USA > Ohio > History One hundred and eleventh regiment O. V. I > Part 5
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Iron buds from Kenesaw were rudely set in the bodies of the pines, and frequently blossomed out in splinters on the other side. Our men got such shelter as they could. along the rugged side, in trenches where trenches could be made, or shelter behind friendly rocks, or in storm worn gullies.
General Blair had, in the mean time, brought his 10,000 men
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into our line, so that the losses of the campaign were substantially compensated so far as numbers were concerned. Johnston by his retreat had taken up his rear detachments, while by the great extension of our line from Chattanooga, we were compelled to greatly. enlarge our number on detached service. Johnston's army had been largely reinforced since the campaign commenced, and although we still outnumbered him, his defensive policy constantly neutralized that advantage. As an athlete in training gives and receives blows to harden his muscles, so we had given and received blows on many a battle field. The veterans of Donaldson, Shilo, Corinth, Vicksburg, and Champion Hill, of Stone River, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge and Knoxville, had gathered around the base of Kenesaw to drive the Confederates from the last mountain position upon the line of their retreat on Atlanta.
The game of flanking had been played so often, that General Sherman determined to change his tactics, and try to break the. rebel line. For that purpose two charging columes, one under McPherson, and the other under General Thomas, on the 27th day. of June moved to the assault, the first on Little Kenesaw and the other around the flank of the main mountain. The order had been given to us to press the enemy vigorously in our front, so that be should not be able to reinforce the points where the contemplated attacks were to be made, and in case opportunity for success should offer, to charge and follow up any advantages gained.
After Resaca, this was the severest engagement of the campaign to that date, so far as the troops engaged in the principal move- ments were concerned. Both attacks were repulsed, costing us the lives of Generals Harker and McCook, and the loss in killed and wounded of about 2500 men. 'While this engagement was going on, our corps advanced across Olley's Creek on the extreme right and skirmished into position. After forming our line a detachment of three companies from our regiment were further advanced' about one half mile as skirmishers. We deployed and passed through the woods to a belt of cleared land bordering a small creek, where we could plainly see the enemy constructing rifle pits upon the crest of the farther slope of the valley. Upon looking for other detach- ments with whom to form a continuous line, there were none within sight upon the right or left of us. With a mounted orderly I proceeded to beat up the woods for recruits. About 100 rods to the northwestward we ran against a rail barricade facing towards our
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lines, behind which the guard, at sight of us, sprang to their guns. We could distinctly hear the click of the locks as the hammers were brought back, and throwing ourselves flat on our horses we went down hill into the brush without delay or ceremony. Upon making a circuit through the woods we came upon the post from the north- ward and then found, what we at first suspected was true, that it was a detachment from the 20th Corps, sent out as skirmishers to join with us in covering the front of two brigades. The Colonel had got his geography sadly tangled in the underbrush, and after exhausting his stock of patience and profanity, had concluded to "play a lone hand," and settled down for the night with his back to the enemy, and a rail barricade in front to protect him from his friends. It frequently happens that a rail barricade is insufficient for that purpose. When I suggested to the Colonel the impropriety of his doing picket duty for Johnston, he would not believe my insinuation to be founded in fact, until, from a little hill in rear of his gun-stacks, he saw the enemy shoveling earth from their trenches.
Woodcraft was valuable in such a campaign. No greater blunders than that, have led to very serious disasters. In reading the history of the campaigns in Virginia, one is surprised to see how many officers were like the Colonel, facing the wrong way, when their services were most needed.
On the night of the 2nd of July, Johnston's army turned its back on Kenesaw and silently fell back behind the shelter of this perpendicular line of works and passed on to the Chatahoochee at the railroad bridge.
