our next speaker is gary eichelberger burger. he's going to be talking about the battle atlanta. gary has authored several books co-written others and has published over dozen monographs, essays and articles about 19th century events and personalities. his past years have been focused primarily upon the 1864 atlantic campaign, with two battle books and a biography of major general john blackjack logan. his work the day dixie died, the battle of atlanta is the only book length treatment to date dedicated to the great battle of july 22nd, 1864, and won the albert castille award for the western theater history. let's give gary a warm welcome welcome. i timed myself. all right. can hear in the back now. all right, good. they fixed the mic. let me check out a couple of things here before we get started. all right. so the topic of of lopsided victories and stunning defeats, this is a battle which that's not going to be readily apparent in the immediate aftermath of the battle. so i'm going to draw it out toward the end. but in the meantime, you're going to hear the story of one of the most gripping and dramatic events to occur on american soil that never really received much attention before that. and it looks i'm going to have to break a streak that was going with your previous two speakers. general sturgis, isn't in this battle. i place him in there. but if i could say something, sturgis, one of my favorite civil war of all time, was the second manassas campaign. we already know his reputation of being very blunt when told that he couldn't get his troops or supplies through because priority was given to general pope. he said, i don't care for john one pinch of owl's dung that i've never heard since. that's pretty interesting. all right. so because this is a the the georgia campaign or the campaign of 1864 is a is a pretty confusing campaign. i mean, first of all, it's a western theater campaign in a state that has an atlantic ocean. who would have thought of that? and you have two armies named tennessee fighting each other, several generals named smith commanding brigades, divisions. and course, i'm going to try to sort through that. what i won't be able to do is is completely bring you up speed to this dramatic day. but we're going to in the digital age i'm going to have to give you the the old reader's digest version of what happened to bring us up to the the area around atlanta at that time in 1864. so if we with you seen this picture in the last talk that's william tecumseh sherman, 44 years old at the time of this campaign. and i consider him the reverse of the peter principle. all right. this is a this is a commander who is certainly competent at every single level of warfare was involved with in the civil war, beginning with brigade command at the first battle in manassas. but wasn't brilliant there. he wasn't brilliant as a division commander, in my opinion corps command or even in his brief stint as an army commander. but with the increasingly sparse abilities where other generals would shrink and meet that definition of a peter principle, he excelled and where you really see him excelling is when he took over for grants. former command of the military division of the mississippi and essence, by today's parlance we would call that commanding an army group. he had control of three armies totaling nearly 100,000 officers and men equivalent to the ninth largest city united states at that time. and he's mayor of that city in blue transporting it, feeding it and supplying it. and to do that in the midst of a campaign and taking care of the logistics in which all the the men and the animals associated with army devour about 200 tons of foodstuffs each every day. he was filling 130 boxcars full of supplies and material to transport to supply daily to that army. so sherman's ad is really on top of his game during this campaign. and we're really going to be focusing on just one of his armies, primarily through the course of that campaign. you have a series of maps that are handed out. this one isn't in it. but i'm going to cue you in to the maps that you have, and we're going to focus those as well. but this is a give you an example of what's going on in the campaign before the battle of atlanta. and sometimes hear this campaign called the the red clay minuet as if they were just pairing against each other without doing heavy fighting. and i think that really is a to what's going on with the soldiers out here. the atlanta campaign me because at stage in 1864 both sides of the line i you have some of the most instinctive and experi based american soldiers that are fighting in in our history. and i'm going to you a couple of very stunning examples through the course of my remarks. but the battles are being fought throughout. this campaign beginning in the first week of may and taking us to where i'm going to bring us in july 22nd, had some very heavy with very heavy losses and had not this campaign been fought simultaneously, the overland campaign that, big behemoth, 600 miles north of of atlanta, i think it received much more attention because through the course of these battles, you're going to have 65,000 soldiers that become casualties in this campaign. it's a it's very bloody campaign through and through even battles at the top where you see rusalka, those three days of battle were inflicted, thousand total casualties, 5000 union, 3000 confederate. the hell, whole line with new hope, church picket smells. that's another 4000 men we know about the lab sited action at kennesaw mountain or you probably heard of that. but all these battles are interwoven with with opposing firing nearly every day. there's 33 engagements in the course, the atlanta campaign, that are either called skirmishes or battles. and it is a very tense and