and then headed north towards Lovejoy Station. About 2 miles south of that place, he ran into a trainload of Rebel infantry. Hood had ordered Reynolds Brigade of Walthall’s Division south by rail on the morning of the 19th, and they had reached Jonesboro around 1 P.M. They continued on until they reached Jonesboro, and then ran into Klein. Klein skirmished with Reynolds for awhile, but Armstrong’s and Ferguson’s Confederate Cavalry brigades showed up and he beat a hasty retreat west towards Fairburn around 4:30 P.M. Here Klein fought through a roadblock, and reached Sandtown at 8 A.M. on August 20. Evans recounts that Klein’s role as a diversion had worked to perfection, allowing Kilpatrick to get to the Macon & Western unmolested.

Hood’s last remaining supply line, the Macon & Western Railroad, is breached in “Kilpatrick’s Raid: Stevens’ Crossroads to Lee’s Mill”. On the night of August 18, Sul Ross’ 400 Texas Cavalry were the Confederacy’s lone protection for the Macon & Western Railroad in the vicinity of Jonesboro. Facing them were the over 4,000 men of Kilpatrick’s column, minus Col. Klein’s small Brigade which had been detached earlier. Kilpatrick pushed against Ross and reached the Atlanta & West Point Railroad three miles north of Fairburn at 3 A.M. on August 19, where they tore up some track. While this was happening, Ross attacked Kilpatrick’s men near Shadnor Church along the railroad, splitting Kilpatrick’s column in two. The Yankees fought back and managed to rejoin their separated parts. Ross withdrew, but he shadowed the Yankees as best he could with roadblocks as they moved eastward on the way to Jonesboro. Kilpatrick stopped at noon on August 19 just east of Camp Creek and had gotten to within 1 and a half miles west of Jonesboro by 2 P.M. that day. The Rebels had damaged the bridge across the Flint River, and they had set up one last roadblock before Jonesboro. Kilpatrick’s artillery drove the Rebels into Jonesboro, and after he had repaired the bridge his men moved in and wrested control over the town from the Confederates’ hands shortly after 5 P.M. Being well-versed on what he had to do, “Kill Cavalry” immediately set Minty’s Division to tearing up track, and other troopers burned all of the public buildings in Jonesboro, accidentally setting fire to private houses in the process. The Union horsemen had burned around 2 miles of track by 10 P.M., when Kilpatrick ordered his own Division farther south to tear up more, with Minty covering his rear. Just south of Jonesboro, the Federals ran into Reynolds Confederate infantry, back from fighting Klein near Bear Creek Station earlier that day. Kilpatrick had his entire force in line facing Reynolds by 11 P.M. that night. A hard rain started, and heavy skirmishing accompanied the downpour. Finally at 2 A.M., Kilpatrick, unlike Stoneman at Sunshine Church, decided to break off the engagement, head east, and then hit the Railroad farther south out of reach of Rebel foot soldiers. Red Jackson had positioned Ross’ Texans west of Jonesboro, and Samuel Wragg Ferguson’s large brigade to the east, hoping to trap Kilpatrick. In a stunning display of ineptness, Ferguson allowed Kilpatrick’s entire force to slip right by as August 20 began. At Pittsburg, three and a half miles east of Jonesboro, the Yankees turned south and headed for Lee’s Mill, reaching that place near dawn. After a short rest, the raiders moved out again at 8 A.M. Eli Long’s Brigade was the rear guard, and skirmished heavily with Sul Ross’ ever-present Texans. From this skirmishing, Ross learned that Kilpatrick was definitely headed south to either Lovejoy’s Station or McDonough.

