USA > Ohio > The history of Fuller's Ohio brigade, 1861-1865; its great march, with roster, portraits, battle maps and biographies > Part 16
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I am fully aware that these detachments weaken me in the exact pro- portion our enemy has gained strength by picking up his detachments. Johnston represents to his people that his retreat is strategy; but he has abandoned to us the best wheat growing region of Georgia and all its most
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valuable iron works and foundries. On the 9th we moved forward to Big Shanty. Kenesaw, the bold and striking twin mountain lay before us with a high range of chestnut hills tending off to the northeast, terminating in another peak, called Brush Mountain. To our right was a smaller hill. called Pine Mountain, and beyond it in the distance, Lost Mountain. All these although linked in a continuous chain, present a sharp, conical appear- ance, prominent in the vast landscape that presents itself from any of the hills that abound in that region.
Kenesaw Mountain, Lost Mountain and Pine Mountain form a triangle, Pine Mountain, the apex and Kenesaw and Lost Mountain, the base, covering perfectly the town of Marietta and the railroad back to the Chat- tahoochee. On each of these peaks the enemy had his signal stations. The summits were crowned with batteries and the spurs were alive with men busy in felling trees, and digging pits, and preparing for a grand struggle. The scene was enchanting, too beautiful to be disturbed by the harsh clamor of war but the Chattahoochee lay beyond and I had to reach it.
General McPherson was moved forward toward Marietta, his right on the railroad. The Confederate General Polk was killed on the 14th. Pine Mountain was found abandoned on the 15th. General McPherson ad- vanced his line, gaining substantial advantage on the left. I ordered an assault on the center.
On the 17th the enemy abandoned Lost Mountain and the long line of breastworks connecting it with Kenesaw Mountain. We continued to press all points, skirmishing in dense forests and across most difficult ravines, until we found him again strongly intrenched with Kenesaw as his salient point.
During the time of our operations about Kenesaw, the weather was villianously bad, the rain fell, almost continuously for three weeks, render- ing our narrow wooded roads mere mud gullys. Our men daily worked close to our intrenched foe, keeping up an incessant firing, galling to him. General McPherson worked all the time to the south and east along the Sand Town Road. On the 22nd the enemy sallied and attacked. On the 27th two assaults were made, one near Little Kenesaw Mountain, by General McPherson, costing many valuable lives. On the night of July 27th, Gen- eral McPherson commanded a movement by the right down to and threatened Nick-o-Jack Creek and Turner's Ferry, across the Chattahoochee. The effect was instantaneous. The next morning Kenesaw was abandoned. and with the first dawn of day, I saw our skirmishers appear on the Moun- tain top. General McPherson was instructed to cross Nick-o-Jack Creek and attack the enemy in flank and rear.
Johnston had intrenched a strong tete-de-pont on the Chattahoochee with an advanced intrenched line, across the road at Smyrna Camp Meeting Ground, five miles below Marietta. On the 4th of July we pushed a strong skirmish line down the main road, capturing the entire line of the enemy's pits, and made strong demonstration along Nick-o-Jack Creek and about Turner's Ferry, the 27th and 39th Ohio Regiments by a bold charge, captur- . ing his main line of works, a line of unusual strength. This had the desired effect and the next morning the enemy was gone and our army moved to
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GENERAL SHERMAN'S REPORT.
the Chattahoochee River with General McPherson's right at the mouth of Nick-o-Jack Creek.
I transferred the Army of the Tennessee under General McPherson from the extreme right to the left, at Rosswell on the Chattahoochee above General Dodge's Sixteenth Corps in the advance, followed by all McPher- son's Army of the Tennessee. Atlanta was eight miles distant with its magazines, stores, arsenals. workshops, foundries and so forth. Its railroads converged there from the four great cardinal points.
On the 17th. General McPherson directed his course from Rosswell straight against the Augusta Railroad at some point east of Decatur near Stone Mountain, reaching the railroad seven miles east of Decatur on the 18th, then turning along the railroad into Decatur on the 19th. On the 20th the armies closed in converging toward Atlanta. About four o'clock in the afternoon, the enemy sallied from his works in force and fell in line of battle against our right center, on the Buck Head Road.