On the morning of the 3rd of July we moved southward to the vicinity of Smyrnia camp-ground, where we found Johnston's Confederate forces safely stowed away in another heavy line of earth works, prepared for him before hand. We afterward learned that one of the best engineer officers of the Southern army had been for months employed in command of negro fatigue parties, digging entrenchments under General Johnston's instructions, to be used in case he was forced to retreat upon Atlanta ; and hence it was, that for over one hundred miles the rebel army had habitually retreated at night, and though we followed with the most commendable promptness, we would get to a new position, only in time to see a cross section of them, of the width of a man's hand, between the earth and the head-log of their entrenchments,
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The average Southerner is ambitious to be considered indiffer- ent to danger. His record in the Atlanta campaign does not sustain the claim, but, on the contrary, he exhibited that wise prudence which infliets the maximum injury, with the least possible exposure.
In the new order of advance, General Thomas was on the left, our corps in the center, and General McPherson on the extreme right. We celebrated the 4th of July here, with shotted guns instead of blank cartridges, in trying to bring Johnston to an engagement in a fair field, but after pressing up at all points, found him disinclined to deliver battle outside of his works. His new position, placed both of his flanks, on the Chatahoochee River, and covered the bridges behind him.
Up to this time, Johnston's flanks had given him no end of trouble. Now, with his flanks securely covered by the river, he may have fancied himself secure. General Sherman, was a very restless man. What an infinite amount of trouble he must have made for somebody, when he was a boy. I venture that Johnston looked upon him as a very undesirable neighbor. It is related of him, that he sat up nights, inventing new ways for annoying people who did not dress as he did.
The rains had ceased, and it was intensely hot, but the hard service in the Georgia woods, had given our uniforms ample ventila- tion. On the 8th of July we made preparation for crossing the Chatahoochee. Moving behind the left wing of our. army, we followed a country road, which led to the river, at a point near the mouth of Soap Creek, to the eastward of Marietta. As we passed down the ravine to the river, we were saluted by a battery posted upon the opposite bank, and worked by a detachment of Georgia State Militia. which threw sbells somewhere in our neighborhood, but not alarmingly near. Some old flat boats were secured, and detachments of men paddled over in face of the fire of the militia, and landed at the foot of the bluffs, on which they were entrenched.
As soon as our men got a footing on the other side, they charged up the bluffs, capturing the rebel guns, from which the valiant militiamen fled at the first fire. Why is it that militiamen are so economical in the matter of fighting, and so extravagant in the matter of personal adornment? Is it because their decorations are too valuable to be subjected to the danger of capture, on the one hand, or, that the glitter of tinsel and gold lace is supposed to have the effect of charming away danger from the wearer, on the
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other hand? An answer to this question, with a remedy 18 carats fine, would be a fine thing in the problem of republican govern- ment.
From the river we moved back about one half mile, and took position upon some very sharp ridges, where we tried to throw up the regulation rifle pits. The stone, here, cropped out so near the surface, that we could not get earth enough to form the usual embankment, and so we quarried stone enough to afford partial protection in case of an attack. For eight days we lay there in the woods, without having level ground enough to sleep on. After the lapse of many years, I remember very distinctly, that the ground was very dry ; that the weather was very hot ; that the stones were all set in the earth like teeth, endwise; that it was exceedingly difficult without crowbars to get the stones out of their sockets ; that the gray lizards outnumbered us two to one; that we found it difficult to get water, and easy to slide down hill when we wanted to stay on top; and altogether, that it was one of the most uncom- fortable places we ever got into, and we were glad, when, on the 18th of July our bugles sounded the assembly, and we moved out, away from the river, to the southward, in the direction of Cross-Keys, where we had a lively little fight with dismounted cavalry, who had built rail barricades across the road. However, we soon dislodged them and kept on, arriving that evening at Decatur, where the cavalry had to be again reminded, that cavalry were designed for active service, and that it was neither necessary or proper for them to stay long in one place.
On the 19th we wheeled to the westward, and with McPherson's army on our left and Thomas' on our right, moved toward Atlanta, keeping a heavy detachment deployed as skirmishers, and the balance of the regiment following closely in line of battle. After crossing a low bushy swail we found a sharp binff, beyond the crest of which, lay a cornfield. Here we developed the enemy again. In charging across this cornfield our skirmishers drew upon themselves a sharp fire, but succeeded in getting into the timber on the other side.