bloody affair. so through the of the campaign, sherman moved his army deep into the interior of georgia, which is his intention by grant's orders at atlanta is not named the endpoint of that till it gets revised well into several weeks into when it becomes an obvious endpoint. his goal is to break up the army, which he's not able to do is joseph eggleston is paid very well with them. but he is going deeper and deeper into georgia by following the western and atlantic railroad, the w and a where, he's able to keep feeding and supplying his troops from the several depots that he set up. he will cross three natural modes with the oostende all river, followed by the atwater river and then finally the chattahoochee, which brings you closer and closer to atlanta and by the by the third week of july, he now has his army group separate to where they are threatening atlanta both from the north and, also from the east. and we're going to pick our story from there beginning on july 20th at atlanta, becomes the designated point of the campaign, not because it's a huge populated city. it has maybe 10,000 inhabitants at stage in 1864. but you from this image, 1864, image of the car shed of why it's important a major railroad hub, all the transport of southern troops and supplies are easily funneled through rail lines coming to atlanta from the north. that would be western atlantic, which sherman is owning and more of each and every day, the east and to the west with the georgia or augusta railroad, which the union has just taken control of right before. the start of our battle discussion today and then two lines that join coming in from both alabama toward deeper into georgia and florida, which meet just six miles south of atlanta at a point called east point. and that brings you in on a single line directly into the city. so this little here is the major supply area and capturing island is key. we always can say richmond is the capital confederacy, but is the heart of the south in terms of funneling in and out men and material. opposing sherman is a brand new commander of the confederate of tennessee, named after the state, and he just replaced jogger joseph eggleston. in his first full day of command is on july 18th. and you see him right there. you've seen him in the eastern theater. but this is a pretty rare image of him. i wish it was out before. i wrote my book. this is john hood. all right. and this image, it's taken right before he returns back to service in 1864. we learn just from this picture that some of the things that we've heard about hood have been a little bit exaggerated. right we learned that when his left arm was shattered by shrapnel at the battle of gettysburg, it it dangled from his side and became useless a useless limb. well he could still grab a crutch candy. all right. so we know that that arm certainly had function in it. his his right leg, of course, does not. and jim is going to talk all about the battle of chickamauga but hood is going to sacrifice more of his body as a as a commander chickamauga. he will have his leg completely amputated called. the surgery is disheartening, elation at the hip, same name that's applied to it today. back then, four out of five americans that had that surgery from it. the fact that hood the surgery is remarkable in itself, but he is back in the saddle and in command within six months of the surgery. it is even more remarkable and this is exactly the way we see him in the atlanta campaign now. he returns as a corps commander within johnson's command. and when jefferson davis attacks johnson for to stop sherman's advance the gates of atlanta, it's hood's job to prevent that from occurring. so everybody understood as one tennessee soldier wrote in his diary, i think we learn something more than fortifying him. they know that he is going to fight, and that's exactly what he plans to do. opposing hood and one of the armies with the same with the same name almost it's the army of the tennessee after the river. that's one of the armies in the army group, the one i'm going to focus on today that is commanded by this gentleman 34 year old james byrd, jean mcpherson. all right. he's he's the a-plus student. i say in a in an overachieving b student army. and when i say that, i mean that of the three corps commanders and division commanders in that army, only one of them, one of the division commanders, has a west point education, but they're led by this guy who is the top of his class of 1853, numero uno. that's mcpherson. he's taken over from the army. this is grant's old army. old army. and now it's gone to mcpherson, who had commanded the 17th corps prior, taking over this army. he was about to head out in march to marry his fiancee in baltimore war, but sherman had to pull him back because of the active campaign. sorry, mac, sherman said, i can't spare. you and mcpherson is is is leading his army this campaign on july 20th and i don't have a map for this but you'll get the idea from what you saw with the previous one and land is being directly threatened from the north by by sherman with tom geor george thomas's army of the cumberland big army 60,000 officers a man hood attacks at army in an action called battle peach peach tree creek on july 20th, when he sends two corps to to assault that army as it's trying to cross peachtree creek. the attacks late one of the corps commanders william j. hardy his his his action that day left a lot to be desired. and what turned out in the course of the action, thomas is able to hold his position and roughly a little over 2000 casualties are inflicted upon both through the course of this day. on wednesday, july 1864, while this is occurring in a north south action above atlanta, coming from the on the georgia railroad making neckties, bending the