In “Kilpatrick’s Raid: Lee’s Mill to Buckhead”, Evans concludes the story of Kilpatrick’s Raid and what it accomplished. As August 20 wore on Kilpatrick’s men reached the intersection of the road from Lee’s Mill and the Fayetteville-McDonough Road around 11 A.M. As some of Red Jackson’s scouts traded shots with the Yanks, the sound of a locomotive was heard. The Federals, wanting to capture the train, pushed south to Lovejoy’s Station and began wrecking track. The Yankees chased some Rebel horsemen down the railroad, and ran headlong into Dan Reynolds’ Confederate infantry! By this point, Reynolds’ much-depleted Brigade could muster only 300 men, but Reynolds charged Minty’s Brigade and initially drove them back. Eli Long’s troopers and the Chicago Board of Trade Battery then came onto the battlefield, temporarily stabilizing the situation in a cornfield. After exhausting their ammunition and having a rifle disabled, the CBOT Battery retired north to some woods fronting the cornfield, and was joined by Minty and Long. The combined fire of the Union force drove Reynolds back across the cornfield. At this time Sul Ross’ Texans charged on the Yankee rear from the north, and Fielder Jones’ Brigade was sent to meet him. Facing fire from the front and rear, at this point Kilpatrick began hearing rumors of being surrounded by up to 20,000 Confederate infantry and cavalry, and he decided to force a breakout to the north and east. Minty formed his brigade in column of fours by regiment, and they smashed Sul Ross’ Texans, giving them many blows with their sabers in the process. As Long’s Brigade and then Kilpatrick’s Division followed, the Yankees managed to also capture a howitzer that had been giving them a hard time, and it was towed away by the CBOT Battery. After gathering his wildly separated men, Kilpatrick assigned Eli Long to provide a ear guard, and sent his column east toward McDonough. Frank Armstrong’s Cavalry, which had just arrived near the battlefield, pursued, and immediately ran into Long. By 6 P.M. on August 20, Long had delayed Armstrong enough to allow Kilpatrick a good head start to McDonough, which his advance guard had reached at 5 P.M. Some disabled Confederate veterans in McDonough heard the fight to the west at Lovejoy’s, and a group of them set out to burn the bridge 8 miles northeast of McDonough. However, Kilpatrick assigned a force made up of detachments from the 92nd Illinois and the 3rd Kentucky to save and secure the bridge, and they did just that. At this point it started raining heavily, Frank Armstrong called off his pursuit, and many of the Yankees fell asleep in the saddle. By 6 A.M. of the 21st, Kilpatrick had reached Cotton Indian Creek, about eleven miles northeast of McDonough. Due to the heavy rains, the creek was almost overflowing, and the current was swift. The Yankee troopers had a rough go of it, but they had all managed to cross the creek by noon, losing 50 horses and mules and one unfortunate private to drowning. Kilpatrick stopped to rest in Lithonia that night, and moved out again at 6 A.M. of the 22nd. His men reached Decatur by noon, and then the lines of the Union IV Corps by late afternoon. In an interview with Sherman that night, he hyperbolized his accomplishments, and Evans writes, one can imagine with a chuckle, “far off in the distance, trumpeting over the treetops and lingering on the night air, came the high shrill notes that made (Kilpatrick’s) words a lie. It was the defiant wail of a Rebel locomotive chugging into Atlanta from the south”.

In the conclusion, entitled appropriately enough “Epilogue”, Evans relates that more trains kept coming, and Sherman knew Kilpatrick had not done any real damage. Art this point, Sherman sent his infantry to do the job his cavalry seemingly couldn’t; to wreck Hood’s last remaining supply line. The tore up 12.5 miles of track on the Atlanta & West Point RR between Red oak and Fairburn, and then moved further east to the prized Macon & Western RR. At the Battle of Jonesboro on August 31 and September 1, Sherman’s men defeated Hardee’s Corps and were firmly astride Hood’s last remaining link to the outside world. Hood had no choice, and abandoned Atlanta on September 2. Evans writes that Sherman had expected to take Atlanta within a week after crossing the Chattahoochee, and that it had taken him six. He also relates that Sherman unfairly blamed his cavalry. Rousseau’s raiders had cut 26 miles of the Montgomery and West Point RR, and Kenner Garrard’s men had destroyed bridges over the Yellow and Alcovy Rivers. In less than two weeks and with less than a combined 100 casualties they had permanently cut two of Hood’s three railroads out of Atlanta. With these initial results, Evans concludes that Sherman believed he had every reason to be optimistic going forward. But he also describes two key advantages Rousseau and Garrard had that McCook, Stoneman, and Kilpatrick did not. One, the flimsy rail construction on the railroads leading east and southwest out of Atlanta allowed much more damage to be done much more quickly and easily. The hardier “T-rails” of the Macon & Western RR meant that any force trying to rip up track would need much more time to do a fraction of the damage. Two, Hood’s Cavalry under Joe Wheeler was freed up to counteract raids as soon as Hood went into his entrenchments around Atlanta. They no longer had to guard Hood’s vulnerable flanks, and they did much damage to the latter raids. As a result, McCook and Stoneman met with disaster, and Kilpatrick failed to do any real damage. Another point to consider was the ability of the Confederates to quickly repair any damage done to their railroad supply lines. Evans recounts that the Yankees did completely sever Atlanta’s supply lines on July 29-30 and August 19-20, but that the Rebels quickly were able to repair the damage. Evans concludes that since Sherman had never served with the cavalry, he tended to mistrust and misuse his Cavalry arm in the operations around Atlanta. He suggests that Sherman would have been better served by sending some blue-coated infantry along on the raids to fight off any would-be attackers, and let the cavalry rip up the rails over a period of days rather than hours. He mentions that “Confederate cavalry was too vigilant, telegraphic communications were too good, and nearby Southern cities and towns such as Montgomery, Columbus, Macon, Milledgeville, and Athens were too well defended for two or three thousand Yankee horsemen to roam at will for very long”. After Atlanta had fallen, Evans also believes Sherman mishandled his troopers. Hood’s Army was a wreck, and the 5,000 or so troopers left could have rounded up herds of prisoners and destroyed Hood’s Army. Instead, Sherman let Hood go, and his subsequent invasion into Tennessee caused serious worries in the Union high command until Thomas stopped him cold at Nashville. Sherman wanted Atlanta rather than Hood’s Army, in direct contradiction to Grant’s orders before the Campaign began. Evans ends the story by mentioning that Sherman’s Cavalry had been decimated by the twin disasters of Stoneman and McCook, and that they did not fully recover until the spring of 1865.

