The Confederates now abandoned the line of works along Peach Tree Creek, and fell back to the immediate defences of the city. It was seen that one point in their line was an eminence—then called Bald Hill, but since known as Leggett's Hill—from which, if it could be occupied, the city could be shelled. After a consultation between Generals Blair and McPherson on the afternoon of the 20th, it was agreed that this hill ought to be captured, and the task was assigned to Gen. Mortimer D. Leggett's division. Leggett accordingly said to Gen. M. F. Force, who commanded his first brigade: "I want you to carry that hill. Move as soon as it is light enough to move. I will support your left and rear with the rest of the division, and the fourth division will make a demonstration as you go up to distract the attention of the enemy in their front." Accordingly, at daylight, Leggett's skirmish line cautiously went forward, and got as near as possible to the Confederate works without alarming the enemy. After some little delay, caused by waiting for the fourth division, General Force gave the order for the assault. What then followed is told by Col. Gilbert D. Munson, of the Seventy-eighth Ohio Regiment: "The skirmish line sprang forward; the brigade debouched from its concealment in the wood. In the front line on came the Twelfth and Sixteenth Wisconsin, close supported by the Twentieth, Thirtieth, and Thirty-first Illinois—the second line of battle; flags flying, bayonets fixed; arms right shoulder shift and unloaded; Force and his aid, Adams, just in rear of the Wisconsin regiments, and his adjutant-general, Capt. J. Bryant Walker, and another aid, Evans, with the Illinois boys—mounted; all regimental officers on foot. The skirmishers, for a moment, distracted the enemy by their rapid advance and firing; then the brigade received and enveloped them as it reached the crest of the hill, and exposed its full front to the steady fire of Cleburne's rifles. Our men fell in bunches; still came the charging column on; faster and faster it pressed forward. 'Close up! close up!' the command, and each regiment closed on its colors, and over the barricades went the first line, handsomely, eagerly, and well aligned. Then began our firing and our fun. Into the gray-coats the Sixteenth Wisconsin poured a rattling fire, as they scattered and ran along the level ground, down the slope of the hill, and on toward Atlanta. I joined General Force after the skirmish line was merged in his line of battle, and was with him when it came to and went over the barricades. 'Our orders are to carry this hill, General; the Sixteenth are away beyond, where, I understand, we are to go.' Force said something about being able to take the next hill, too, but immediately sent Captain Walker after Colonel Fairchild, and his 'Right about, march,' brought the regiment back. Captain Walker then reported the capture of the hill to General Leggett, who was with the rest of the division. Walker said to me, on his return, that, having a message for Gen. Giles A. Smith, commanding the fourth division, he told him the hill was won and held by Force, but Smith would hardly believe him: he thought he was joking. It seemed doubtful to him that such an important point had been won so quickly."
The fourth division, on the right of Force's brigade, met with a stubborn resistance, but finally overcame it, and other troops were brought up, and after a little the place was firmly held. This hill was the key-point of the line, and its capture was what caused Hood to come out and give battle the next day. He found that Sherman's left flank, which crossed the line of railroad to Augusta, was without proper protection, and consequently he moved to the attack at that point. He marched by a road parallel with the railroad, and the contour of the ground and the forests hid him until his men burst in upon the rear of Sherman's extreme left, seized a battery that was moving through the woods, and took possession of some of the camps. But McPherson's veterans were probably in expectation of such a movement, and under the direction of Generals Logan, Charles R. Wood, and Morgan L. Smith, quickly formed to meet it. That flank of the army was "refused"—turned back at a right angle with the main line—and met the onsets of the Confederates with steady courage from noon till night. Seven heavy assaults were made, resulting in seven bloody repulses, guns were taken and retaken, and finally a counter attack was made on the Confederate flank by Wood's division, assisted by twenty guns that fired over the heads of Wood's men as they advanced, which drove back the enemy, who retired slowly to their defences, carrying with them some of the captured guns. It had been intended that Wheeler's Confederate cavalry should capture McPherson's supply-trains, which were at Decatur; but the troopers were fought off till the trains could be drawn back to a place of safety, and Wheeler only secured a very few wagons. The National loss in this battle was thirty-five hundred and twenty-one men killed, wounded, and missing, and ten guns. The total Confederate loss is unknown, but it was very heavy; General Logan reported thirty-two hundred and twenty dead in front of his lines, and two thousand prisoners, half of whom were wounded. The most grievous loss to Sherman was General McPherson, who rode off into the woods at the first sounds of battle, almost alone. His horse soon came back, bleeding and riderless, and an hour later the general's dead body was brought to headquarters. McPherson was a favorite in the army. He was but thirty-four years old, and with the exception of his error at the outset of the campaign, by which Johnston was allowed to escape from Dalton, he had a brilliant military record. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, who had lost an arm at Fair Oaks and was now in command of the Fourth Corps, was promoted to McPherson's place in command of the Army of the Tennessee; whereupon General Hooker, commanding the Twentieth Corps, who believed that the promotion properly belonged to him, asked to be relieved, and left the army. His corps was given to Gen. Henry W. Slocum.