rails around trees as they're advancing toward atlanta is mcpherson any army of the tennessee they had crossed the chattahoochee drop straight to the georgia railroad passed at a town called decatur six miles from atlanta and are moving westward toward atlanta. sherman has pushed mcpherson to try to enter atlanta with his troops because obviously hood is very involved with fighting against thomas on the north. it's this idea of wally's being engaged in the north should mcpherson should have an easier job of that coming in from the east on an east west action. but as he had done right before the battle issaka mcpherson will vacillate he'll be very slow to act at a cost of less than 100 casualties through the day his 25,000 very experienced usually very victorious members of the union army of tennessee will barely advance that evening as are repelled by only. 4000 dismounted cavalry under major general joe wheeler, 27 years old, holding ground known as bald hill. sherman is a little upset about, obviously reprimand. mcpherson in in the kindest way in his. but mcpherson will say he will he will pick up the task of following and that does and that leads to the action that we're to see here. it's the first one on your handout map. and i'm not going to be able spend a lot of time on it. this is a very interesting little action that occurs on july 21st. it occurs the same ground where the the major battle that land is fought on july 22nd. it involves the same troops, but we never consider part of the battle and only tradition prevents us from doing that. for the life of me, i don't know why we we even give this action a name. and it's a very heavy contest. there are more killed and wounded people. this action on july 21st, 1864 than in all but one of stonewall jackson's battles in the 1862 valley campaign. but this thing doesn't even have a name. so today we are going to it. the battle of bald hill, all right. and i think, as i said, only tradition prevents us from calling this part of the two day battle that lynn. and i guess if you're looking for something similar to that think of the second manassas campaign. usually we think of the battle as two days and oftentimes people separate the battle. bronner's farm, which on the 28th as a separate contest even though the same troops over same ground are involved. i guess in a we look at it that way, but really we should be calling this a two day battle, including and i can't spend a lot of time on this. but to show you it's a very harrowing fight. it's the very next morning. and just so you know, off the off the page here is atlanta, about two miles to the to the west of, this high ground called bald hill. all right. occupying bald hill the beginning were the same troops that were there the night before. that's wheeler's dismount at calvary. he's got a few thousand men there. all right. and coming at now is the 17th corps leading the army, the tennessee. well, 25,000 strong. and to soften that position, this battery up here, the first iowa is really pummeling that position. when wheeler's men go off the new troops that come aboard are arguably allies. it's not even an argument. my posit in my opinion, it's the best troops in the in the army of tennessee. that would be patrick clayburn division. they occupy that. this is granbury, old brigade, now commanded by brigadier general james a smith and they take over and in these entrenchment round strong from this battery devastate that position in 5 minutes 40 men are killed in 100 are wounded in 300 seconds. so that's somebody going down at just about every other second. but it's not that nice. even pounds of time, one of these rounds lands in a in a ditch in which. 18 members of the consolidated 17th, 18th, texas are a company of them are staying the round explodes. 710 out of those 18 members are killed instantly or mortally wounded. only one survives unscathed. so once that position is softened, we, these western troops and civil war, but we know them more as midwesterners. whoops. today that would be iowans. illinois ends ohioans and wisconsin. wisconsin troops. they all in four different brigades ascend upon this position, hold their ground drive smith off and that all happens in the morning hours of thursday july 21st. the rest of that day is just an effort by clayburn to try to recapture that hill. it's not a very hard because of the because of the occupation of that hill, a michigan battery is brought up. six rodman guns under marcus. it's called the black horse battery because he's beautiful black jet, black horses drag these guns up to the height and that is exactly the ground that sherman wanted occupied because now at a much closer range they could start pummeling atlanta from that high ground. and as more and more confederate troops occupy this area, patrick clayburn heard to say that this is had been the bitterest fight of his life, the bitterest fight of his having no idea what's going to happen the very next day, going to magnify that several fold. so that's the action that occurs july 21st. the cost for the union in this attack was over 700 killed and wounded. the cost for the and trying to defend it was well over 300. you had over a thousand casualties. this day in a battle that nobody ever talks about. and we have just given a name. the battle of bald hill. all right. wow. occurring if you turn to the next page in your packet, you'll see general hood's battle plan. i'm going to spend a few minutes on this because i think for about 140 years, this had never really received attention or it's been widely listened, treated and to me, it's actually pretty to understand what he was writing in his report, something he mimics perfectly and he hood in his memoirs after the war. and i really think what he did was pretty much