USA > Ohio > The history of Fuller's Ohio brigade, 1861-1865; its great march, with roster, portraits, battle maps and biographies > Part 14
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To the survivors who fought this fight to the finish. it was a momen- tous affair. They lost some of their best and bravest men who had served with them three years. One of the most sorrowful results of this battle was the death of three comrades, mess mates. members of Company G. of the Twenty-seventh Ohio, who fell, killed apparently by one bullet, pass- ing though their necks. The men were Sergeant William B. Atwell, and Corporals Andrew J. McFarran and William Jaynes. Private H. C. Evans was wounded in this charge. This Smyrna line of earthworks was the only line carried by a charge during the Atlanta Campaign.
On July 5th, a march was made by the Division to the right flank of the army, a distance of eight miles. On the 7th, a camp was made near the Chattahoochee River on the extreme right of the army, on the Sand Town Ferry Road. The Confederates and Union men swam in the river and met each other, and some engaged in trading tobacco for coffee.
July 9th, march was made on roads that were heavy with deep, hot sand for sixteen miles and camp was made south east of Marietta. Georgia. In this section of the country, some of the soldiers found muscadines, (a kind of grape,) growing, which being a change from ordinary fare, the men ate with great relish. the rations having been for many months only bacon, hard bread and coffee.
On July 10th, the Division had a hot. dusty march of eleven miles to the left of the army. No halt was made except for meals and an occa- sional rest. This was the third march from one extreme flank of the Army to the other, made by the fourth Division during the Atlanta cam- paign. These movements required forced marches and in hot weather were extremely fatiguing on soldiers. At Rossville Factory the troops waded the Chattahoochee River which was more than waist deep and about a half a mile wide with a rapid current. Meanwhile a band standing in mid- stream. played "Yankee Doodle". General G. M. Dodge, writing of this says : "It was as fine a sight as I ever saw. when Fuller's Ohio Brigade, in line of battle forded the river. The enemy's Cavalry held the other side. The troops moved across, holding their guns and cartridge boxes high above their heads. The rebels poured in a heavy fire but it was too high. Now and then a boy would step into a hole and disappear for a moment, but all got across and immediately sought shelter under the steep bank. Fuller reformed and made a charge, cleaning out the enemy in short order.
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161
NATIONAL FORCES INVEST ATLANTA.
Camp was made on the south bank of the river, rifle pits were thrown up and the troops made a good bridge over the river. The Forty-third Ohio was detached to hold this bridge until the army transportations then loading at Marietta, could cross the river.
On Sunday July 17th, march was made toward Atlanta, engaging the enemy. July 18th camp was made at Nancy's Creek. July 19th. the Fourth Division moved at five o'clock in the morning and supported the force during the engagement at Peach Tree Creek, arriving at Decatur in time to receive a good shelling from the enemy's guns. The First Missouri Artillery of the Fourth Division wheeled into position and replied to the enemy with solid shot to such good effect that the enemy withdrew. In the evening part of the Fourth Division moved toward Atlanta, leaving the Sixty-third Ohio at Decatur.
Our successful contraction of the enemy's line encouraged us but dis- couraged him. From the 10th of June to the 3rd of July, there was con- tinuous battle. Our losses in the several corps were seven thousand five hundred and sixty-five. The Confederate losses, reported by Johnston were five thousand nine hundred and forty-eight, showing that our losses were less in proportion than in the relative strength of the two armies, namely, six to ten, which the desperate game of war justified.
The crossing of the Chattahoochee River and the breaking of the Au- gusta railroad was most handsomely executed and will be studied as an ex- ample of the art of war.
The Confederate General Johnston, anticipating the movement of the Union Ariny from the mountains toward the Chattahoochee River and Atlanta, had built strong abatis and redoubts. A thousand slaves had been at work for more than a month on these lines, which extended from the river above the railroad bridge to Turner's Ferry, about six miles in ex- tent in the valley of the Chattahoochee. We held possession of the river above for eighteen miles, as far as Rossville, and below ten miles to the mouth of the Sweetwater. We held the high ground overlooking the move- ments of the enemy. From a hill, we could see the houses in Atlanta, nine miles distant, and the whole of the intervening valley of the Chattahoochee. We could see the camps of men and large trains of covered wagons and could observe the preparations for our reception on the other side. John- ston was anxious to defend and to save Atlanta, which was a city of vital importance to his army, and to the Confederacy itself. The rebel army evacuated its trenches and crossed the river in the night, burning the rail- road trestle bridge and pontoons, leaving us in full possession of the north bank.
