|
|
History of the 85th Illinois Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry by Henry J. Aten |  |
The desperate fighting along the line of Peach
Tree creek on the 19th and 20th was the result of an elaborate plan
prepared by General Johnston before he retired to the south side of the
Chattahoochee river. In pursuance of this plan he selected a
position for his army on the high ground south of the creek, which he
made very strong by elaborate earthworks. From these earthworks he
proposed to direct his army in swift attack against the different
columns of Sherman's army while in the act of crossing v broad and
muddy stream. Knowing the difficult and densely wooded country by
occupation, and well aware that his adversary must depend upon
imperfect maps. General Johnston relied with confidence on the
chance of dealing a crushing blow. Then while the Federal army was
surprised and thrown in confusion by this unexpected attack, he
hoped to drive it over the creek and throw its scattered columns into
the river beyond. It was a bold plan, and if successfully executed
would not only defeat, but destroy the Union army, while if it failed
he had, as he thought, a place of refuge in Atlanta. He believed the
defenses around the "Gate City," which had been skillfully planned and
strongly constructed, were too extensive to be invested, and too strong
to be carried by storm.
But General Johnston was not to be permitted
to execute the plan of offense his genius had conceived. By an order of
the Confederate President he was relieved on the 17th. Since that date
a new commander, General J. B. Hood, had directed the movements of the
rebel army. The plan devised by General Johnston was, however,
well calculated to tempt the reckless energies of a commander as
daring as General Hood, and he proceeded to its execution with all the
resources at his command. In his initial effort General Hood was
favored with the most fortunate conditions, and his attack fell on the
Army of the Cumberland while it was far from the support of either
the Army of the Ohio or the Army of the Tennessee.
The movement against Atlanta was a grand right
wheel, with the Fourteenth corps as a pivot. Early on the morning of
the 20th the Fourth and Twentieth corps, connected with the Fourteenth
on the south side of the creek, having met but little opposition in
crossing. About ten o'clock skirmishers advanced along the entire
front, capturing many prisoners. Many of these were pretended
deserters, who reported that their army had fallen back to the
fortifications around the city. These men had been sent into our lines
with a false report, in order to render the intended surprise
complete, and to make the impending rebel assault more certain of
success. But it is very difficult to surprise and put to rout a veteran
army of fifty thousand men, and although its left flank was exposed,
and the rear of its column was still crossing the creek, it was ready
for instant battle.
Early in the afternoon the enemy rushed from
the woods, behind which his charging columns had been massed, and
assailed the left flank of the Army of the Cumberland. His preparations
had been carefully concealed and his assault was delivered with
desperate, persistent energy under the most favorable conditions.
Charge after charge was made and repulsed, but when his whole line came
into action and his full strength had been developed, his charging
masses only reached within cannon range of Baird's division, next on
our left. At last, when darkness put an end to the sanguinary
conflict, the enemy retired from the field. In this day's
battle the enemy lost 4,400 in killed and wounded and 1,600
prisoners, while the Union loss in killed, wounded, and captured
numbered but 1,707.
All accounts agree in saying this was intended
for a decisive engagement. The order given to the troops by the rebel
officers directed them to attack whatever they might find in front of
them, and urged them to end the campaign in triumph there. It seemed to
them the opportune moment, one for which they had long waited, but the
result was a crushing defeat with an enormous loss. And at no time did
the blow intended to initiate the ruin of Sherman's army engage more
than one-third of his force. But the advance of Sherman's left wing was
so rapid on that day, that the rebel commander found just cause for
alarm on the east side of the city. Indeed, before the battle ended on
the evening of the 20th, Hood had to send reinforcements to his right
to keep General McPherson out of Atlanta.
On the morning of the 20th, the One Hundred
and Tenth Illinois, Lieutenant Colonel Topping commanding; joined the
brigade and was assigned to a position on the right of the line. From
the beginning of the campaign this regiment had been detached from
the brigade for train guard and for duty at division headquarters. But
from this date until the end of the campaign no regiment was
absent from the brigade.
On the morning of the 22nd it was found that
the enemy had retired from our front, and the division moved forward,
closing down on the enemy's works on the west side of Atlanta about
noon. The division formed a line parallel with the road from Atlanta to
Turner's ferry, and just beyond Proctor's creek, fronting to the
southwest. The left of the division was within a mile and a half of the
city, and still being the right of the whole army, the position was
made secure by strong earthworks. Our batteries were now within easy
range of the city, and shells could be seen bursting among the
buildings. Soon after going into position at this point, we could hear
the roar of a furious battle almost opposite our front, but beyond the
city. In this heavy engagement the Eighty-fifth had no part. It
transpired that General Hood had sent a part of his army far out to his
right and turned the Union left, and we lay in line anxiously
awaiting the result of the terrible struggle, in which General
McPherson, commanding the Army of the Tennessee, had fallen early.