transposed things he wrote in his report to his memoirs and addiction. they definitely agreed and clear that hood is trying to tell us what he's planning on this very day is borrowing from previous successes of robert foley and stonewall and to convert that into what we'll call by modern the hail mary he is going to go for broke on july 22nd, 1864. and that's what really need to appreciate what makes this a decisive day is what is what hood wanted to happen, what could have happened, and what actually happens when we look at the difference, we realize how decisive this day is going to be. so while that action at bald hill is still occurring and troops that are on bald hill now is is mcpherson's force. that's the army of the tennessee. that's quarters of it. they've aligned in a fairly north and south direction along that height, going all the way to the georgia railroad. that's the 15th corps and the 17th corps below them. hood is that headquarters with his corps commanders and even general who has been forced off that in the morning has come to join them. and this is the battle plan hood is going to be his army, by the way, at this when he takes it over, counting the few thousand members of gustavus, miss georgia militia, we're going to count them because they're going to be engaged the next day. will number 63,000 officers have men in branches of that army? all right. of that, about 46,000. 46 to 47000 of them is army of tennessee, infantry, the heart of your attacking force. hood's is really top heavy and in cavalry, dismounted cavalry tend to fight pretty well. but there's about 10,000 of them. and it makes that 63,000 a little hyped up in numbers when you're really talking about the infantry of it being much lower than that, that army is still larger. robert e lee's army, 600 miles north of it, fighting. and but the important part to know that at the end of may, it numbered nearly 80,000, 80,000 officers some. and so they've been by casualties, desertions and captures as well, which are part the casualty picture, down nearly almost 20,000 to be at that strength on 22nd. but it's still a viable force, particularly on defensive but hood's going for broke right. so he is going to hold atlanta with two of his corps. the one on the top was stewart. alexander stewart. they were engaged in peachtree creek. they're to be just holding in front of thomas and keeping him in check like they have been ever since that battle. benjamin cheatham has taken over from hood's for hood's corps. when hood moved up to army command, cheatham left his division, was in a different corps and hardy's corps to do that gustav this smith a militia and then on a flanking maneuver ala chancellor neville you are going to have joe wheeler's dismounted cavalry leading hardy's corps all around the flank undetected of that army of the tennessee. and if they have to bring them all the way up to decatur on the georgia railroad, that will the plan and to attack that army from behind surprise is it rout it that's why i have it broken up here and the notion to send it northward in a route where you would a domino effect. okay because attached right flank to flank is john scofield's army of ohio. it's essentially a one corps army, the 23rd corps. they would roll up as this fire is being sent in retreat. and when that occurs, then stewart is supposed to take up the route and surprise us all. thomas is as the momentum is shifting and everybody is being driven back to peachtree creek. all right. this is audacious. we use word for robert e lee, but if you think about what hooded experience, at least side the seven days campaigns that's lee with some very bold battle plans in the seven days campaign was able to take out the 100,000 man army of george brant mcclellan the army, the potomac around the gates of richmond it cost lee 20,000 killed, wounded and captured to do that. but the sacrifice, at least at the time, was considered worthwhile. definitely to relieve city. so hood is is is hoping not to have to sacrifice many men for this but he's willing to attack rather than be attacked. that's the point. and now for using a battle plan from a battle he wasn't at chancellorsville. he is going to use hardy on that flank march. now the difference between chancellorsville and this action is jackson move. 8000 men a dozen in 10 hours during the day i second an attack hardy has fewer men. he has 18,000. but he has to go a further distance. he has to go 15 miles. he has to do an 8 hours. and, oh, by the way, he has to do it in the dead of night, pitch black. all right. so that's the plan. now, before i leave this, i'm going to bring up two points. those of you that are a little bit in the know about the battle plan is sometimes you hear criticism cheatham or saying that had she them attacked at the same time as hardy the results would have been better. hope you realize now that's not the plan the plan is for them to attack simultaneously though the whole idea here is not to isolate and destroy the army it's to route it northward route it northward and taking the rest of the force with it. he doesn't want to just get rid of the army of the tennessee. he wants to uproot sherman's entire army group. so cheatham is never supposed to attack simultaneously with. hardy all right. but as start this march on the night of the 21st, they already realize that they're going to have some problems. all right. and that's because the the troops say just been fighting at bald hill throughout that day would be claiborne. and who's taken over for chiefdoms tennessee brigades. they're the last to disengage by this line that goes all the way to cobbs mill is miles long and the attack is supposed to occur at daylight the next morning or shortly thereafter. well, that's not going to happen. i mean, they're