The Civil War Through the Camera - Henry W. Elson

FEDERAL ENTRENCHMENTS AT THE FOOT OF KENESAW MOUNTAIN

A VETERAN BATTERY FROM ILLINOIS, NEAR MARIETTA IN THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN

Battery B of the First Illinois Light Artillery followed Sherman in the Atlanta campaign. It took part in the demonstrations against Resaca, Georgia, May 8 to 15, 1864, and in the battle of Resaca on the 14th and 15th. It was in the battles about Dallas from May 25th to June 5th, and took part in the operations about Marietta and against Kenesaw Mountain in June and July. During the latter period this photograph was taken. The battery did not go into this campaign without previous experience. It had already fought as one of the eight batteries at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, heard the roar of the battle of Shiloh, and participated in the sieges of Corinth and Vicksburg. The artillery in the West was not a whit less necessary to the armies than that in the East. Pope’s brilliant feat of arms in the capture of Island No. 10 added to the growing respect in which the artillery was held by the other arms of the service. The effective fire of the massed batteries at Murfreesboro turned the tide of battle. At Chickamauga the Union artillery inflicted fearful losses upon the Confederates. At Atlanta again they counted their dead by the hundreds, and at Franklin and Nashville the guns maintained the best traditions of the Western armies. They played no small part in winning battles.