Although it took me awhile to read this book (the summary above being a major reason for that!), if I had been reading it without taking notes, I would’ve probably finished it in a week or so. The story, as the title makes obvious, is told from the Federal point of view, and Evans has a definite knack for storytelling, interspersing the “whens” and “wheres” with a lot of human interest stories. You will certainly know what it was like being in a town in the way of any of Sherman’s raiders around Atlanta when you finish, at the very least. The reader is also given a good idea of what it was like to go on a Cavalry raid deep in enemy territory, where straggling or getting wounded meant certain capture, and possibly even death. Sherman’s Cavalry commanders were a mixed lot, with many castoffs from the Army of the Potomac, George Stoneman included. But some men such as Lovell Rousseau, Bob Minty, and Tom Harrison, were more than capable of handling the tasks set out for them by Sherman. Evans does what he promises to do at the opening of the book, namely to provide insight into Sherman’s thinking and reasoning when sending his Cavalry out on these raids, and also to explain the significance each raid had on the successful conclusion (to the North at least!) of the Atlanta Campaign. As I stated in the introduction, the maps were good, but after reading the book I wish they had indicated the routes the raiders took, as it would have been just a little easier to follow the action. This book is aimed at the serious Civil War buff. A good working knowledge of Sherman’s Campaign for Atlanta, while not technically absolutely necessary, does help fill in the blanks for the informed reader. Many people recommended this book to me, and I wholeheartedly endorse their recommendations. Sherman’s Horsemen fills a void in Civil War literature, and will be the definitive study on the Union cavalry operations around Atlanta for a long time to come.

© Copyright Brett Schulte 2005. All rights reserved.

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Review: Sherman’s Horsemen: Union Cavalry Operations In The Atlanta Campaign

Related posts:

1. Review In Brief: The Union Cavalry Comes of Age: Hartwood Church to Brandy Station, 1863
2. Review: Guide to the Atlanta Campaign: Rocky Face Ridge to Kennesaw Mountain
3. The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864, Part 2

Operational scale Civil War wargames for the PC are about as rare as you can get. CRISIS, a game system designed by Dutch Owen in the 1990s, is probably as close as you can get. The URL is:

http://museum.sysun.com/crisis/index.html

Although the game appears primitive at first glance (note the early 1990s graphics!) and the interface takes a bit of work to master, there is actually a fairly deep simulation under the surface. The game system weds tactics with logistics and intelligence in a nice way. Although other eras are represented, for our purposes here, CRISIS has scenarios for the CW Peninsula (including naval aspects) and Atlanta campaigns.

In the designer’s own words:

What is CRISIS?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CRISIS is a wargame, but it is much more than that. It is a sophisticated, comprehensive, strategic wargaming system that is based on the realities of classic military strategy that have held true from 500 BC to the present day.

It is purely a computer game, it’s design has not been dominated by influence from board wargames. It takes full advantage of the computer to implement critical intelligence and logistics rules that are far beyond what is practical in a board wargame, and thus far more realistic than is possible when all calculations must be done manually.

It also takes advantage of the computer’s ability to relieve the player of detailed work, allowing concentration on strategy rather than a mass of details.

The game covers every aspect of military art and science: maneuver, combat, logistics, intelligence, engineering, production, training and readiness, and weather. It realistically simulates these operations on land, sea, and in the air; with a rules system flexible enough to apply to any strategic situation from 500 BC to the present.

It is a highly flexible construction set, with a mapmaker program which allows large-scale, realistic implementations of historical campaigns in great detail. You can not only design your scenario, but you also design the military units that operate on it, and have control over hundreds of variables that control the simulation engine.

The CRISIS mapmaker and the game itself are easy to use. A standard GUI allows an easy, intuitive, drag and drop interface. But beyond the mechanics, the design of the game itself is consistent, accurate, and natural. The rules, while quite complex to realistically simulate the causes and effects of true-to-life military operations, are all based on common sense.