162
FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
In the meantime, stores were accumulated at Marietta and Allatoona, both fortified and garrisoned points. The movement of our army toward Atlanta was on a general right wheel, the Army of the Cumberland on the right, Army of the Ohio in the center, and Fuller's Fourth Division with the Army of the Tennessee well over toward Stone Mountain, breaking up the railroad, its advance reaching Decatur at night where it came into com- munication with Schofield. Our lines were advanced in compact order close up to these finislied intrenchments, strong parapets, with ditch, frize, chev- aux-de-frize, and abatis.
Dodge's two divisions (Sweeny's Second and Fuller's Fourth) of the Sixteenth Corps, were directed from the main road along a diagonal one, that led to the extreme left of the Army of the Tennescon, which was then held by Giles A. Smith's Division of the Seventeenth Corps, for the pur- pose of strengthening that flank. Intrenching tools were sent to erect bat- teries. Stoneman's Cavalry had crossed the river at Cambletown to threat- en the railroad below Atlanta.
At noon on the 20th, while the Army of the Cumberland was rest- ing, the enemy advanced rapidly from its trenches against them. After two hours of close conflict. the enemy retired leaving his dead and wounded on the field.
"On the 20th of July 1864, at the carrying of Leggett's Hill in front of Atlanta, Colonel Tom Reynolds of the Seventeenth Corps, was shot through the leg. When the surgeons were debating in his hearing the pro- priety of amputating it. he begged them to spare his leg, because, as he said, it was very valuable, being an imported leg. (He was of Irish birth). This well-timed piece of wit saved his leg, for the surgeons said that if he could perpetrate a joke at such a time, they would trust to his vitality to save his limb."
INVESTMENT OF ATLANTA.
On the 21st, the Fourth Division supported the National forces in bat- tle and moved to the left to a point one mile south of the Augusta and At- lanta Railroad.
On the morning of the 22nd of July, the 43rd Ohio started from the Chattahoochee River for Decatur, twenty miles distant, with a train of fif- teen hundred wagons. The fight was still in progress and General Sprague was making a most gallant resistance, with the Sixty-third Ohio, Twenty- fifth Wisconsin and Thirty-fifth New Jersey. The Forty-third was hurried forward by its Colonel and was placed in position to protect the wagon
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FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
train, while it filed off to the rear of the National Army. Through the audacity of Colonel Sprague combined with the promptness of Colonel Swayne and the fearless spirit of the men, not a single wagon was lost by the attack of Wheeler's and Iverson's Cavalry, thus averting a calamity that might have been fatal to the success of the National Army at that time.
Early in the morning of the 22nd of July, in moving forward, the Sixteenth Army Corps was thrown out of position by the contraction of the circle of investment of the city. The Fourth Division and the Second Division closed up near the extreme left and rear of the Seventeenth Corps . and the enemy fell back into their main works. These works were thirty feet high in some places, had been built by slave labor and were located on the easterly sine of the town of Atlanta. The writer in company with sev- eral officers went to the front to observe the situation. The Georgia militia was then occupying part of the fortifications. They were dressed as citizens. in white shirt sleeves. Their artillery was passing up a street apparent- ly withdrawing from their position, but it was really part of the enemy's force then moving to their right, around the Union Army's left and rear.
Sherman's Army at this time was stretched out from east to west about nine miles in length. It now closed up and invested the city. Gen- eral James B. McPherson, commanding the Army of the Tennessee. had General Logan's Fifteenth Army Corps across the Augusta Railroad, east of Atlanta. On its left was General Blair's Seventeenth Corps, with Gen- eral Dodge's left wing of the Sixteenth Corps. On the right of the Army of the Tennessee, were General Schofield's lines of the Army of the Ohio. Next on the right was General Thomas' Army of the Cumberland. Nearly all but the Sixteenth Corps were behind earthworks which had been hastily thrown up and nearly all had strong reserves.