barely halfway into the march, so hardy and wheeler and at least one other commander go over to hud's headquarters. and they, according to their accounts get hood's approval to adjust the plan and think in this case, when they adjusted the plan, they improved it because the plan now calls for the attacks of hardy to occur directly on the flank and just off in the rear of the flank rather than up at decatur as a full assault this way. and i think it improves because if you attack directly from decatur, you certainly are going to surprise the army by hitting it in the rear. but you're not to guarantee it's going to route northward. it could just scatter, disintegrate and scatter. so if you actually align your attack to occur right on the flank, right behind it, you will pretty much if you surprise it, you're going to guarantee you're going to push it up northward, roll the flank, much like jackson did at chancellorsville at the end of may 2nd. all right. so that's the plan. but because the straddling of the troops moving along the roads, trying to find guys at two in the morning, which took an hour, find them, wake them up, get them to headquarters and start leading them on little topaz and starting to separate the forces so that they could align in the woods undetected. we're getting near the four noon hour of july 22nd before they're about ready to assaults. we're in between 11 and 12. the following morning before you see that happen. so what's the reaction of the union troops here? mcpherson soon is going to have because of over concern. his cautiousness, his vacillation, if you will, that we've out a couple of times here. it's actually going to be in his favor this very next day. mcpherson was convinced on the morning on friday morning, july 22nd, that he's going to get attacked him and he's sure that attack is going to come from the woods south of his flank or even behind he has no evidence of it. i don't even know if he sent enough cavalry to to look for the flank march. they never found one, but he's convinced that that's going to happen and he's going prepare to protect his wing of his army. so what i'm showing on this map is the 15th and 17th corps. there are some brigades, the 16th corps right behind it. and what mcpherson wants to do is make a an with a perpendicular force that protects the flank in the rear. and if he can get those troops in time, he is going to have a perfect counter to a surprise attack that's supposed to happen in his rear just because of his own premonition that he believes that's going to happen. and he gets sherman's approval for it. so we're going to use troops from the 16th corps to accomplish this. so if you go your next page, where you see opening of the battle versus sweeney, i want you the next series of maps always to realize this as i leave this one. finally is that when you see this battle line, everything that's going to be depicted in those next two maps is southeast of it. okay it's off the flank. so i'll point that out on each map. we're going to be well east of that main 15th and 17th corps battle line. so we'll start with the next one, baid versus sweeney. when i said the 16th corps, it's kind of a misnomer. the 16th corps at this part of the battlefield is three brigades, 4000 infantrymen with brigade sent over to decatur under colonel john sprague to watch the union supply wagons or protect them. 1200 plus army wagons are back there and that's six miles from atlanta. all right. so so one detached brigade and three other brigades from two from two different divisions are going to be trying to form that l that sherman mcpherson is looking for that 15th 17th corolla is over here where you see that arrow, bald hill that's over in this area. so these guys are well east of that. there's going to be a big gap. he'll never really form that out, but he's to get these troops in place, as you see down here. and if you regiments coming in from rice's brigade when the opening attack finally. at 1202, we actually know the time at 1202 and that is led by the first of four divisions of hardy's corps that is william bay singular but we i say baits now because it's possessive he has three brigades he has the old orphan under the command of general lewis here. he has findlay's florida brigade. and he also has what's called taylor's brigade. but here it's commanded by thomas b smith. that's georgians and tennesseans. here, kentucky troops, florida troops. and they're coming in both directly west, northwest in these two positions against, these very few infantry regiment. but what's helping them here is the 14th ohio light artillery, seth laird's battery, six six. rodman's and and the first missouri light artillery here, which is six napoleons. these two batteries in an hour and a half are going to fire 1119 rounds. that's 15 rounds a minute. all right. and the casualties that they're going to produce within these ranks, it's mostly to be by artillery fire, by my best determination, actually, more than the infantry fire opposing maybe close to half and half, but that's what you have occurring here, is these these batteries keeping these troops honest. they can't penetrate that position. the floridian heavily in front of the artillery, probably taking over 500 losses within the ranks. the kentuckians are probably little bit last 130 killed and wounded. don't have the exact on on smith but probably looking at well over 600 to 700 total casualties and bates what really amounts look like a half hearted assault but. i think the the artillery keeping that position honest makes all the difference in the world to get ahead of game. i wrote a book about, the battle of ezra church, which happened six days later. those confederate troops get right up in and are fighting hand-to-hand with the union troops