*

All this is nice, but it has been done before (although the CRISIS design tries hard to do it better than it ever has been). What is it about this game that makes it unique, and advances the state of the art in wargaming?

The answer is: “Strategic Realism”.

The wargames of the past and present, board and computer, have developed accurate and realistic methods of simulating tactics — the art of fighting. But by and large they have failed to be very realistic when it comes to strategy — the art of putting your forces in a position to win the fight.

This has not been because the designers don’t understand how military operations really work, but because board games (and too often their computer counterparts) do not (and in the case of board games, can not) do an accurate job of simulating two of the three most important aspects of strategy: logistics and intelligence (the third aspect, manuever, has been done quite well).

Of the two, intelligence has traditionally been done better. Successful strategy always includes elements of deception and surprize, and strategy can’t be realistic unless the system by which intelligence is gathered and reported in the game is also accurate. Computer wargames generally follow a system whereby some enemy units are detected and seen, and others not. At best, you see on the map some units and not others. This is all right as far as it goes, but it does not truly simulate the data that a commander knows and doesn’t know about his enemy’s order of battle, strength, position, and intentions. CRISIS
does simulate all the classic information sources: unit reports, scouts, air reconnaisance, spies, and signals intelligence. But it goes beyond this, also simulating the way in which this information is filtered and sorted by the intelligence staff to present a picture of enemy strength, organization, and intentions to the commander.

Logistics, on the other hand, has a bad name in the wargaming world. Many players shy away from it, viewing it as boring and too much work. Yet, nothing is more important to real (as opposed to game) military strategy than logistics: “Amateurs think strategy, professionals think logistics” the old saw goes. There is a reason for this. Reading military history, you are struck by the fact that all successful campaigns have been dominated, yes dominated, by logistics. Most
campaigns that have failed have failed for logistic reasons.

Control of logistics is the vital key to victory in a strategic campaign. It always has been, is now, and always will be. This is a real world fact, regardless of whether the wargaming genre ignores it or not.

What a wargame needs most to achieve a realistic simulation of strategy is an accurate, but painless, simulation of the logistics of real armies. CRISIS offers such a simulation, implemented automatically so that a player does not have to manage it in detail, but must understand and control it to impose his will upon his opponent.

In these implementations of realistic intelligence and logistics, as well as a host of other details, CRISIS moves beyond what has been done so far in PC-based strategic wargames. For perhaps the first time, wargamers and those who are interested in military operations past, present, and future have a wargaming system that truly provides “Strategic Realism”.

CRISIS is very challenging to play, but it does not achieve this by creating artificial difficulties, such as the need to micromanage a vast array of military details. Every effort is made, instead, to simplify anything and everything that can be simplified. CRISIS is challenging because understanding, developing, and executing winning military strategy is challenging; and the game faithfully reproduces this truth. Great generals have been the exception, not the rule in
history — playing CRISIS will help you understand why.

*******************

Will you like it? I did and I wish I could write a detailed review but I haven’t played it in years, so my advice would be to download it yourself (the file is small and it is free!) and toy with it. Although it was originally intended for retail sale, the game site hasn’t been updated in years, so it looks like further improvements are highly unlikely. Quite frankly, I am pleasantly surprised the link still works!.

Drew W.
November 15, 2005

*****

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CRISIS Strategic Wargaming System

Related posts:

1. Wargaming in the classroom
2. ACW Miniature Wargaming
3. Wargaming Contests

The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864
by Philip L. Secrist

PART II – Resaca Rediscovered
Part II of the book discusses the post-battle state of the Resaca Battlefield. Secrist, a noted relic hunter, describes the positives and negatives which have arisen as a result of that practice, and he also dedicates a chapter to the construction of I-75 directly over the battlefield. Secrist concludes with a “State of Preservation” epilogue for Resaca.

Chapter 8 – With The Passing Of Time
The events at Resaca were nearly forgotten in the years after the war, passes over by larger battles. Only one marker, that of the 103rd Ohio, was placed on the field of battle by veterans or those representing veterans. The former Western & Atlantic Railroad eventually fell into the state of Georgia’s hands, and it was used as a tourist line from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Battles of the Atlanta Campaign, including Resaca, were heavily promoted. The U.S. Government searched for and buried Union (emphasis Secrist’s) soldiers in a National Cemetery. State and local authorities did the same for fallen Confederates. Secrist notes that mix-ups inevitably occurred and some men were buried among their former enemies. The creation of these local Confederate Cemeteries led to the designation of April 26 as Confederate Memorial Day. Secrist, who has walked the Resaca Battlefield since the 1950′s, says the battlefield has hardly changed since 1864. The one exception, of course, was the construction of I-75 directly over part of the battlefield. Interest in the battle waned until the 1960′s centennial celebration, and Resaca became a favorite spot of relic hunters. Secrist even notes that you could simply pick up pieces of artillery shells right off the ground in those days! Secrist believes that relic hunting has its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, relic hunting allows for a greater understanding of the battle. On the minus side, obviously, is the destruction wrought by those who do not repair damage.