On July 22nd, all wagon trains were parked in the rear. Orders were given to the troops of the Second and Fourth Divisions of Dodge's Sixteenth Corps, to destroy every rail and tie from Decatur up to the skirmish line. Lively skirmishing was going on in front of Thomas' and Schofield's com- mands, on their right, and occasionally a gun toward Decatur, was fired, too far to the left-rear to be explained by known facts.
General Fuller's Bugler, H. C. Parmalee, a soldier of Company G of the Twenty-seventh Ohio Regiment, had been fired upon by the enemy from the left-rear flank, while carrying orders, and he informed General Fuller of a large body of Confederates passing to our left. The General ordered him to sound the bugle call "into line". General McPherson hastily mounting his horse at headquarters, hurried down his lines to find what these sounds meant. He saw Sweeny's and Fuller's Division engage and
165
DEATH OF GENERAL MCPHERSON.
drive the enemy back, and with the remark "they are doing well". he rode along a road leading across the wooded valley and disappeared into tlie woods, doubtless with a sense of great security. The sound of musketry was heard and McPherson's horse came back wounded, bleeding and riderless. and McPherson, the great leader was dead, shot by a force that had got around the Seventeenth Corps, through the blind woods in the rear of our left flank. The ball had ranged upward across his body, near the heart. His remains were sent home to Clyde Ohio, and there buried. He came from an old family of Scotch Presbyterians. He was an accomplished en- gineer of the highest order, and he was a thoroughi soldier.
The railroad and wagon road from Decatur to Atlanta lay along a summit, from which the waters flowed by short steep valleys, into the Peach Tree and Chattahoochee to the west, and by other valleys of greater de- clivity toward the east. The ridges and level ground were mostly cleared, but where the valleys were broken, they were left in a state of nature; wooded and full of undergrowth.
McPherson's line of battle was across this railroad, along a general ridge, with a gentle but cleared valley to his front between him and At- lanta, and another valley behind him was clear of timber in part, but to his left and rear, the country was heavily wooded.
The Confederate General Hood, who had succeeded Johnston, during the night of July 21st, had withdrawn his army from his Peach Tree line and had occupied the fortified line of Atlanta, facing north and east. Leaving G. W. Smith's Division of militia, Stewart's and part of Hardee's Corps to oc- cupy the forts, his own Corps and part of Hardee's had marched out to the railroad, leading from McDonough to Decatur, and had turned so as to strike the left of McPherson's Army of the Tennessee "in air." At the same time, he had sent Wheeler's Division of cavalry against the trains parked at Decatur. Unluckily for our army, Gerrard's Division of Cavalry was away on a raid eastward to burn the bridges across the Ulcofauhatchee and yellow rivers, so that McPherson had no cavalry in hand to guard that flank.
THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA, GEORGIA, JULY 22ND, 1864.
The battle of July 22nd, was fought on the east side of Atlanta .. The troops engaged were the left wing of General Sherman's Union Army, consisting of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Corps, commanded by General McPherson, against the great bulk of General Hood's Confed- erate Army which was composed of Hardee, Cheatham and Walker divi- sions.
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1.66
BATTLE OF ATLANTA, JULY 22nd, 1864, 16TH ARMY CORPS I NGAGED.
On the left Gen Sweeney's 2d Div. Welker's Battery and 14th Ohio Battery, using cannister. Gen. Sweeney dismounted. Gen. Dodge and staff mounted in foreground. Gen. Mercy's Brigade charging Bates' Division just emerg- ing from distant woods. Bates repulsed with great loss.
On the right, distance, Gen. John W. Fuller's 4th Division checking Gen. W. H. T. Walker's Division, i assed, Gen. Fuller has seized the colors of the 27th Ohio and planted there is a rallying point. Gen. Walker killed. his Division repulsed with gre + loss.
167
BATTLE IN THE OPEN FIELD.