top of the height because there's no artillery. it's a world of difference when when artillery is firing at you. and i actually think it keeps the casualties a little lower against the attacking force because they go against such a heavy, such a heavily armed position. and that's exactly what's occurring here. now, in the next map, i'm going to start shifting. if we started at if you're looking at this is a center of a clock. here's 3:00, here's 4:00. here's 5:00 here. 6:00. your next map is to bring us into that 6:00 region. okay got it. there it is. all right. so that's your that's your map showing mercy. august mercy's brigade here with the next division, william h.t. walker's division coming up against some bates already out of the action in about 20 minutes. and these fairly piecemeal assaults that are happening at different portions of the union line, clement evans, general clement evans brigade of walker's division is led this day by colonel george smith because evans was mortally wounded at peachtree creek. in other words, hardy's court had taken 700 casualties at creek. they're heavily engaged in three consecutive days of action, taking a beating here and as a first brigade assaulting against mercy's men, the skirmish line is the 66 illinois infantry. they are armed with henry sharpshooters. all right. not the entire regiment. 200 men in there along that skirmish line. that's certainly keeping them honest and is that softens their position. the 81st ohio conducts a bayonet charge and and disperses much of that brigade wounds colonel smith and the next in command is supposed to be jay cooper nesbitt of the 66 georgia. but he's on the other side of sugar creek and different brigade. this is morals brigade of fullers division, where the 39th and 27th ohio take up on what. they see across the creek with the 81st they charge against position and take down to 66 georgia. all this is occurring in front of the two division commanders, thomas sweeney and sweeney's a tough guy. i mean, this guy is he's lost an arm, the mexican war. he's had an arrow go through his neck in 1852 on the plains he's taken a couple of bullets in the civil already. in fact, one of them still embedded in his thigh, even at the battle, shiloh, he he received a close shave, if you will, because around grazed his face and took off half of mustache. so he's a he's a tough bird, but they said that he spoke three languages. he spoke english irish-american and profane. all right. and the stereotype was, is that he hated because he's irish. he hated all englishmen. well, guess where john fuller was born? not good for there. but the truth is, we can't really fit the stereotype. because, let's face it, sweeney, absolutely no friends in the army or the army of the tennessee. so he basically hated everybody. but his men have been fighting well, and it's two of his three two of the three brigades were his men. and he won't get the credit for it. and because that it'll end up in a fistfight. yes it's one armed guy gets into a fistfight with his coworker mander a few days later that's grenville that you see on this map and he'll be cashiered for that. so while is occurring now against the 66 georgia in capturing nesbitt who was the next commander of that of that brigade. it's going to have to go to the third guy the next brigade is coming up into this action and they're going to hit right at the perfect time, right when those two ohio regiments are faced south and occupied with the capture of those georgians there who get hit on the flank by a brigade brigade commanded by the best first name in a probably an american history, the bourne. during the nullification crisis in south carolina in 1832, his father christened him and it is his given name, states rights guest love that name, right states rights guess he commands to south carolina regiments in two georgia regiments attach and it's only by pure serendipity that he hits this line at the right time. all right. because now he's caught it in the flank. they quickly try to reform, but they're all driven back. all four of these regiments into a fairly bed of this branch of sugar creek. and they're hiding in that position. they're going to fight their way of it and drag and drop guests back into the wood line. and he is now going to be supported by own division commander. now we talk about all the bullets at sweeney william h. t walker rail thin sombrero, wearing, dusty looking general. he's called old shot pouch. he's been hit seven times with bullets his career. and there's an that's commonly used by my daughter in her generation that i always roll my eyes at but it's been defeated by seeing it used before a witness said that in the seminole war walker literally shot to pieces i hate that word literally now we're seeing it use there especially when misused like it is at that stage. so walker obviously was shot to pieces, but he was shot up an old chap. ouch is personally leading this men guess is a tough guy he had just taken a spent ball in his back the day before which bruised him pretty severely but he's still in the saddle and fighting. i this because he got wounded in the hand during this action and i can only imagine that because was a very bloody wound it's going to take him out of the fight and out of the war for several weeks. all right. we don't have any more far as i know any more further description of what it was that that happened to his hand at that stage. but he's out of this fight. so that means walker has to try to personally lead. guess on this movement. and he does until short horse is shot out from under him. and will walker gets on his two feet to lead to lead those forward around goes right through both lungs and he is dead on his feet literally before he hits the ground. all right. so