Chapter 9 – A Century Later–New Interest
Chapter 9 talks about the various contributions of relic hunters to the further understanding of the battle Larry Thornton, a resident of Dalton, Georgia, studies primary source materials and then verifies or refutes this information by careful studies of the battlefield. He then stores this information in a computer. Thornton believes the battlefield should be purchased (as of 1997) due to its pristine nature. Ernest Rutledge found a body in the path of I-75 as it was being laid in the early 1960′s. The body might be that of a Confederate officer who had his right foot amputated not long after the battle. The third relic hunter Mr. Secrist mentions is Jack Melton. Melton has become an expert on field artillery projectiles through his interest in relic hunting. All of these men contributed to the study of the war due to that interest.

Chapter 10 – Construction of Interstate-75
In 1959, Georgia Highway Department archaeologist Dan F. Morse found out that I-75 would pass directly over the Resaca battlefield. He was able to get permission for eleven weeks of excavations before the work began. This work was done in the summer of 1960. Unfortunately, Secrist says, most of the work was done at the intersection of Hardee’s and Hood’s lines. This area suffered very little damage, since just the area covered by the Interstate was disturbed. However, the area of Polk’s battlefield to the south was not studied in any detail, and it was later destroyed due to the need for an interchange at that spot. Secrist says that the area of Polk’s battlefield has been irretrievably lost to historians. On those parts of hills in that area that were not destroyed, Secrist says you can still see well-preserved earthworks. To make matters worse, the survey turned up nothing new to contradict the work of earlier Resaca historians. The intrusion of I-75 has several negative effects, all of which contribute to misunderstandings and misinterpretation of the battlefield, even by historians. Mapping errors and incorrect troop placements have resulted.

Resaca Preservation Progress – An Epilogue
Secrist wrote an epilogue showing the current state of preservation of Resaca. As of 1997, almost 1200 acres of pristine battlefield was on the eve of being purchased. I’m not sure how this turned out. If anyone reading this knows one way or the other, by all means leave a comment for me at the bottom of this entry. Secrist says the battlefield needs to be saved because we have a window to the past. George Barnard took numerous photographs of the area in 1864, and historians can learn a lot by comparing these to modern photos.

Notes, Bibliography, and Index
You should keep in mind while reading the comments below that this book is very thin at just over one hundred pages. I don’t want what I’m about to say to come across as being overly harsh. With that caveat out of the way, let’s proceed. There are only three pages of notes in the book. That doesn’t compare very favorably to a lot of the tactical studies I’ve read. Neither do the one page bibliography and the two page index. Secrist relies almost exclusively on the Official Records for this volume. I get the impression that Mr. Secrist knows a great deal about Resaca, but this book is just not very large. It doesn’t go into much detail, and I believe a much larger book on the battle can be written. Whether that book gets written by Mr. Secrist or someone else remains to be seen.

Maps & Wargaming
1. The maps are pretty good as far as topographic lines go, but the rest of the important items are lacking. Each army is depicted as one large line, and most of the time only Corps-level labels are applied. There are some other maps from the Official Records Atlas and other sources, but they are fairly small and hard to read.

2. Due to the short length of the book and the average nature of the maps, there is not much here for a wargamer. I’d recommend looking around for published scenarios rather than attempting to create your own for Resaca, whether you are a computer, board, or miniatures wargamer.

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

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The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864, Part 3

Related posts:

1. The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864, Part 1
2. The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864, Part 2
3. Struggle for the Shenandoah: Essays on the 1864 Valley Campaign, Part 3

The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864
by Philip L. Secrist

Chapter 1 – The Plan of Battle
1. Secrist briefly discusses Sherman’s plan of action prior to the Atlanta Campaign. Sherman was looking to win a decisive engagement somewhere south of Rome, Georgia. Johnston’s Army would then disintegrate, leaving the way open to Atlanta with little or no resistance. As Sherman confronted Johnston along Rocky Face Ridge near Dalton, Georgia, he knew he couldn’t attack this impregnable position directly. In a move soon to become very familiar to all involved, Sherman sent McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee on a flanking move towards Snake Creek Gap, while keeping Johnston’s attention with the larger Army of the Cumberland. Secrist states that transportation was key to the campaign. Without control of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, which ran south from Chattanooga to Atlanta, Sherman couldn’t feed his troops. In essence the, the campaign became a daily fight over the railroad, and Resaca was the “first important contest for that railroad”.