Here Lieutenant Woodruff was struck by a rifle ball, which passed through his body, breaking his right arm on the way.
Beyond the field we saw in the woods the rebel earth-works; but the owners only made a show of staying there, and during the night abandoned the works and retired out of range. While we .
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were meeting with this slight resistance, General Thomas' army was attacked soon after passing Peachtree Creek. There was some desperate fighting there, which continued during the day. While we were not seriously engaged, our advance relieved the strain upon our right wing, which by very gallant conduct, repulsed the rebel force at all points. In the mean-time McPherson was making iron neckties for the trees along the Augusta railroad, to the south of us, and pressing well southward of the rebel line, meeting with little or no resistence.
In the morning we found the whole Peachtree Creek line abandoned, and moved, without further opposition, to the Howard House, a large white house standing about a mile east of the main line of intrenchment about Atlanta. General Sherman having come upon the ground with our corps, as the center of the army, made the Howard house his headquarters. We stacked arms near the house, and not being assigned to any position on the line, were, on the 22nd of July, lying around loose, near our arms, awaiting orders. Suddenly we heard firing to our left, and rear, apparently upon the ground we had so recently swept over in coming into position. There was a stir about General Sherman's headquarters. General McPherson and staff rode rapidly away in the direction of the firing. Apprehension was visable on every face. Presently an officer appeared urging his horse to its utmost speed, and announced to General Sherman that General McPherson had been killed. Instantly came the response, "Go, tell General Logan to assume command and fight 'em, - 'em, fight 'em. Then turning to one of his staff, he dispatched an order to General Howard, who was holding the line to the northward, to attack the intrenchments about the city and break the line if possible.
By this time the occasional boom of artillery toward Decatur, had settled into a steady, rapid throbbing roar, while the sharp whip-like crack of rifles told every experienced ear that the muzzles of the tubes were pointed toward us, and speaking in such constant- ly decreasing intervals that in a moment the volume had broadened and deepened into a tempest. Then it was evident that our whole left wing was engaged, and fighting for its integrity.
Mean-while Howard's rifles were cracking to the northward, and his lines of blue, preceded by heavy lines of skirmishers, were moving to the assault. Then along the entrenchments of the city, from left to right, the batteries take up the cudgels, and send their
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iron dumb-bells with boom and hiss, and clatter, among us. There gouging out a valley, without providing any brook to fill it. Yonder filling the air with clouds of smoke, from whence comes iron rain ; here, pruning back a tree so short that no branches have been left with which to commence new business.
Suddenly a new feature grows upon the face of things. Out of the mouth of a ravine, to the southward, is spouting a double line of battle, and some one shouts, "There comes the graybacks." They swarm down the further slope of the valley, which as we face south- ward, lies at our feet. At the foot of that slope stands Captain DeGress' battery of 20 pound Parrots, growling at a rebel battery on the city line, to the westward. A single volley from the rebel rifles swept away the Captains horses, and the raw infantry recruits together. I believe that battery was captured without the loss of a single man. Of all my army experiences I never saw anything so rediculous. The Confederates came down in a hesitating, half confident sort of a way, as if they expected some one would order them back, which order they had decided before hand to obey with alacrity, and ask no questions. But nobody ordered them back.
At this juncture "Uncle Billy" took a hand. Sending an officer 1 to us, we were assigned a position on the crest of the hill, facing the new danger and reaching from the Howard House westward to the road leading across the valley. We went upon that line as though blown out. of a mortar. Bayonets were again driven into the ground and with a single sweep you transfer a rail fence to the new position, then followed limbs, logs and all the impedimenta within reach. Five minutes ago by the watch, you were only 460 strong, now a thousand Confederates cannot pass to the north side of that line without first making an assignment to you, of all their arms and accoutrements.
The city line has seen and understood the manoeuvre, and now their shells are bursting overhead like corn in a popper. The rebel rifles from the valley reach us, as it were, with the tips of their fingers. Upon our left, three batteries move out of the adjacent brush and go into position at a gallop.