walker is the highest ranking confederate officer killed in the battle. major general. and today there is a there's a rusty upside down cannon near a gas station depicting where he was on the east side of atlanta. the only problem is it's a mile away where he was really killed, which just happens to be walker park. so they should have they should have had that in the right spot. but it's about a mile away from it. so the old cannon is way off the page at the bottom. all right. so is out of the fight. and when it happens, when you lose your division commander, you have to promote from within. so the senior brigade commander is hugh mercer, the namesake grandson of the revolutionary war martyr from the battle of princeton who was mortally wounded there. he had a fort named after him at the same time. and you, mercer's 55 years old and in a few weeks going to be pushing papers. he's just not fit to be a field commander. and because of that, his third brigade, which was his original men, is now commanded by colonel william barker lu, who advances his men very slightly, even below, where smith had his men here and takes 15 casualties and doesn't press the action any further. so what's happened in this hour and 15 minutes is you now have two divisions out of the fight, but let's make it a third one because we're you see, bates go two miles up from there in terms of the map delineation. and that's the town of decatur at the same time that this is occurring joe wheeler with at least 3000 maybe up to 5000 cavalry descends upon decatur from the south. decatur, those 1200 union supply wagons are only protected by one union brigade under colonel john sprague. four regiments, two ohio regiments, a zoo of new jersey regiment and a wisconsin regiment and a michigan battery and sprague for about a half an hour, holds back wheeler's constant assaults against him until he gets double enveloped and he pushes back, sprague lose 254 officers and men in that action, but he buys enough time for every single one of those wagons to roll safety. for that, he will be commissioned brigadier general. he be given a medal of honor. but for the purposes of the battle, he had yield the ground and remember what is hood's battle plan is that would is there wheeler is to get to decatur and then turn toward atlanta the rear of mcpherson's and charge in from there wheeler gets too caught up in go in after those wagons which are heading northward and he starts sending his men in that direction. but it will be not one not two, but three detached aides from hardy who recall wheeler come join hardy along the fight against the rest of the 16th and 17th corps men. that shows how desperate is becoming at losing the momentum that he thought he was going to have by a surprise attack. that's hardly surprise at all. so within his first hour and 15 minutes, hour and a half, you already have 2000 casualties, 2 to 1 confederate to union and two to full divisions. and general generally, wheeler's cavalry is now consumed completely and out of this fight. now, let's keep working now toward that union line, and you have this on your next map. there we are. we finally the line that i was showing in the battle plan this the 17th corps line, and we have a new division coming into place. i've already talked about them at the july 21st battle of bald hill. this is patrick clayburn division, one of the reasons why patrick claiborne was so successful as a as a commander is that he had really brigadier general serving under him and ones that haven't fallen away because of attrition so much. granbury didn't. smith is a good, capable replacement, but people like lowry, daniel galvin are our excellent brigade. all right. and just to give you a quick example, without being able to dwell on it, i'm going to demonstrate how how excellent these troops are. i said that you had some of the best quality fighting troops in american history on both sides of the line, instinctive look at this situation that they're facing. mingo even, as he's attacking out of the woods this a well entrenched line of what was crocker's iowa brigade now commanded by william hall it's a good brigade they're all in their own separate regimental entrenchment so they prepared them all night long they are buttressed by two battery apps from two different artillery positions. i just wanted to get buttress in a sentence. i feel pretty good about that now. and they're holding their position very well. all right. but and they have the perfect setup have felled trees. they have arbor t in front and in less. 25 minutes galvin's brigade is going to cut through all of that obstacles, get this line of union trig. he's going to capture eight cannons. he's going to capture the entire 16th iowa, 240 officers, a man inflict over a hundred casualties on the other iowa regiments. and grab this 300 yards of real estate. one brigade does that in 25 minutes inflicts 400 casualties, eight cannons and captures at 300, 300 yards of union real estate at the southern part of that line and has started to roll it up. but they start to hold strong that stage they took in that process has over 300 casualties among. these very consolidated are arkansas regiments, and that's why they're really good fighting units. these are good vets. they're they're depleted much they have to consolidate their numbers here. but they're pretty much out of the fight for a while because they have to kind of lick their wounds and refit themselves. but they've accomplished quite a bit coming now in on their right. boy, we saw them on july 21st. we're seeing them again. that's the texas brigade. james smith's brigadier smith's texas brigade member, said the union plan was make a letter l out of that position. well, here's that yawning gap, a thousand yard gap in the woods that