Again Hood was defeated with heavy loss. This time the enemy lost 8,000
in killed and wounded, and 2,000 prisoners, making an aggregate loss of
10,000 men.
The total loss in the National army was three
thousand, five hundred and twenty-one killed, wounded and missing. At
first fortune favored the skillful tactical combinations of the
enemy, which were made with care and executed with precision, and the
Union army was temporarily thrown into confusion. But soon the wavering
lines were strengthened, and after a desperate struggle the tide was
turned and the enemy was driven back into his works close to the city.
This second defeat of a long cherished plan should have convinced
the enemy that he was not strong enough to cope with our army in the
open field. But General Hood had been placed in command by the
Confederate authorities, because of his reputation for reckless
courage, and before he settled down to the defensive tactics, so long
pursued by his predecessor, he led his army to another bloody defeat.
The rebel column which turned the Union left
in this battle was led by the author of Hardee's Tactics. This work was
used by both sides until late in the war. The manoeuvre {maneuver} by which
General Hardee withdrew his command from the front of our right,
and formed it in position to attack the rear of the left wing of
the Union army, was as line as any of the flanking operations of either
side throughout the war. The night was dark and the distance his troops
had to march was fully fifteen miles, and the heat was most intense.
Yet he had his column closed up, his line of battle formed, and
had begun his attack before a man in Sherman's army knew of his
approach. Certainly there was no more skillful movement, no
tactical combination executed with greater precision on either
side, in the long months of the Atlanta campaign.
In order to make a strong right flank for the
army, the First and Second brigades of the Second division were refused
and threw up very strong works, while the Third brigade was placed in
reserve on the right rear of the Proctor's creek line. The Eighty-fifth
remained at this point in comparative quiet for several days. A
constant skirmish was kept up between the lines, and now and then a
huge shell from the siege guns in the enemy's works would pass through
the camp or tear branches from the trees. One regiment was detailed
from the brigade to picket the right and rear each day.
Blackberries were found in great profusion, growing wild in the
woods. These, when stewed with our hard bread, made a somewhat novel
but very palatable dish. But the great number of men, all ravenously
hungry for fruit or berries of any kind, soon exhausted the supply, and
men wandered in search of berries too far from camp for safety. Some
such paid the penalty by serving a term in the prison pen at
Andersonville, where the living was much worse than with our army.
General Sherman's purpose in moving the Army
of the Tennessee upon Atlanta from the east was to so thoroughly
destroy the Augusta railroad as to prevent its use by the enemy during
his operations for the capture of the city. As soon, therefore, as
the Georgia railroad had been destroyed far enough east to prevent its
use, and his own line of supplies repaired, he began to thrust his
right flank toward the railroads leading south to Macon and southwest
to Montgomery. The enemy was now wholly dependent upon the two last
named roads for his supplies, and when the Union army should be placed
securely upon them, the enemy must retire or surrender.
Wednesday, the 27th, the railway from
Chattanooga was in running order to the camps of the Army of the
Cumberland, the high bridge over the Chattahoochee having been rebuilt
in six days. General Sherman was now ready for a new movement of his
infantry by the right flank, and the Army of the Tennessee began to
move by successive corps from the extreme left to the extreme
right. By the next morning that army occupied a
position facing the city from the west on a prolongation of the
general line of the Army of the Cumberland. This brought the left
of the Sixteenth corps in front of the Second division, which had
inclined sharply to the rear.
About nine o'clock on the morning of the 28th
the skirmish fire began to warm up, and we observed signs of
approaching battle. But to the surprise of all the Second division
moved away from the front and marched at a rapid pace to Turner's
ferry. From there it moved on a road leading to East Point on the Macon
railroad. On this woods road the advance soon encountered the enemy,
and heavy skirmishing began. From one position the enemy was driven,
only to be found in another, until late in the afternoon. For several
hours we could hear the roar of battle in the direction from which
we had moved in the morning, but about the time the noise of battle
ceased the enemy disappeared from our front, and the command moved
in the direction of our former camp. During the day the heat was
excessive; the night was very dark; we got tangled up in a swamp, where
the marching was of the worst, and finally camped at midnight on the
edge of the battlefield of Ezra Church. Some one had blundered. The men
were mad, tired and hungry, and they came straggling in. making the
night air streaked with the most lurid profanity. They did not know who
had caused the eccentric movement of the day, nor on whom to fix their
curse. So they consigned every one from the commanding general
down who might be suspected of having any connection with that
day's march, either direct or remote, to the sulphurous flames of a
Hadean future, together with their heirs, administrators and
assigns forever.