About one o'clock in the after noon the enemy had arrived at a point on the left and rear of the Union Army, and were well in position, they ad- vanced and struck the Union piekets, being enabled under cover of the for- est to approach quite near before he was discovered. Indeed his skirmish line had got into the field in the rear of General Giles A. Smith's Division of the Seventeenth Corps, unseen. At that moment, the Fourth Division with the exception of the Forty-third Ohio and the Sixty-third Ohio, and the Thirty-fifth New Jersey, and the Twenty-fifth Wisconsin, which were at Decatur, further east, was still closed up to the Seventeenth Corps, massed to strengthen any portion of the Union line, and at rest. The Second Division was north of the Augusta Railroad and was just in the best posi- tion to meet the coming enemy, who was curtained by the timber. Sudden- ly on the left, and rear, came the sound of firing. It startled the soldiers and instinctively the danger of a flank movement flashed upon their minds. Instantly they grasped their muskets. Orders were anticipated and every man fell into line. Officers mounted in great haste, and orderlies with dis- patches rode off at full speed. Orders to move were received in a mo- ment, to meet the impending danger on the left. The movement was on the double-quick for a distance of a half a mile, then faced to the south, formed quickly into line of battle, at right angles with the Seventeenth Corps and as quickly as it takes to tell it, the battle was on and raging with greatest fury. Connection with the Seventeenth Corps on the right of this new position was not complete. A gap of one half a mile or more was left unoccupied by Union troops. It was over this space on the unused road that General Fuller's command had just marched and on which General McPherson, commander of the Army of the Tennessee, was riding when he was ambushed and killed. He had passed of r troops who cheered him vociferously, had bowed his head in acknowledgement, with his usual gen- ial smile, and had ridden on unconscious of his danger to his death.
The Fourth Division moved quickly for position to save our trains or to avoid a worse disaster. The Second Division was separated from the Fourth Division by a transverse ravine. The right of the rebel line had struck our left flank while in motion. The rebels attacked boldly and re- peatedly but met an equally fierce resistance and on that bloody ground the battle raged from a little after noon till night.
When the enemy advanced, the men were lying upon the ground. No orders could keep them down. They rose to their feet, took deliberate aim and discharged their pieces.
As soon as the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio Regiments were halted, Company A of the Twenty-seventh Ohio, commanded by First Lieutenant Charles H. Smith, in the absence of Captain Bryan, was by
168
BATTLE OF ATLANTA, JULY 22d, 1864 Fuller's Division, 16th A. C., Engaged. General Fuller at the Front, Planting the Flag of the 27th Chio for a Charge,
169
UNION VICTORY DECISIVE.
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order thrown forward as skirmishers to cover the field in front. The men advanced with the skirmishers of the Thirty-ninth Ohio on the double- quick over a rise of ground and went across the field like veterans as they were. They were under a terrific fire from the enemy who had formed in masses at the edge of the dense wood, and who advanced their whole line upon the field, four deep, their bullets pattering on the ground like rain- drops. The skirmishers held them at bay until the order was given for the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth to charge. The two regiments sprang from the ground and rushed upon the enemy. Then came the impact of the two opposing forces-a battle waged in the open field, with no protection of earthworks on either side-a battle, the most sanguinary of the war.
The flags of the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio and of the Confederate regiments were piaced side by side, and two opposing forces fought with desperation and bitterness to gain the mastery, until the Con- federate lines were broken and driven back into cover of the woods. In the meantime a large body of the enemy had passed through the open space to the rear, so that Fuller's Division was actually surrounded on the front. right flank and rear.
General Fuller, observing this state of affairs, brought up part of a reserve regiment, the splendid Sixty-fourth Illinois, who struck the enemy, which had passed the rear, unawares, and pushed him back. At the same time, the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth made a half wheel and com- menced firing into their flank, compelling them to retreat in confusion from the field, for the second time. The two regiments followed them to the tim- ber, but again the enemy reformed their lines under command of General Walker, who was killed while urging his men, almost at the instant of their forward movement. He fell in front of the firing line of the Twenty-seventh Ohio, Company A. The two regiments now lay flat upon the ground, firing at the advancing enemy. At this moment, General Fuller seized the flag of the Twenty-seventh, raised it aloft, and the two regiments moved forward with a great shout and drove the enemy back in final defeat.
The sash and gauntlets belonging to General McPherson were found upon one of the enemy's dead. When the skirmishers were rejoining their regiment at the beginning of the engagement, three of them fell flat to the ground and the enemy ran over them. When the enemy retreated. the Union soldiers jumped up from the ground and rejoined the firing line.