Sherman now repeated his former manoeuvre, of moving by the right flank to strike the enemy's communications and compel him either to retreat again or fight at a disadvantage. The Army of the Tennessee was withdrawn from the left on the 27th, and marched behind the Army of the Cumberland to the extreme right, with the intention of extending the flank far enough to cross the railroad south of Atlanta. The movement was but partially performed when Hood made a heavy attack on that flank, and for four or five hours on the 28th there was bloody fighting. Logan's men hastily threw up a slight breastwork, from which they repelled six charges in quick succession, and later in the day several other charges by the Confederates broke against the immovable lines of the Fifteenth Corps. Meanwhile Sherman sent Gen. Jefferson C. Davis's division to make a detour, and come up into position where it could strike the Confederate flank in turn; but Davis lost his way and failed to appear in time. In this battle Logan's corps lost five hundred and seventy-two men; while they captured five battle-flags and buried about six hundred of the enemy's dead. The total Confederate losses during July, in killed and wounded, were reported by the surgeon-general at eighty-eight hundred and forty-one, to which Sherman adds two thousand prisoners. Sherman reports his own losses during that month—killed, wounded, and missing—at ninety-seven hundred and nineteen; but this does not include the cavalry. Johnston's estimate of Sherman's losses is so enormous that if it had been correct his government would have been clearly justified when it censured him for not driving the National army out of the State.
Sherman had sent out several cavalry expeditions to break the railroads south of Atlanta, but with no satisfactory results. They tore up a few miles of track each time, but the damage was quickly repaired. The marvellous facility with which both sides mended broken railroads and replaced burned bridges is illustrated by many anecdotes. Sherman had duplicates of the important bridges on the road that brought his supplies, and whenever the guerillas destroyed one, he had only to order the duplicate to be set up. On the 26th Gen. George Stoneman had set out with a cavalry force to break up the railroad at Jonesboro', with the intention of pushing on rapidly to Macon and Andersonville, and releasing a large number of prisoners that were confined there in stockades; while at the same time another cavalry force, under McCook, was sent around by the right to join Stoneman at Jonesboro'. They destroyed two miles of track, burned two trains of cars and five hundred wagons, killed eight hundred mules, and took three or four hundred prisoners. But McCook was surrounded by the enemy at Newnan, and only escaped with a loss of six hundred men; while Stoneman destroyed seventeen locomotives and a hundred cars, and threw a few shells into Macon, but was surrounded at Clifton, where he allowed himself and seven hundred of his men to be captured in order to facilitate the escape of the remainder of his command.
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BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL MANNING F. FORCE. |
Perhaps it was quite as well that he did not reach Andersonville, for General Winder, in command there, had issued this order on July 27th: "The officers on duty and in charge of battery of Florida artillery will, on receiving notice that the enemy has approached within seven miles of this post, open fire on the stockade with grape-shot, without reference to the situation beyond this line of defence." The conduct of those on guard duty at the prison leaves little doubt that this order would have been obeyed with alacrity.
Two or three weeks later, Wheeler's Confederate cavalry passed to the rear of Sherman's army, captured a large drove of cattle, and broke up two miles of railroad; and about the same time Kilpatrick's cavalry rode entirely round Atlanta, fought and defeated a combined cavalry and infantry force, and inflicted upon the railroad such damage as he thought it would take ten days to repair; but within twenty-four hours trains were again running into the city.
Finding that cavalry raids could effect nothing, Sherman posted Slocum's corps at the railroad bridge over the Chattahoochee, and, moving again by the right, rapidly but cautiously, concealing the movement as far as possible, he swung all the remainder of his army into position south of Atlanta, where they tore up the railroads, burning the ties and twisting the rails, and then advanced toward the city. There was some fighting, and Govan's Confederate brigade was captured entire, with ten guns; but the greater part of Hood's forces escaped eastward in the night of September 1st. They destroyed a large part of the Government property that night, and the sound of the explosions caused Slocum to move down from the bridge, when he soon found that he had nothing to do but walk into Atlanta. A few days later Sherman made his headquarters there, disposed his army in and around the city, and prepared for permanent possession.