Whoever wrote the order should have written
"toward" Turner's ferry, instead of which he wrote "to" Turner's ferry.*
*July28th,1864.
Major General George H. Thomas.
Order General Davis to move to Turner's ferry, and then by a road leading toward East Point, to feel forward for Howard's right, back into some known point of Turner's ferry. I will be over on that flank all day and await to reach out as far as possible.
W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.
Rebellion Records, No. 72, page 650.
In
obedience to the express terms of the order the division was marched to
the ferry, several miles too far to the rear to permit it to join
General Howard's right in time to take part in the battle at Ezra
Church. The mistake was in the order, and no blame could be attached to
the division commander under whose direction it was executed.
The next morning the battlefield around Ezra
Church presented a sickening sight. Almost seven hundred dead
Confederates were scattered over the field in front of the Fifteenth
corps. The ground occupied during the battle by that corps was a high
ridge and the sloping ground in its front was dotted over with open
fields. As the charging columns of the enemy advanced they met a
murderous, well-directed fire which no troops could stand. In
conversation with the men who bore the brunt of the fight on this line,
they told the writer "That to repulse the enemy was as easy as lying;
that each attack was less vigorous than the one. before it, and that in
the last attack officers were seen in front of their commands urging
troops to advance that would no longer follow them." In this the
last of the desperate assaults of the new commander of the rebel army,
he lost in killed, wounded and missing fully five thousand men.
General Hood tried the bold offensive on three
separate occasions with the energy born of despair. The loss of
more than twenty thousand men in but little more than a week was looked
upon as a useless sacrifice by the rank and file of the Confederate
army. These bloody defeats coming in quick succession could but have a
discouraging effect on the bravest men. It was the camp talk at
the time, that in the chaffing between the pickets, the rebel soldier
in answer to the question, "Well, Johnny, how many of you are left?"
replied, "Oh! about enough for another killing." This was a severe
judgment on the reckless efforts of their new commander and
especially severe when coming from men whose fighting qualities were
unexcelled.
On the afternoon of the 29th the division
moved into position on the right of the Army of the Tennessee, and for
the next few days our duties were various. We entrenched several
lines and took ground to the right at each change of position. On
August 4th the entire division advanced some three miles to the right
and front, going into position that evening on Utoy creek, the Third
brigade connecting with General Baird on the left. This day had been
set apart by the President as a day of fasting and prayer, but we ate
all we could get and had our usual daily controversy with the enemy.
That night the Eighty-fifth went on picket.
At daylight Thursday, the 5th, the advance
began with the Eighty-fifth on the skirmish line. Soon the enemy was
encountered in the heavy timber and thick underbrush, and the fight was
on. After driving the enemy a mile or more and capturing a number
of prisoners, we ran up against his main line near the Sandtown road.
The enemy opened from three batteries on our right, left and front. To
this heavy concentrated fire we could make no successul {successful} reply, as the
dense woods through which we had moved prevented our batteries from
following, and for several hours we were subjected to a most furious
shelling. Unable to return the enemy's artillery fire we had to lie
down and take it, trusting to luck and such scant, uncertain protection
as the timber afforded. The shot and shell cut the tops out of some
trees and tore great branches from others, which fell around and among
us, adding additional terror to the bursting shells. However, toward
evening the enemy seemed to realize that we had come to stay; his fire
slackened and finally ceased, but it had been a day of great peril.
During the fight Lewis Dial, of Company H,
received a gunshot wound, the ball entering below the left
shoulder blade, and passed entirely through his body. The writer saw
and talked with him a few minutes after he was wounded, and found him
full of grit and hopeful of a speedy recovery. But his wound, like that
of so many others, disabled him for life.
Sunday, the 7th, the division advanced by a
left wheel, using the Third brigade as a pivot, until the command
faced northeast. All day long the advance was stubbornly contested by
infantry and artillery, but after a noisy battle the brigade took
possession of the Sand-town road, and entrenched a strong line across
it. In the sharp fighting of the day the brigade sustained a loss of
forty-two in killed and wounded. Among the wounded was Frank
Shelly, of Company H, who received a severe wound in the shoulder.
During the operations against Atlanta there
was much severe fighting, and a constant skirmish at short range was
maintained at all times. The danger was constant, as bullets and shells
passed through or over the camp at all hours, and more than once men
were killed or wounded while asleep, close beside the breastworks.