General Wood's Brigade has quietly slipped over the hill side into the valley and breaking into four columns move forward in echelon. Then the eighteen guns above their heads open upon the enemy, the infantry within easy range, open fire, and the rebels go from the field in confusion, loosing more than they had gained. In
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the mean-time, the fire has slackened to the northward, the city lines there are too strong for Howard. More cheering news comes from the left. The struggle has been one of the fiercost of the war: The Vicksburg veterans have added to their reputation an hundred fold. Logan has furnished strong evidence that "Generals are born, not made," and training schools, are at a discount.
Hood having criticised Johnston for not fighting; the Confed- erate government, in desperate mood, had given him Johnston's place, and ordered him to drive Sherman back to the Tennessee. When the night of the 22nd of July closed upon the bloody field, Hood found that with all his ponderous blows, he had not driven Sherman an inch, but his hammer had broken to fragments in bis hands, and driven sorrow and gloom into the hearts of his soldiers, and their people.
Thus ended what is known in history as the battle of Atlanta, although it was only one of the many battles fought around the Gate City of the South, before its defenders finally bowed to the inevitable.
The battle of the 22d of July, 1864, has fastened itself upon the memory of the nation as "the battle in which General McPherson was killed." Ohio's contribution to this signal victory was pre- eminent, in both talent of commanders, and the sterling fighting qualities of her regiments and batteries engaged. Among the list of Ohio's general officers, stands the names of General Sherman, General McPherson, General Leggett, General Fuller and General Force. -
The infantry regimental organizations included the 20th, 27th, 30th, 32d, 37th, 39th, 43d, 46th, 47th, 50th, 53d, 54th, 57th, 63d, 68th, 70th, 76th, 78th, 80th, 81st, 99th, 100th, 103d, 104th, 111th and 118th. In artillery, Co. D, 1st Ohio, Co. D. 3d Ohio, 4th Ohio, 7th, 8th, 10th, 14th, 15th, 19th and 26th.
Twenty-six Olrio regiments and ten Ohio batteries! Thirty-six Ohio battle flags of blue and gold ! Thirty-six suns flaming on the horizon ! Thirty-six sheaves of wheat! Thirty-six bundles of arrows !- emblematical of youthfulness, of fertility, and of warlike resources, confronted Hood's veterans, from the lines of the Armies of the Tennessee and Ohio. The bone and sinew of the pioneers of the Territory of the Northwest-Virginia's gift to the Union- transmitted to the first generation of their descendents, were there, approving the wisdom of the gift, and denying to the descendents of
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the donors, the right to change its peaceful boundaries to a hostile frontier.
Our losses in the battle were reported at 3,521 in killed, wounded and missing, together with ten pieces of artillery. The rebel dead upon the field, were nearly. equal to our whole loss, while we captured about two thousand more. Adding to this list, less than the usual proportion of wounded, would make Hood's loss at least 10,000 men. Hardee's Corps was so nearly destroyed that it was broken up and the regiments distributed to the remaining corps of the Confederate army.
After the battle of Peachtree Creek, this was the first general engagement, upon a fair field, of the Atlanta campaign. The attack was well planned; was executed by Hardee, supported by Cheatham, and had the very great advantage of being delivered without warning, unexpectedly, upon troops while upon the march. The attack, falling as it did, upon the flank and rear of the Army of the Tennessee, was unsuccessful, only because of the steadiness of troops who were accustomed to victory, and hence undismayed in the presence of any emergency.
The six-footer next to the orderly had by the attrition of two years active campaigning, become a near neighbor of the short man at the foot of the company. The pony and the Percheron were both in the team, and each knew the other's paces so well, that no one noticed the incongruity. The orderlies of companies had been often compelled to revise their company rosters, as the casualties of battle from day to day so shortened the list at roll-call, and finally they could name the ragged remnants from memory, so that the roster became only a remeniscence.
