The Battle of Atlanta / and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc.

by Grenville Mellen Dodge

After the second attack, Cleburn, as he pressed through the gap between Fuller and Smith, forced Fuller to change front and use part of his force to protect his flank, and the Sixty-fourth Illinois in this movement captured the skirmish-line that killed McPherson, taking from them his field-glass, orders, and other papers that they had taken from McPherson's body; and later in the day I sent these to General Sherman. See report Sixty-fourth Illinois, volume 38, part 3, War Records, page 494. Fuller's maps, page 480, volume 38, part 3, War Records, show where Fuller fought, and where we had to intrench.

Where I stood in my line I could see the entire Confederate force, and all of my own, something that very seldom occurs, and, of course, the scene, as Blair states, was a magnificent one. I saw Fuller do a most gallant act. I sent an aide to him with instructions to charge, but before he got there Walker's division broke the center of Fuller's Brigade, his own regiment, the Twenty-seventh Ohio, falling back. I saw Fuller get down off his horse, grab the colors of the Twenty-seventh, rush to the front with them in his hands, and call upon his regiment to come to the colors; and they rallied and saved his front. It was but a moment later that I saw Walker, who commanded the division that was attacking Fuller, fall from his horse, and the division broke and went into the woods. The action of Fuller was very gallant, and has been painted, and I have a copy of the painting in my room.

Blair in his report has this to say of the fighting, which shows that he watched us a long time before he was attacked; and if you will read his report carefully, you will see that it bears out my statements in full:

I started to go back to my command and witnessed the fearful assault made on the Sixteenth Army Corps, and its prompt and gallant repulse by that command. It was a most fortunate circumstance for the whole army that the Sixteenth Army Corps occupied the position I have attempted to describe at the moment of attack, and although it does not belong to me to report upon the bearing and conduct of the officers and men of that Corps, still I cannot withhold my expression of admiration for the manner in which this command met and repulsed the repeated and persistent attacks of the enemy. The attack upon our flank was made by the whole of Hardee's Corps.

I speak in my address of Mercer's Brigade fighting on three parts of the field. Mercer, after helping to retake the Decatur-road line, camped right in the rear of the Fifteenth Corps, and did not come back to me. When Logan, Blair and myself met that evening, Blair asked Logan for some help to go up to relieve troops at Bald Hill. Logan, seeing Mercer's Brigade there, ordered me to send it up. They went up there and crawled in and relieved the men on Bald Hill. This was very late in the night, and even then fresh men coming in drove out or captured what men there were still lying on the enemy's side of the intrenchments. Mercer never made a report of this battle. You will see by my paper that he was virtually out of the service, awaiting transportation home; but he went in with his regiment the same as though they were still in the service. He was a German, and I do not suppose he knew the importance of reporting; and as it was only a short time later that I had to leave that army, I therefore did not follow it up, and I find no report of Mercer or of the Ninth Illinois; but I think the regimental reports of the Eighty-first Ohio give all these facts. See War Records, volume 38, part 3, page 463, and report Second Brigade, Second Division Sixteenth Army Corps, volume 38, part 3, page 450.

In my address I did not go much into detail, but I have all the data of this battle compiled, and intend some day to put it in shape; but I give you enough so you can, after examining the reports of Blair and the others, make your article historically correct. Most of it is correct and well-stated, but I know you want to get the dates and movements at the left on such an occasion so full that they will stand criticism, as the Battle of Atlanta was the great battle of that campaign.

Your article and many others that I have seen assumes that it was a part of Hardee's Corps that struck Blair's front—that is, his front that was towards Atlanta; but that is not so. Cleburn's Division was the left Division of Hardee's Corps. There were three other Divisions. Maney's (Cheatham's old Division), Bate's, and Walker's. Walker was the next to Cleburn and attacked Fuller. Bate and Maney struck Sweeney. Cleburn's Division was in front of Blair after Cleburn had driven back his left and he had refused it from Leggett's Hill towards my right. What saved Blair was that Cheatham, who commanded Hood's old Corps, whose orders were to attack Blair's front at the same time Hardee struck his rear, in accordance with the plans of both Hood and Hardee, did not attack because Hardee struck me, which was a surprise to them as well as to me, and when Cheatham got ready to attack Blair's front, hitting Leggett's Division, and on down the Fifteenth Corps, two Divisions, Bate's and Walker's, had been whipped, and were virtually out of the fight, because after the third attack upon me, and my breaking up of one of their columns so badly, they did not come again in any force. They went back to the road on the ridge, just south of and parallel to my line. I forget the name of the road, but it was the one that led off to Decatur, and there they intrenched, and when I pushed forward my skirmishers I found them in force. Between 3 and 4 o'clock Maney's Division left my front and went around to help Cleburn.

There have also been many statements that in the first attack two Divisions of Hardee's Corps struck the Sixteenth Corps and two the Seventeenth, Blair's. This is not correct. Three Divisions struck my Corps, and one Division, Cleburn's, struck Blair's Corps, and caught his left and rear; but after the third attack on my front Maney's Division was sent around to join Cleburn, and joined in the fiercest attack of the day, about 4 p. m., upon Leggett's and Smith's Divisions after their line had been refused and formed almost at right angles at Leggett's Hill, and reaching out towards me, with Waglin's Brigade on their left. From all accounts this attack was a fearful one, Maney's men reaching and holding the outside of the intrenchments that were occupied by Blair's men. This line faced almost due south, and both forces fought there off and on until about 7 p. m., some of the enemy remaining in the outside intrenchments until Mercer's Brigade of the Sixteenth Corps went in at near midnight to support that line.

Again, many records have it that Blair was forced back early in the battle. This is a mistake, as his Fourth Division, commanded by General Giles A. Smith, which was on the extreme left, held most of his original intrenched line until between 3 and 4 o'clock, when the attack of Cheatham from the Atlanta side forced them to take a new position to keep them from being crushed by Cleburn in the rear and Cheatham's attack from the Atlanta front.

There is another thing that does not seem to be fully understood, and that is that when Blair got his left refused so as to face Maney and Cleburn in his front they were unable to gain any headway on him in their attacks. In fact, they suffered great loss, and they only damaged Blair when they got in behind his left. Blair had three Regiments there refused at right angles to his front, and it was a portion of two of these Regiments that Cleburn picked up. Blair lost nearly all his prisoners from Giles A. Smith's Division, when Cleburn swept down through the gap and got right in behind them before they knew anybody was on them. In fact, Blair's men had to turn around and fight towards their rear, and, as I have stated, Cleburn got past Fuller's right and commenced shooting into his flank. Just after Walker was killed there was a lull, and Fuller turned two regiments right into Cleburn's main line, and, as Captain Allen of the Signal Corps, says, and my records show, captured that skirmish-line that killed McPherson, and brought it in.