The skirmishers had learned how to protect themselves, and casualties
among them were not very numerous.
In the hope of overlapping the rebel line the
division was frequently moved to the right, and the line extended
to the last degree. In one of these changes the Eighty-fifth moved into
a line of works built by another command. These works were exposed to a
fire at short range from the enemy, who were concealed by a thick
curtain of timber. Before the men became familiar with the situation,
David Taylor, of Company G, received a shot in the face. The ball made
an ugly wound, but he soon recovered and returned to duty.
The railroads from Atlanta to Montgomery,
Ala., and to Macon, Ga. run out over a single track to the southwest,
a distance of eight miles, to East Point, where they separate, the
former continuing its course nearly parallel with the Chattahoochee
river, and the latter turning away at a right angle to the southeast.
During the night of the 19th, the First and Third brigades
retired, leaving the Second brigade to occupy the space heretofore
held by the entire division. The next morning our two brigades
were reinforced by three brigades from the First and Third divisions of
our corps, forming a column of five brigades, and at daylight we moved
toward Red Oak, the first station beyond East Point, on the Montgomery
railroad. The Third brigade had the advance, with the Twenty-second
Indiana as skirmishers. The fact that General Thomas went with the
column indicated the importance of the movement. We reached the
railroad at noon; destroyed some of the track and telegraph line; found
the enemy in force in front of East Point, and returned to our former
position, having marched twenty miles. During the day there was a
terrific thunder storm, in which the lightning played most
vividly, and the rain fell in torrents.
An incident occurred during the day - a
capture and a rescue - which illustrates the danger attending
manoeuvres {maneuvers} in the presence of an active and vigilant foe, and the
courage and prompt action of a soldier of the Eighty-fifth. When the
brigade moved in the morning Captain J. L. Burkhalter, of the
Eighty-sixth Illinois, assistant inspector general on the brigade
staff, was left in charge of the lines around the camp. After making
the rounds and satisfying himself that proper arrangements had
been made for the day, he could not content himself in idleness, and
mounting his horse, sought to overtake the expedition. This was in
disobedience of orders, but being neither lazy nor timid, he wanted to
see and have a part in all that was going on. After riding several
miles beyond the outposts, the heavy storm mentioned above
entirely obliterated the trail of the column. This was unfortunate, and
for some distance he traveled in doubt, but believing that he knew the
direction and destination of the command, he proceeded until suddenly
he heard the sharp "click," "click" of the cocking of a musket, and
"Surrender, you Yankee son of a -----." His horse stopped as a
rebel stepped from behind a large tree, and with a musket at his
breast, Captain Burkhalter surrendered as gracefully as possible under
such embarrassing surroundings. The rebel at once demanded his
watch and money, but when the captive moved forward to hand them over,
he was promptly halted and ordered to lay them on the ground. When this
order had been complied with, the prisoner was ordered to one side
while the booty was secured by his captor. Then the prisoner was
ordered to mount and ride in front, neither too fast nor too slow,
toward the lines of the enemy. All the time the rebel, who was on foot,
covered the prisoner with his gun cocked and at the ready. They had
proceeded but a short distance in this way when the rebel was
himself surprised and captured, and his prisoner rescued in a
manner as gratifying as it was unexpected to the captain.
When the object of the expedition had been
accomplished, by cutting the telegraph line and destroying the railroad
for some distance near Red Oak station, General Morgan wrote a
brief report of his success. This dispatch was Handed to Henry C.
Swisher, of Company H, of the Eighty-fifth, then an orderly at brigade
headquarters, with orders to report to General Davis at
division headquarters. By the merest accident the route Swisher
took on his return to camp crossed the road on which the rebel was
marching with his captive. When the rebel saw Swisher he ordered him to
halt, but Swisher kept riding on until he came within reach, when he
seized the rebel's gun, and as he pushed it to one side the rebel
fired, and started on the run. But Swisher, after vainly trying
to fire his revolver at the fleeing fugitive, rode him down, and
turned him over to Captain Burkhalter, who, with the prisoner, soon
after reached the head of the returning column.
Swisher affirms that he is not in the least
superstitious, still he admits that his revolver acted strangely on
that occasion. It failed him utterly in every effort to fire while
aimed at the rebel; this had never happened before, and when a few
minutes after leaving the scene of his adventure he tried it at a tree,
his pistol responded as promptly as ever before. An example, perhaps,
of the perverseness of things.
back to 85th Table of Contents
Copyright © 2006-2009 to Fulton County, IL host & all Contributors
All rights reserved