The Battle of Peach Tree Creek Read online

  The Battle of Peach Tree Creek

  Civil War America

  PETER S. CARMICHAEL, CAROLINE E. JANNEY, and AARON SHEEHAN-DEAN, editors

  This landmark series interprets broadly the history and culture of the Civil War era through the long nineteenth century and beyond. Drawing on diverse approaches and methods, the series publishes historical works that explore all aspects of the war, biographies of leading commanders, and tactical and campaign studies, along with select editions of primary sources. Together, these books shed new light on an era that remains central to our understanding of American and world history.

  The Battle of Peach Tree Creek

  Hood’s First Effort to Save Atlanta

  EARL J. HESS

  THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS

  Chapel Hill

  This book was published with the assistance of the FRED W. MORRISON FUND of the University of North Carolina Press.

  © 2017 Earl J. Hess

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Set in Miller and Sentinel by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

  The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.

  Cover illustration: The 111th Pennsylvania at Peach Tree Creek.

  From John Richards Boyle, Soldiers True: The Story of the One Hundred and Eleventh Regiment Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, and of Its Campaigns in the War for the Union, 1861–1865 (1903).

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hess, Earl J., author.

  Title: The battle of Peach Tree Creek : Hood’s first effort to save Atlanta / Earl J. Hess.

  Other titles: Civil War America (Series)

  Description: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2017] | Series: Civil War America | Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017007289| ISBN 9781469634197 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469634203 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Peachtree Creek, Battle of, Ga., 1864. | Hood, John Bell, 1831–1879. | Georgia—History—Civil War, 1861–1865. | United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Campaigns.

  Classification: LCC E476.7. H465 2017 | DDC 973.7/371—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017007289

  For Pratibha and Julie, with love

  Contents

  Preface

  1: To the Chattahoochee

  2: Across the Chattahoochee, July 17–18

  3: Across Peach Tree Creek, July 19

  4: Preparations for Battle, July 20

  5: Hardee versus Newton

  6: Featherston versus Ward

  7: Scott versus Geary

  8: O’Neal versus Williams and Reynolds versus McCook

  9: Rest of Day, July 20

  10: Cleaning Up

  11: July 21–22

  Conclusion

  Order of Battle

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  Illustrations

  William T. Sherman / 3

  Joseph E. Johnston / 22

  John Bell Hood / 24

  Joseph Hooker / 65

  John Newton / 82

  William J. Hardee / 85

  George H. Thomas / 89

  Clement H. Stevens / 92

  Alexander P. Stewart / 105

  Benjamin Harrison / 113

  William T. Ward / 116

  Joseph Hooker on the Battlefield / 123

  John W. Geary / 131

  Charles Candy / 136

  111th Pennsylvania at Peach Tree Creek / 142

  Alpheus S. Williams / 153

  Joseph F. Knipe / 157

  Anson G. McCook / 172

  Peach Tree Creek Battlefield / 194

  Maps

  Chattanooga to Atlanta / 5

  Chattahoochee River Area / 7

  Evening, July 17 / 21

  Evening, July 18 / 35

  Evening, July 19 / 52

  Three P.M., July 20 / 77

  Hardee versus Newton / 83

  Featherston versus Ward / 107

  Coburn’s Brigade / 110

  Harrison’s Brigade / 114

  Wood’s Brigade / 119

  Scott versus Geary / 132

  Geary’s Division at Start of Battle / 134

  Geary’s Division at End of Battle / 146

  O’Neal versus Williams / 151

  Robinson’s Brigade / 155

  Knipe’s Brigade / 158

  Reynolds versus McCook / 169

  French versus Moore / 175

  Midday, July 22 / 232

  Preface

  The midday sun was at its height on the afternoon of July 20, 1864, as the men of George H. Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland settled into positions south of Peach Tree Creek. The crossing had consumed many hours and was conducted in stages the day before and that morning. Now it was time for some of Thomas’s units to construct rude fieldworks, send out skirmishers, and consolidate their hold on the high ground just south of the stream. For other units, commanded by men who assumed there would be no fighting that day, there was an opportunity to lounge in the bottomland of the creek, fix a meal, and relax under the shade of trees.