After a severe battle, the enemy was driven back to his intrenchments. On the 21st we felt the enemy in his intrenched position which was found to crown the heights, overlooking the comparatively open ground of Peach Tree Creek, his right beyond the Augusta Road to the east, and his left well toward Turner's Ferry on the Chattahoochee, at a general distance from Atlanta of about four miles. On the morning of the 22nd to my surprise, the whole line was abandoned. I thought the enemy had resolved to give us Atlanta without further contest, but General Johnston, the Confederate Commander, had been relieved and General Hood substituted.
Our advanced ranks swept across the well finished parapets of the enemy and closed in upon Atlanta until we occupied a line in form of a circle. There we again found him occupying in force a line of finished re- doubts, which had been prepared for more than a year, covering all the roads leading to Atlanta, and we found him also busy in connecting these redoubts with curtains, strengthened by rifle trenches and abatis and chev- aux-de-fri. e.
General McPherson who had advanced from Decatur, continued to fol- by General Dodge on its right. But as the general advance of all the low the railroad with the Fifteenth Corps commanded by General Logan, the Seventeenth, by General Blair, on its left, and the Sixteenth commanded armies contracted the circle, the Sixteenth Corps, commanded by General Dodge, was thrown out of the line by the Fifteenth, connecting on its right with General Schofield, near the Howard House.
General McPherson, the night before had gained a high hill to the south and east of the railroad, where the Seventeenth Corps had, after a se- vere fight, driven the enemy, and it gave him a most commanding position, within easy view of the very heart of the city. He had thrown out working parties to it and was making preparations to occupy it in strength with bat- teries. The Sixteenth Corps, commanded by General Dodge, was ordered from right to left to occupy this position, and make it a strong general left Hank. General Dodge was moving by a diagonal path or wagon road lead- ing from the Decatur Road in the direction of General Blair's left flank.
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FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
About ten o'clock in the morning, I was examining the appearance ot the enemy's line opposite the distillery. There we attracted enough of the enemy's artillery and musketry to satisfy me that the enemy was in Atlanta in force. We had gone to a large dwelling close by, known as the Howard House, where General McPherson joined me. He described the condition of things on his flank and the disposition of his troops. I explained to hin that if we met serious resistance in Atlanta, as present appearances indicated. instead of operation against it by the left, I would extend to the right, and that I did not want him to gain much distance to the left. He then described the hill occupied by General Legget's Division of General Blair's Seven- teenth Corps, as essential to the occupation of any ground on the east and south of the Augusta railroad on account of its commanding nature. 1 therefore ratified his disposition of troops and modified a previous order I had already sent to him in writing to use General Dodge's Sixteenth Corps, thrown somewhat in reserve by the closing up of our lines, to break up the railroad and I constioned it's going as already ordered by General McPherson, to his left, to hold and fortify that position.
The General remained with me until near noon, when some reports reached us that indicated a movement of the enemy on that (east) flank, he mounted and rode away with his staff. Gerrard's Cavalry had gone to Covington on the Augusta Road to break the two important bridges across the Yellow and Ulcofauhatchee Rivers, tributaries to the Ocumulgee. General McPherson had left his wagon train at Decatur, under a guard of three regiments, commanded by Colonel Sprague. Soon after General Mc- Pherson had left me, I heard the sound of musketry on our left and rear. at first mere pattering shots, but soon they grew in volume, accompanied by artillery, and about the same time the sound of guns was heard in the direction of Decatur. No doubt could be entertained of the enemy's plan of action, which was to throw a superior force on our left flank, while he held us with his forts in front.
I hastily transmitted orders to all points of our center and right to press forward and give full employment to all the enemy in his lines. Not more than half an hour after General McPherson had left me, viz : about 12:30 of the 22nd, his Adjutant-General, Lieutenant-Colonel Clark, rode up and reported that General McPherson was either dead or a prisoner, that he had ridden from me to General Dodge's Column, and had sent off nearly all his staff officers and orderlies on various errands and himself had passed into a narrow path or road (*over which the Twenty-seventh and Thirty- ninth Ohio Infantry had passed a short time before, going into position ) that led to the left and rear of General Giles A. Smith's Division, which was the extreme left of the Seventeenth Corps. A few minutes after he had entered the woods, a sharp volley was heard in that direction, and his horse had come out riderless having two wounds.