2. George Thomas actually proposed the flanking move to Sherman and offered to lead the Army of the Cumberland, but Sherman turned him down and chose McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee instead. Sherman distrusted the ability of Thomas and his men to move quickly, which would be a necessity in this type of flanking operation. Once through Snake Creek Gap, McPherson was to proceed east to cut the Western & Atlantic somewhere near Calhoun, Georgia (which was due south of Resaca). Sherman ordered McPherson to push ahead, because he feared a slow pursuit in which Johnston would gain strength while Sherman lost it in detachments to guard his supply line.

Chapter 2 – First Try for Resaca
1. Secrist describes the area around Resaca as “rough and hilly farmland…interspersed in 1864 with thick underbrush”. The town itself had been named after the Mexican War Battle of Resaca de la Palma by laborers working on its buildings. In 1864, only a few dozen structures and a freight building existed. The Oostanaula and Conasauga Rivers bordered the town on the south and east, respectively. On May 7, Johnston got word of Federals at Lafayette, just west of his picket line. On May 5, Loring’s Division had been ordered to Resaca, but had not reached that place by May 9 when 10,000 men of Dodge’s XVI Corps appeared. The only troops the Confederates had present were two regiments of Cantey’s Brigade and and the small cavalry brigade of Grigsby. Dodge thought he was a diversion while other troops pushed on north of town to cut the railroad, but in fact he was supposed to be the main effort. There had been a misunderstanding between McPherson and Sherman as well. Sherman wanted McPherson to cut the railroad and entrench across it. McPherson thought he was to cut the railroad, then retreat and hold Snake Creek Gap. In any event, Dodge’s troops drove Cantey and the Rebel cavalry into the main Resaca works with ease. At this point, Secrist asserts that McPherson merely needed to order his men forward and Resaca was theirs. Instead, McPherson sent all available cavalry to the railroad, where they destroyed a small section north of Resaca. Veatch’s Division of Dodge’s Corps was then ordered northeast to wreck the railroad, but was inexplicably ordered to halt and return to Bald Hill (west of Resaca). McPherson retreated that night to Snake Creek Gap.

2. McPherson’s failure to cut the railroad is one of the major controversies of the Atlanta Campaign (and in fact, the entire Civil War). I don’t know all that much about this controversy, having read Albert Castel’s Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864 around 13 years ago. However, my ignorance doesn’t necessarily have to be yours. Mark Grimsley’s blog has an excellent set of entries on McPherson’s decisions at Snake Creek Gap.

Chapter 3 – The Battle at the Angle
1. On the evening of May 11, Sherman ordered all of his Corps to Resaca, with only Howard’s IV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland following Johnston directly south down the railroad. After some rapid marches, the Union Army set up on the hills west and northwest of Resaca on May 13. McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee set up on the right flank, with Thomas’ Cumberlanders in the center. Schofield’s Army of the Ohio arrived on the far left on the morning of May 14, and Howard’s IV Corps extended Schofield’s line farther left that afternoon. The Confederates formed a semicircle west and north of Resaca. Polk’s Corps faced McPherson while Hardee took on Thomas and Schofield. Hood’s Corps made up the far right. On May 14, Thomas and Schofield were ordered to make a large pivot to attack the Rebels.

2. Judah’s and Cox’s Divisions of the XXIII Corps ended up bearing the brunt of the attack at The Angle, a bend in Hardee’s works, but Carlin’s Brigade of Palmer’s XIV Corps made the first attacks at 9:00 A.M. This attack degenerated into desultory firing the rest of the day. Judah attacked soon afterward, but he clumsily handled his division and blundered into the left flank of the XIV Corps. His attack did not last long, and Judah was sacked several days later for his ineptness. Due to Judah’s quick repulse, Cox faced fire on his front and flank. He did manage to take some advanced Confederate works, but he soon was stopped. The attack had not been well coordinated. Secrist says, “all things considered, the limited success of Sherman’s brigadiers at the forks of the creek that day was not especially surprising”. Not long after this lull, Howard’s IV Corps arrived, but they were unable to stretch the left flank of the Union line to the Conasauga River. Hood showed up opposite Howard on Hardee’s right. After the XXIII Corps attack the Federals opened a 3-hour bombardment of the Rebel lines. Hotchkiss’ Confederate Battery was completely disabled by 11 A.M. of the 15th by counterbattery fire alone.