  But then, without warning, battle flags appeared from the woods south of Thomas’s new position, followed by division upon division of butternut-clad men. The Army of Tennessee was on the move, and its new commander, John Bell Hood, was making his first strike to save Atlanta. After falling back sixty miles from Dalton since early May, the Confederates attempted their first major attack on William T. Sherman’s army group as the enemy closed in on the outskirts of Atlanta. Hood hoped to take advantage of the fact that his enemy had just made a difficult crossing of Peach Tree Creek. His Confederates certainly took the Unionists by surprise. All along the developing battle front the Federals scrambled to get ready; two potentially dangerous gaps in the line of the Twentieth Corps were waiting to be exploited by the onrushing enemy, and some other bits of high ground still had not been secured by Union commanders along the line.

  In short, there was reason for the Confederates to hope that Hood’s plan might work to their benefit. Only two days in command of the Army of Tennessee, Hood had precious little time to acclimate himself to a position he had not wanted and for which he possessed few attributes to fill. But he did his best to plan, position, and inspire his men despite widespread dissatisfaction at the relief of their beloved general Joseph E. Johnston and the elevation of someone who had served in the Army of Tennessee for only four months. Whether his men could fulfill Hood’s hope for a dramatic turnaround in Rebel fortunes during the Atlanta campaign would be worked out before dusk fell on that hot and bloody day of fighting north of the city.

  This book tells the story of the battle of Peach Tree Creek—the battle of July 20, 1864, north of Atlanta. A successor to my studies of Kennesaw Mountain and Ezra Church, this book is also based on exhaustive research in primary sources and an examination of the ground. Its purpose is not only to detail the battle’s history in narrative fashion but to analyze and evaluate the major features of that history. Each phase of the Atlanta campaign possessed important aspects to explain the course of events from the May confrontation at Dalton to the final battle at Jonesboro in late August and early September. None of those phases were necessarily decisive in shaping the campaign, but all of them contributed to its contours and results. We need to understand each phase in its turn and how it contributed to the larger picture if we hope to understand one of the largest, most important, and most interesting campaigns of the Civil War.

  The battle of Peach Tree Creek was heavily dominated by the su
dden replacement of Johnston with Hood on July 17–18. In that event the Army of Tennessee lost its most respected commander (although one who did not hesitate to discipline the troops with executions for desertion) and gained a man whose capabilities were largely unknown. William J. Hardee, the only one of the army’s corps commanders with great experience in his job, was miffed at Hood’s ascension to command. Hardee’s colleagues (Alexander P. Stewart and Benjamin F. Cheatham) had not yet fought a battle with their new corps commands. Hood mandated an overly complex movement en echelon by divisions, and the attack took place several hours later than planned. The Confederates advanced with little information about the placement of their enemy, knew nothing of a one-and-a-half-mile gap in Sherman’s line, and were ill-informed that Sherman’s left wing was closing in along the eastern approaches to Atlanta. That latter development forced Hood to curtail the fighting at Peach Tree Creek earlier than anticipated.

  Despite these disadvantages, the Confederates brought to bear a huge preponderance of manpower upon one division of Thomas’s army and found two gaps in the Twentieth Corps line as they approached the Federals south of Peach Tree Creek. Their failure to exploit these advantages doomed the Rebel effort that afternoon. A combination of poor Confederate troop handling, lack of offensive spirit, and very effective Union countermeasures evened the odds and resulted in a spirited Union victory. Hood completely failed in his objective, and the Army of the Cumberland achieved one more important success on the battlefield.