Instantly, I dispatched a staff officer to General Logan commanding the Fifteenth Corps, that he must assume command of the Army of the Ten- nessee and hold stubbornly the ground already chosen, especially the hill gained by General Legget, the night before. Already the whole line was engaged in battle. Hardee's Confederate troops had sallied from Atlanta
*Words_in parenthisis are added by the Historian.
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GENERAL SHERMAN'S REPORT.
and by a wide circuit to the east had struck General Blair's ( Seventeenth Corps) lett, and Dodge's (Sixteenth Corps with Fuller's Brigade) in motion. The Seventeenth Corps line along the old line of rebel trenches was fashioned to fight outward. A space of wooded ground of almost half a mile intervened between the columns of General Dodge's (Sixteenth Corps ) and General Blair's (Seventeenth Corps) through which the enemy had poured. The last order ever given by General McPherson was to hurry a brigade of the Fifteenth Corps across from the railroad to fill this gap.
While Hardee attacked in flank, Stewart's Corps was to attack in front directly out of the main works, but fortunately. their attacks were not simultaneous. The enemy swept across the hill opposite the Seventeenth Corps which our men were then fortifying, and captured a pioneer company its tools, and almost the entire working party, and bore down on our left until he encountered General Giles A. Smith's Division of the Seventeenth Corps, which was somewhat "in air," and forced to fight first from one side of the rifle parapets and then from the other, gradually withdrawing regiment by regiment so as to form a flank to General Legget's Division. which held the apex of the hill, which was the only point deemed essential to our plan.
General Dodge's two divisions had caught and held well in check the enemy's right and punished him severely, capturing many prisoners. Gen- eral Giles A. Smith had gradually given up the extremity of his line and formed a new one, whose right connected with General Legget and his left refused, facing the south-east. On this ground and in this order the men fought well and desperately for nearly four hours checking and repulsing the enemy's attacks. In the meantime, Wheeler's Cavalry, our cavalry being absent, had reached Decatur and attempted to capture the wagon trains, but Colonel (now General) 'Sprague covered them with great skil! and success, sending them back from Decatur until every wagon was safe.
The enemy had taken a complete battery of six guns with its horses (Murray's) of the regular army, as it was moving along unsupported and unapprehensive of danger in a narrow, wooded road in that unguarded space between the head of General Dodge's Column and the line of battle on the ridge above, but most of the men escaped in the bushes.
About four o'clock in the afternoon, there was a lull, during which the enemy felt forward and assailed the pickets that had been thrown for- ward in front of the Fifteenth Corps. A part of the line fell back but soon regained all its lost ground. Thus terminated the battle of July 22nd, which cost us three thousand seven hundred and twenty-two killed, wounded, and prisoners.
McPherson's body was recovered in the heat of the battle and sent to Marietta and his northern home. He was a noble youth, of striking personal appearance, of the highest professional capacity, and a heart abounding with kindness that drew to him the affections of all men. His sudden death devolved the command of the Army of the Tennessee on General Logan, who nobly sustained his reputation and that of his veteran army and avenged the death of his comrade and commander.
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FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
The enemy left upon the field his dead and wounded and about a thousand well prisoners. His dead computed at 3240, from actual count. No doubt the enemy sustained an aggregate loss of fully 8000 men.
The battle of July 22nd usually called the battle of Atlanta extended from the Howard House to General Giles A. Smith's position about a mile beyond the Augusta Railroad, and then back toward Decatur, the whole extent of ground being fully seven miles. In part, the ground was clear and in part densely wooded. I rode over it the next day and it bore the marks of a bloody conflict. The enemy had retired during the night inside of Atlanta and we remained masters of the situation outside. I purposely allowed the Army of the Tennessee to fight this battle almost unaided. save by the demonstrations on the part of Generals Schofield and Thomas against the fortified lines to their immediate fronts because I knew that the attack- ing force could be only a part of Hood's Army, although a large part of his best troops, and that if any assistance was rendered by either of the arming. the Army of the Tennessee would be jealous. Nobly did they do their work that day, and terrible was the slaughter done to our enemy, though at a sad cost to ourselves.
Our cavalry destroyed railroad bridges, trains of cars, 2000 bales of cotton, depots of stores and ammunition. Having crippled the Augusta Railroad, I then addressed myself to the task of reaching the Macon Road. over which of necessity came the stores and ammunition, that alone main- tained the rebel army in Atlanta. I ordered the Army of the Tennessee to vacate its line, and to shift its right below Proctor's Creek, for a blow at the Macon Road, simultaneous with the movement of the Army of the Ten- nessee toward East Point.