Chapter 4 – Stopped by the 5th Indiana Battery
By mid-afternoon of May 14 Sherman gave up his attacks on The Angle. Howard’s IV Corps had arrived by this time. Newton’s Division took the place of Cox’s XXIII Corps Division, allowing him to withdraw and replenish his ammunition. Wood extended the line farther left (east), and Stanley’s Division attempted to extend the flank to anchor on the Conasauga River. Unfortunately for the IV Corps, Stanley didn’t have enough men. The Confederates saw that Stanley’s flank was in the air, and two divisions of Hood’s Corps (Stewart and Stevenson) were sent to attack. Stewart’s Division got confused in the woods, and they moved due north, never finding the Union flank. Stevenson, however, moved off in a northwesterly direction and routed one of Newton’s brigades. They were moving forward against the 5th Indiana Battery when Robinson’s Brigade (3rd B/1st D/XX Corps) moved up in support. The guns and the infantry were enough to stop Stevenson cold. Secrist says the Confederate “effort was too feeble to pose a decisive threat”, and believes that nightfall, a poorly coordinated Confederate attack, and a generous measure of good luck saved the Union left.

Chapter 5 – Polk’s Battlefield
1. While Hood’s attack was going on, a fight was taking place on Polk’s far left on some hills along the Oostanaula River. Secrist believes that Sherman had an excellent opportunity here to trap and crush Johnston’s Army. Sherman’s “decision to capture these hills seems, in retrospect, to have been almost an afterthought”. McPherson decided to assault the low hills to prevent Polk from reinforcing Hood over on the Rebel right. With possession of the hills, the Union batteries could fire on the Railroad Bridge across the Oostanaula from only a quarter mile away!

2. Logan’s XV Corps attacked at 6 P.M., and Cantey’s Brigade, poor in body and spirit, fled before this attack. The main Rebel line 400 yards away fired artillery point-blank into the new Union position. Polk realized too late that he needed to get possession of those hills back immediately. The Union troops dug earthworks to consolidate their gains, and Polk attacked twice, but by 8 P.M. gave up trying to retake the hills. Fighting lasted until 10 P.M. Secrist says Sherman was preoccupied with defending against an attack or making sure he was ready to follow if Johnston retreated rather then with the idea of attacking himself. He says Johnston realized that he was in trouble should Sherman decide to attack his left at Resaca. Sherman’s right was less than 500 yards from the railroad bridge, and only a little farther from Johnston’s pontoon bridges. Secrist calls Polk’s Corps “newly-constituted and un-battle tested”, and says Sherman should have attacked on May 15. Instead, Sherman chose to simply entrench artillery on the hills.

3. Johnston had no reserves, while Sherman had Corps-size reserves. Secrist compares this situation to McClellan and Lee at Antietam, and says Sherman lost an opportunity at Resaca similar to McClellan’s at that battle. I find that to be a very interesting comparison, and one that I had not heard made prior to reading this book.

Chapter 6 – The Fight for the Four-Gun Battery
1. By May 15, Johnston was more worried about a Union force that had crossed south of the Oostanaula several miles west of Resaca. It turned out to be only a part of one Federal division, but Johnston sent Walker’s Division to deal with the threat.

2. Johnston proposed to attack Howard’s IV Corps on May 15. This attack actually started at 4 P.M., but the Federals had a larger assault in the works in the same area. Hood’s men didn’t get far before Geary’s and Butterfield’s XX corps divisions attacked Van Den Corput’s Cherokee Battery several hundred yards east of the Angle in a slightly advanced work. By this time, Johnston thought the Federals south of the Oostanaula were part of a larger effort there and tried to call of Hood’s attack, but it was too late. Stephenson and Stewart didn’t coordinate well, and Secrist says they never received orders countermanding their attack. “May 15 was a mix of confusion, frustration, and bloodshed” in Hood’s Corps, according to Secrist.

3. Hooker prepared in great detail for a limited gain, but even that wasn’t accomplished. Secrist says May 15 wasn’t one of Hooker’s better days. Howard was to support his left while the XXIII Corps took care of his right. The Union troops secured ground in a ravine fronting the works of the Cherokee Battery and stayed all afternoon. That night they drug the four guns of the Cherokee Battery away after digging a hole in the Confederate earthworks. Secrist concludes that “despite the rejoicing produced by the capture of the Confederate battery, it was quite clear to all that the Union gains that day had fallen far short of expectations”.

4. Johnston “quietly and skillfully abandoned Resaca” on the evening of May 15. Secrist points out that Sherman had neglected to close this route by attacking. He is very critical of Sherman, saying he was not good at tactics and that his reputation in that area is wholly undeserved. While I am a fan of “Cump” Sherman, I tend to agree to an extent with Secrist. Sherman’s performance at Shiloh and Missionary Ridge among others could leads one to a conclusion similar to Secrist’s. Secrist also claims that the Confederate Army would most certainly have been doomed if McPherson had attacked again on May 15 along the Oostanaula. I disagree because rarely were Civil War armies destroyed as a result of a battle, and I think Johnston would have fought off McPherson from behind his strong entrenchments and escaped anyway. I think it might have hastened Atlanta’s fall had McPherson successfully attacked, but I don’t believe that Johnston’s Army would have been destroyed outright.