  Morale loomed large as an element in the story of Peach Tree Creek. The Confederates suffered depressed spirits to a significant degree, and they were comparatively unused to offensive action thus far in the campaign. In fact the Army of Tennessee had not conducted a major attack since the battle of Chickamauga ten months before. Most Rebel soldiers did not know what to make of their new army commander. In contrast, the Federals had enjoyed unusually high morale for a long while before the Atlanta campaign began, and they had complete faith in Sherman’s ability to conduct the risky movements necessary to approach the city. They loved and trusted Thomas. We should keep in mind that the Federals were used to winning campaigns and battles, and the Confederates were not—an important factor in assessing troop morale. In terms of battle spirit, Peach Tree Creek matched the opponents at a time when the Confederates were at an important disadvantage, and the Federals were, as usual, riding high.

  Looking objectively at the course of the fighting at Peach Tree Creek, it is striking that so many Confederate brigades in William J. Hardee’s Corps moved forward only part way across the contested ground before stopping well short of the Union line and doing little more than firing for the rest of the afternoon. Hardee greatly outnumbered the lone Fourth Corps division opposing him, commanded by John Newton, yet he utterly failed to capitalize on that unusual advantage. Even the men of Alexander P. Stewart’s Army of Mississippi, advancing to the left of Hardee, failed to exploit the two gaps in Joseph Hooker’s Twentieth Corps line. Ironically, about one-third of the troops in Winfield S. Featherston’s Mississippi Brigade did not even attempt to move into the gap they found, choosing to remain at the captured Union skirmish line rather than advance farther toward the enemy. Although some Rebel units would later attack well on July 22 and at Ezra Church on July 28, Peach Tree Creek marked the beginning of a deterioration of combat spirit among many other units in the Army of Tennessee.

  The Federals of William Ward’s Union division responded remarkably well, surging forward up a steep slope to grapple in many places hand to hand with Featherston’s men, but they also tended to exaggerate the intensity of the fighting that developed. Ironically, Ward’s three brigades competed with only two-thirds of Featherston’s Brigade in this contest. Without taking anything away from the inspired fighting conducted by Ward’s division, it has to be pointed out that even in Stewart’s command a significant lack of fighting spirit hampered the Confederate effort on July 20.

  Confederate fighting spirit increased after Peach Tree Creek but not in a uniform way. As the disruption caused by Johnston’s relief faded and Hood endured an agonizing transition period into army command, some units attacked with a good deal of determination on July 22 east of Atlanta when the Army of Tennessee came closer than at any other time in the campaign to winning an important victory over Sherman. Other units also attacked with a good deal of determination at Ezra Church on July 28. In both engagements, however, improved morale failed to translate into tactical success, and in each of them some Confederate units failed to press home their assaults. Peach Tree Creek represented the beginning of a trend in the Atlanta campaign, resulting in uneven battle spirit within Confederate ranks. As a result, the course of the campaign continued to be dominated by the Federals until the final agony at Jonesboro led to Hood’s evacuation of Atlanta on September 2, 1864.

  Like all the battles that took place during the Atlanta campaign, Peach Tree Creek held the potential for decisive results. But, like all of them, those results were not realized. It would be misleading to argue that any one engagement in this long campaign was the decisive moment in Sherman’s struggle for Atlanta. Each one contributed in its own way toward shaping the course of the campaign and influencing its outcome. The purpose of this study is to determine how the battle of July 20 affected the events in Georgia, why it became a failure for one side and a success for the other, and how the battle affected the 46,000 men directly engaged in combat that hot afternoon in late July, more than 150 years ago.

  I wish to thank all the staff members of the archival institutions listed in the bibliography for their assistance in making their valuable holdings accessible during the course of gathering material for this book. Also a note of thanks to all the graduate student researchers who aided me in accessing material at archives I was unable to visit personally.

  The two scholars who read the manuscript for the University of North Carolina Press, Peter S. Carmichael and A. Wilson Greene, deserve a deep note of thanks from me for their helpful suggestions.

  Most of all my deep gratitude to my wife Pratibha for all she means to me. She and I also are responsible for all the maps that appear in this book.