The cavalry under General Stoneman, Gerrard, McCook and Harrison moved partly by the left around Atlanta to McDonough, and partly by the right on Fayetteville, Stoneman asking to be allowed to continue and then proceed to Macon and Andersonville and release our prisoners of war con- fined at those points ; who were being so harshly treated.
The Army o' the Tennessee drew out of its lines near the Decatur Road during the night of July 26th and on the 27th moved behind the rest of the army to Proctor's Creek and south to prolong our line due south and facing east. On that day, Major-General Howard assumed command of the Army of the Tennessee and had the general supervision of the move- ment, which was made en-echelon, General Dodge's Corps (Sixteenth) on the left nearest the enemy, the Seventeenth next to come up on its right, and the Fifteenth Corps next on its right and refused as a flank, the whole to gain as much ground due south from the flank already established at Proc- tor's Creek, as was consistent with a proper strength.
General Dodge's men got into line in the evening of the 27th. General Blair came into line on his right early on the morning of the 28th his right reaching Ezra Church, near Bell's Ferry Road. Here the Fifteenth Corps (Logan's) joined on and refused along a ridge well wooded, which par- tially commanded a view over the same fields.
About ten o'clock in the morning, all the army was in position and busy throwing up the accustomed pile of rails and logs which after a while
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GENERAL SHERMAN'S REPORT.
assumed the form of a parapet. The skill and rapidity with which our men constructed these was wonderful, and was something new in the art of war.
About this time I approached Ezra Church. There was considerable artillery firing and I heard heavy musketry firing on the right. The enemy had come out of Atlanta by the Bell's Ferry Road, and formed his masses in the open field, behind a swell of ground, and after the artillery firing, ad- vanced in parallel lines directly against the Fifteenth Corps, expecting to catch that flank "in air." His advance was magnificent but founded on an error that cost him sadly. His ranks broke and fled. They rallied again and again as often as six times at some points.
About four o'clock in the afternoon, the enemy disappeared, leaving six hundred and forty-two dead. Their loss was five thousand. General Logan drew brigades from the Sixteenth Corps during the battle to assist. Our loss was six hundred men, killed and wounded.
This affair terminated all attempts of the enemy to check our extension by the flank and he remained on the defensive. On the 1st of August, the rest of the army moved taking a line below Utoy Creek. Schofield moved to East Point. General Hooker resigned. The Twentieth Corps was com- manded by Williams next, then Slocum.
From the 2nd to the 5th we extended to the right. Stanley succeeded . Howard to command the Fourth Corps. On August 18th, a movement was made by right flank to West Point Railroad, near Fairburn, afterward to Macon Road near Jonesborough. On the night of the 26th, the army of the Tennessee moved by a circuit well toward Sand Town across Camp Creek. The movement brought them on the West Point Railroad above Fairburn. The railroad was destroyed for twenty miles.
The whole army moved the next day, the Army of the Tennessee on the right toward Jonesborough. The several columns moved on the 29th. The Army of the Tennessee, having the outer circle, had a greater distance to move. They encountered cavalry which they drove rapidly to Shoal Creek, where the enemy had artillery. Howard started tl em again, keeping them moving, passed the Renfroe Place, on the Decatur Road, and kept on toward Jonesborough, saved the bridge across Flint River, and did not halt until darkness compelled him, within half a mile of Jonesborough.
On August 31st in the presence of a heavy force of the enemy he deployed the Fifteenth Corps and disposed the Sixteenth and Seventeenth on its flanks. The men covered their front with parapets and prepared to act offensively. During the 31st the enemy came out of his works, and attacked General Howard with Lee's and Hardee's Corps, and after a con- test of over two hours, withdrew leaving over four hundred dead on the ground. Orders were given for all the army to turn on Jonesborough.
On September 1st, heavy explosions were heard at Atlanta, about two o'clock at night, twenty miles distant. At daybreak, the enemy had gone from his lines at Jonesborough. I ordered a general pursuit south, General Howard on the right. We overtook the enemy again at Lovejoy Station in a strong intrenched position, with his flanks well protected behind a branch of Walnut Creek. a confluent of Flint River to his left. We pushed close
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FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
up. Rumors arrived that Atlanta had been abandoned during the night of September 1st.