In a military point of view, the result of the battle was, that the rebel army had been beaten in a fight, mainly conducted by troops without intrenchments on either side. Hood's policy of attack, adopted by order of the Confederate government, and in barmony with his announeed notions, had, within a few days, proved disastrous on two battle fields, and the troops engaged on the rebel side were correspondingly depressed. The casualties of battle had made our force much stronger, by comparison with theirs, than before, while the successful repulses of rebel troops increased the individual confidence of our soldiers in their ability to beat the enemy in a fair fight. On the other hand, the loss to us of General McPherson was irreparable.
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He was one of the general officers whom the war brought into prominence, who was content in obeying the orders of his superior officers, without question or hesitation. Who neither schemed for political advantage at home, or military advancement at the front. Who neither went to a canteen for his courage, to a newspaper correspondent for his fame, nor sought military aggran- dizement by administering upon the military estates of his fellow officers, whom death had stricken on the way. Few, if any, of our military men, had so much to their credit, and so little for their friends to regret.
From the 22d of July to the first day of August we remained near the Howard House, east of Atlanta. After the battle of the 22d we went into position facing westward toward Atlanta, and constructed intrenchments. In the night following we pushed out a line of skirmishers to within speaking distance of the enemy's advance line and there constructed rifle pits. For ten days we relieved our pickets at night under cover of the darkness, while constantly the courtesies and compliments of war were being exchanged between the main lines. Every day, the ranks of the regiment, were being thinned by the rebel fire. The whistle of the rifle ball and the boom of the shell, had become so common, that soldiers had become careless, and exposed themselves unnecessarily.
During this interval the 15th, 16th and 17th Corps, composing the Army of the Tennessee, had passed in rear of our line to the northwestward, and were feeling their way through the woods to the westward of Atlanta, when, on the 28th near Ezra Church, another general engagement between our right wing and the enemy's left took place.
The rebels charged, and charged again, but gained no substan- tial advantage anywhere. They had added only another chapter to the folly of Hood's offensive policy. These movements had left our division occupying the extreme left of our line, with cavalry cover- ing our left flank. As the flanking movement was farther developed we were withdrawn entirely on the night of the first of August, and moved behind the lines of the 20th Corps. On the 2d we had moved around to the westward of Atlanta, and were throwing up intrench- ments on Utoy Creek, looking eastward toward the city. On the 23d our division took the advance, and we charged the rebel line near Heron's Mill, crossed the creek and took position upon a ridge with our flank resting upon the creek below.
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Owing to insubordination, on the part of officers of Beard's Division, which was ordered to support us, we were Jeft until nearly -night in the exposed advance position, without being able to make our attack as effective as it otherwise would have been.
Our division had been ordered to move at six o'clock in the morning, and we were in line ready to advance; but General Palmer commanding the 14th Corps, yielded such reluctant obedi- ence to General Schofield's order, that it was late in the forenoon 'before the advance was made. General Palmer claimed to outrank General Schofield, and when, by command of General Sherman, he was directed to take his orders from General Schofield, he asked to be relieved, and, as was too frequently the case, appeared more solicitous about his dignity than his duty. Happily for the western army these occasions were rarely conspicuous enough to be known by the troops.
In the long campaign through which we had passed, General Cox's division of our corps, had frequently found the enemy in its front, too strong to be readily disloged, whereupon our division moved through its lines, and drove the eremy before us so easily, that the wonder was why we had been called upon for assistance.
This treatment of our division had become so marked of late, that when upon this movement, we were marched through intrench- ments thrown up by Cox's troops of solidity enough to sustain a siege, the situation was too rediculous for further patience, and when some soldier shouted, "we are going out to clear Cox's front, as usual," the cry was taken up and carried from one end of the column to the other. This was the soldier protest against injustice, and it did not have to go through the circumlocution office either. It burned the ears of General Cox himself, as he sat among his staff a short distance away. The gallant rank and file of his command, were cut to the quick by the implied sneer at their fighting qaulities.
We had been imposed upon. Our soldiers knew it, and while they could not either resign or ask to be relieved, as Generals Hooker and Palmer did, they could shape public opinion, and make it exceedingly uncomfortable for their officers, when occasion re- quired.
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