The work of Laird's Fourteenth Ohio Battery, stationed on the left of Fuller's Fourth Division was the greatest piece of artillery practice dur- ing the war.
During the rebel charges, the guns of the Fourteenth Ohio were firing incessantly, the men at the guns were stripped and in their shirt sleeves.
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171
FIGHTING FOR ATLANTA.
Twice the enemy drove the infantry back nearly to the muzzles of the guns of the battery. They recoiled and fell back from the destructive fire, with great gaps in their ranks. The Eighty-first Ohio men swarmed to the sup- port of the battery whose guns were then turned to the right, and across the front of Fuller's Division, at that time lying down on a rise of ground. just before they made their last charge. It was then that the Fourteenth Ohio Battery poured in one of the most destructive fires upon the enemy. that was ever seen on any battle field. Men were literally blown to pieces and their lines melted away. Although we were winning a victory, it was horrible to see men so slaughtered.
No army ever before fought to a successful finish a battle against such an overwhelming force The enemy's dead bodies covered the field where they were slain in the unavailing attempt to break through the Union lines.
The battle to the left, so far, had been fought on the Union side by less than five thousand men of Dodge's Sixteenth Corps, mainly by parts of Fuller's Fourth and Sweeny's Second Divisions. After the third repulse of the enemy's advance, the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio Regi- ments moved to the right and attacked Cleburn's force in the rear and flank, preventing them from reforming or adjusting their lines, and from making a third attack upon the lines of the Seventeenth Corps, then commanded by General Blair, Leggett and Giles A. Smith, whose magnificent fighting during this day, from both sides of the works, reads like romance rather than reality. These splendid veterans who had worked incessantly at in- trenching without rest for two nights, leaped over their works, put their backs to Atlanta, and received and repelled the charging columns that came upon them from the rear with demoniac yells, so characteristic of the Texans. But no sooner had the enemy been driven back on each occasion, when Cheatham's Corps advanced from the direction of Atlanta, the second time covering the entire front of the Seventeenth and Fifteenth Corps. The .Union troops, jumping to the right side of their works, repulsed each charge. Part of the Fifteenth Corps under General Logan, had lost some ground in this attack but recovered their line.
That battle along the front of the Army of the Tennessee was des- perate and bloody beyond description. For vindictiveness and desper- ation, this encounter was never excelled. The carnage was terrible and sickening. The ground was covered with the mangled, dead and dying of both armies.
The Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Regiments alone, lost two hun- dred and seventy-three men killed or wounded. Cleburn reported to Har- dee that this battle was the bitterest of his life.
172
FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
It was the purpose of the Confederates to flank the Union Army on its left, double back upon the center, and break up the investment of the city, and then drive the Union Army across the Chattahoochee River in retreat.
The scene upon the field during the engagement was grand and impres- sive. It seemed that every mounted officer of the attacking column, was riding at the front of. or on the right, or the left of the first line of battle. Their regimental flags as well as ours, waved and fluttered in advance. Their movement was covered by a well-directed fire of artillery, posted in the woods on higher ground, but is seemed impossible for the enemy to face the sweeping fire of Fuller's and the other divisions. The sun shown down upon the field from a clear sky, the heat was excessive. and the sol- diers suffered from thirst almost beyond endurance.
General Hood, commanding the Confederate forces occupied a posi- tion where much of both armies could be seen, directing the movements of his troops and finally suffering the mortification and humiliation of de- feat. Yet his vanity was such that he could not recognize his own faulty military judgement, but rashly blamed his troops, whose dead and bleed- ing bodies strewn over the field attested to their valor. He did not seem to comprehend the fact that he was confronted by experienced soldiers who had fought over hundreds of miles of territory, securing victories in every battle from Springfield, Missouri, to Donaldson, Shiloh, Iuka, Cor- inth, Vicksburg and Chattanooga ; who had whipped his command through the mountains of northern Georgia; who were accustomed to fierce as- saults and yells and who always gave the return blows strong and heavy. It was General Grant's old army, and it was General Grant himself who said of this army, "It is invincible. No foe can stop their onward march."
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