I concluded it was idle to pursue the enemy through that wooded country with a view to his capture. On the 5th, we drew back to Jones- borough. On the 7th arrived at Rough and Ready. The Army of the Cumberland was camped around Atlanta, Army of the Tennessee about East Point, and the Army of the Ohio at Decatur.
The health of the troops was remarkably good. This was noteworthy when the severe labor and privations endured by most of the army during the autumn and part of the winter were taken into consideration. For more than four months on short rations, but poorly housed and badly clothed. with no appreciable variation in diet, scurvy naturally prevailed to some extent in most of the regiments. The symptoms were much abated by the abundant supply of blackberries and green corn which the men obtained on their march. The numerical force of the army was materially reduced at the very commencement of operations by the necessity of getting rid of a large number of worthless recruits and substitutes that had been sent to the army during the winter.
Severe fighting occurred almost daily for four months. The recovery from wounds was rapid and favorable, and the number returned to duty was greater than usual. The wounded were brought from the field quickly and carefully.
MAJOR-GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN, Commanding.
Report of Major-General G. M. Dodge.
HEADQUARTERS, LEFT WING, SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS.
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, NOVEMBER 25TH, 1864.
I have the nonor herewith to submit my report of the operations of this command during the campaign in Georgia, from its commencement up to and including August 19th, at which time I was compelled, on account of wounds that day received, to relinquish the command.
On the 29th of April. 1864, the command consisting of the Second and Fourth Divisions ( which included Fuller's First and Sprague's Second Bri- gades) and First Alabama Cavalry, Sixteenth Army Corps (excepting the Third Brigade, which was left at Decatur, Alabama ) moved out from De- catur, Pulaski, Tennessee and Athens, Alabama, with orders to concentrate at Huntsville, Alabama. From Huntsville, on May 2nd, the command moved along the main road toward Stevenson, Alabama, until May 4th. when the command embarked on cars for Chattanooga, Tennessee ; the Sec- ond Division from Larkensville, the Fourth Division from Woodville, and debarked at Chattanooga on the 5th and immediately marched with three days' rations in haversacks, out on the Rossville Road. The Second Di- vision bivouacked at Gordon's Mills on Chickamauga Creek, and the Fourth Division at Rossville. The command moved May 7th, Fourth Division in
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GENERAL DODGE'S REPORT.
advance, on the Tavern Road, via Rock Spring Creek and bivouacked near Gordon's Gap, on Little Chickamauga Creek.
The Second Brigade, Fourth Division, Colonel (now Brigadier-Gen- eral) J. W. Sprague, commanding, was pushed forward to seize and hold Ship's Gap, which was accomplished with slight skirmishing, at nine o'clock in the evening. On May 8th. the command moved by way of Ship's Gap and Villanow, to Snake Creek Gap, which was occupied and the command bivouacked therein. The 9th Illinois and 39th Iowa Mounted Infantry pushed forward to hold the eastern outlet to Sugar Creek Valley. At day- light in the morning of May 8th the advance drove and routed the enemy. and pressed forward to gain the Calhoun and Dalton Roads, one mile west of Resaca, to hold until the 15th Corps should arrive. We skirmished heavily the entire distance. The enemy was discovered in line of battle, on Bald Hill about three-quarters of a mile west of Resaca, and in his works at Resaca. I immediately took possession of Balt HIM and kell a. Eighteen mounted men reconnoitered the Dalton Road to find an approach to the railroad. They struck the railroad two miles south of Tilton.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, I advanced my left ( the. Fourth Di- vision ) to the railroad north of Resaca, holding Bald Hill with the Second Division. General Veatch was ordered to move Fuller's First Brigade and Sprague's Second of his Fourth Division, massed in close columns by Di- visions, and forming promptly, he moved rapidly across the west fork of Mill Creek, in plain view of Resaca. The enemy observing the movement opened a heavy fire from his batteries upon the column, and also with rapid musketry, doing, however, but little execution.
After having moved the column across the open field, I was ordered by General McPherson to look well to my right, as the enemy was massing and pressing forward in that direction. General Fuller led the advance of the column and just as he was gaining cover of the woods on the east side of Mill Creek, I received notice that General Sprague had been halted, by order of General McPherson to support the left of the Second Division and hold the space between the Second and Fourth Divisions.
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