Chapter 7 – The Battlefield Abandoned – Sherman Moves South
1. The dead were buried by the Federals on May 16 and the following days. Casualties exceeded those at First Bull Run, but were dwarfed by some larger battles. Secrist believes that “examined alone…Resaca should add no luster to Sherman’s reputation”. He says that Sherman had large numerical advantage (2:1), and that people have called him a tactical genius, but that McClellan was cashiered for a similar performance at Antietam. According to the author, Sherman’s reputation for tactical success was not warranted, and Sherman never claimed he was a master tactician. He goes on to say that in numerous battles, “Sherman consistently demonstrated mediocrity”. Secrist again goes back to talking about Sherman’s 2:1 strength advantage and that he should have “destroyed” his enemy. I say that this rarely if ever happened, and that Sherman is being held to an ahistorically high standard in this case. Secrist says that Resaca was a major strategic defeat for Sherman and that after this Sherman “reverted to his proven strength–that of master raider”. Secrist finishes off the chapter by saying that Sherman’s reputation is unwarranted, though he should get credit for waging a campaign based on his Army’s and his own limitations. I again disagree to an extent I don’t think he waged a campaign based on limitations so much as waging one based on his strengths. Sherman was an excellent strategist, and his campaign, aside from the ill-advised assault at Kennesaw Mountain, was a model of maneuver to avoid bloodshed. Sherman advanced many miles farther than Grant with far less total casualties during similar time frames, although Robert E. Lee might have had something to do with that.

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

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The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864, Part 2

Related posts:

1. The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864, Part 1
2. The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864, Part 3
3. Struggle for the Shenandoah: Essays on the 1864 Valley Campaign, Part 3

The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864
by Philip L. Secrist

Philip Secrist’s book on the Battle of Resaca is unique. No other books on the Battle exist. That alone makes it valuable, at least until a larger, more definitive monograph is written. Going into this one I don’t know too much about it. The book looks rather thin at 102 pages. On the plus side, there seems to be quite a few maps, including some in color. Most have modern topographical lines with unit positions superimposed over top. This is okay, but since an Interstate Highway now runs through the battlefield the topography has changed tremendously in that area. However, the rest of the battlefield apparently remains in pristine condition. The forest is tough to see except on the color maps, but since this is modern tree cover it doesn’t matter much anyway. The units are rarely displayed lower than Division level, however, with the exception of the Blakeslee maps. Some of the maps are pretty small and a little hard to read, but this is a minor flaw. The book was published by Mercer University Press, and appears to be somewhat of an effort to make Civil War enthusiasts aware of the Preservation fight at Resaca. Part I of the book focuses on the battle, while Part II focuses on Resaca after the fighting ended, from 1864 to the present day. Since the book was so short, I’ve already read it in its entirety over the last two days. I hope to cover an overview of the book today, Part I tomorrow, Part II on Thursday, and have a review up Friday. I haven’t forgotten about Tempest at Ox Hill, and should have some posts on it as well.

Introduction
by Tom Watson, Chairman, Mercer University Press
In the Introduction, Tom Watson discusses the book, the battle, and the author. Watson gives a short overview of how Sherman and Johnston came to fight at the little village of Resaca. Philip Secrist is well-qualified to write this book, having been a frequent visitor to the Battlefield since 1958. He originally wrote Part I as an article in the Spring 1978 issue of Atlanta Historical Society Journal entitled Resaca: For Sherman a Moment of Truth. Watson also relates that Secrist is a noted relic hunter and Chairman of the Georgia Civil War Commission.

Foreword
In the Foreword, Secrist describes his very first trip to Resaca back in the late 1950′s. At that point, the Interstate hadn’t been started yet, and the battlefield was in pristine condition. He says that the artillery shells were so numerous that you could pick them up right off of the ground. In the early 1960′s, I-75 destroyed a portion of the battlefield, crossing Union or Confederate works four separate times. Secrist has been a frequent visitor ever since. Part I was described in the Introduction, but Secrist takes a moment to describe Part 2 in some more detail here. Secrist writes of his role in the Georgia Civil War Commission as Chairman, and their preservation efforts at Resaca. For more information on the Battle, visit the Friends of Resaca Battlefield web site.

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Check out Brett’s list of the Top 10 Civil War Blogs!

Read many Civil War Book Reviews here at TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog!

Check out Beyond the Crater: The Petersburg Campaign Online for the latest on the Siege of Petersburg!

Post from: TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864, Part 1

Related posts:

1. The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864, Part 3
2. The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign 1864, Part 2
3. Struggle for the Shenandoah: Essays on the 1864 Valley Campaign, Part 3