  The Battle of Peach Tree Creek

  1: To the Chattahoochee

  I am getting very wearied of this eternal retiring.

  —W. H. T. Walker

  By the middle of July 1864, the Atlanta campaign had stretched into the longest and most grueling military effort in the Civil War’s Western Theater. Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman had started from the vicinity of Chattanooga with some 100,000 men organized as an army group. Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland was the largest of the three armies in this group with about 60,000 men, and Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee consisted of about 30,000 men after the Seventeenth Corps joined it in early June. Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield’s Army of the Ohio, consisting only of the Twenty-Third Corps, was the smallest of the three with about 10,000 troops. These three armies were drawn from the military departments embraced by Sherman’s command, the Military Division of the Mississippi.1

  Sherman had benefited from the tutelage of Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who now served as general-in-chief of the United States Army. Grant made his headquarters with Maj. Gen. George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac so as to direct its operations against Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the East. His conduct of the Overland campaign astonished the country with its fierce attacks against Lee’s well-fortified positions. In driving south from the Wilderness to Petersburg, Grant lost 64,000 troops in six weeks of rugged campaigning, inflicting a proportionate number of casualties on Lee and laying semi-siege to an important rail center thirty miles south of Richmond.2

  Sherman admired Grant’s aggressive approach to the thorny problem posed by Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, but he also was stunned by the human cost of that approach. He preferred a more cautious method of dealing with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Tennes
see, which consisted of about 60,000 men after Lieut. Gen. Leonidas Polk joined Johnston in mid-May with his Army of Mississippi. Polk’s command essentially formed a third corps for Johnston’s army, even though it technically constituted an independent force drawn from the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana.3

  Sherman crafted an effective strategy, working it out through trial and error during the course of the Atlanta campaign. The foundation of that strategy was maneuver, for his larger force had many opportunities to find either of Johnston’s flanks whenever the Confederates took up a fortified position. Sherman experimented with several attacks, but they always were local rather than general in nature. Localized attacks tended to minimize casualties and reduce the resonance of failure; they never neutralized Sherman’s ability to continue operations after they failed. In contrast, Grant tended to attack more often and trusted too much on general assaults. He often gave little time to Meade for planning these massive efforts and too little attention was paid to heavy skirmishing and trying to reach Lee’s flanks in subtle movements. Of course, the well-known vigilance and aggressive tactics that characterized Lee’s handling of the Army of Northern Virginia in previous campaigns contributed to Grant’s sense of urgency; he could ill afford to be idle or complacent in front of the Army of Northern Virginia. But the result of Grant’s campaign thus far was apparent stalemate outside Petersburg with a military force that had lost about half the men in its ranks when it started the Overland campaign. The military effectiveness of the Army of the Potomac had been severely reduced by June and July, greatly contributing to the slow pace and often failed offensives of Grant’s efforts at Petersburg.4

  Just as Lee’s reputation and conduct contributed to the nature of Grant’s operations in Virginia, the reputation and conduct of Joseph E. Johnston helped to shape the way Sherman conducted the Atlanta campaign. The two commanders had met before, in the Jackson campaign that followed the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863. At that time, Grant sent Sherman with a sizable force to deal with Johnston’s troops (who later constituted the core of Polk’s Army of Mississippi during the Atlanta campaign). Johnston refused to offer battle to Sherman as he fell back from the Big Black River twenty-eight miles to Jackson, having already failed to mount an effective effort to relieve the siege of Vicksburg, despite urgent entreaties from authorities in Richmond to do so. Johnston acted strictly on the defensive in the short campaign for Jackson, preferring to rely on the ring of fortifications that barely protected the capital of Mississippi. When Sherman made moves to cross the Pearl River and cut off his retreat east of the city, Johnston evacuated Jackson on the night of July 16. The Jackson campaign was a foretaste of Johnston’s handling of the Army of Tennessee in the Union drive toward Atlanta.5