mcpherson is dap desperately trying to fill in. he has sent his aide william strong, to the 15th corps to bring down one brigade of missourians under anglin. and it'll take them a while. but their job is to fill in that gap. in the meantime, general mcpherson himself rides in there with just one signal officer, and trailing behind him is a colonel in charge of one of the 17th corps brigades is trying to back to his command on bald that's all that's there until run into some of the leading of that texas brigade and that is the fifth confed it infantry it's mostly a tennessee. it's mostly a tennessee regiment. and it's got some mississippians in it as well. the company here is led by captain beard and he confront mcpherson on horseback. doesn't know who he is, but knows it's to be at least a corps commander. he's seeing course he he moves his sword in a motion for mcpherson to surrender because he b he's surrounded or not quite surrounded certainly overmatch mcpherson wades off to surrender and instead wheels his horse around and tries to head up toward fuller's position. going down that little cart path in the woods, lowering his body to reduce the surface area so that he won't get shot up. but it's not going to be effective him because beard will pull very good, sharp named coleman from mississippi and order him to fire at mcpherson as he's riding away and this is an 1864 image of what the woods like what that simple path like boy is this an artist's license they threw a wagon wheel on there and a shell that wasn't there at the time. but that little paper up there on that little is the spot where was on the horse. the bullet hit, some just above the hip. his body comes out. the other side mortally wounded, dies within 20 minutes, but the wounding took place at 145 or so, maybe even little earlier than that. they always say it happened at 202 because the aide that was with ran into the tree and his watch had stopped at 202. i have no doubt about that. i just don't think the watch stopped immediately. i think it slowed down in a stop because it probably probably hit he might have died at 202, but he was on horse had to abandon the horse earlier than that of evidence for that now there is a a cannon in a neighborhood in atlanta marking mcpherson's death site. and it is actually at the spot that that well-known where they limits that cannon is in the right place. all right. but what's important here is that for the first time in the war, a union major general in charge of a major army is killed on a battlefield. now, i know you're going to say, well, nathaniel, i did not know nathaniel lyon was a brigadier general in charge of a 5000 man. division mcpherson's a major general in charge of a major army. there goes to the head of the west point class of 1853. the class also had hood and scofield in it, but he's out. so now the momentum is changing, isn't it? where those first two divisions of hardie's attack have been stymied? claiborne is changing the focus of this battle. all right. and and it extends even further. now, you don't have a map for this, but let me just quickly extend you here. the the texans come up in rear of the 17th corps line and are finally stymied by. one division of 15th corps troops, which drop them from going all the way up to the 15th corps line at the same, more troops are entering the fight. you don't have a map for this either, but i must show you very quickly, is the fourth division of hardy's corps is entering this fight and that is the the troops formerly commanded by benjamin franklin cheatham remember i said has moved over to take over hood's former corps his division is by the senior brigade commander who has moved up to division command. that's george meany. unfortunately george maney for the confederates fits the peter principle perfectly. he excuse the alliteration, but he does all right because he cannot keep his men aligned and in look at the separation. carter is part of east division. michael is part of the main east division. so his struggle they're fighting on all different parts of the battlefield. it wasn't that way. and there's even a fourth brigade under frances walker that hasn't even entered the fight yet. so he lost control of these guys. a creek two days earlier. and he's proven once again that that he can't handle a division as well as he could handle a brigade of which he was very good at. but he certainly is very poor at keeping control of this brigade in, this fight, one of the side effects of that is you had a regiment that was jumping and forth this 13th iowa, fighting on both sides of the line almost simultaneously against troops that were coming up against it. but for most part, these regiments are held in place when although a struggle is wounded by by a wound, his second in command, tillman of the 24th tennessee, isn't to advance those troops. he just isn't made. he isn't fit for that job. and he drops that brigade back. and that's unfortunate. had they been linked up more with he personally, he could have personally them and kept up the pressure on this side of the line. but that's not going to happen. all right. so this is now close to the 2 to 3:00 hour. and your next map picks up where i have the action. clayburn attacks bald hill. compare that to your first map on the battle of bald on july 21st. and what you have. you have some of the same troops, these texans attacking some of the same troops that were attacking them on bald hill on the 21st. and guess what they're attacking, they're attacking west to east l.a. over here. these are confederate troops. there's certainly a lot of troops. remember, you have chiefdoms corps, you have george smith's division, and you're basically trying to make a sandwich out of these guys in the middle. they are fighting dust brightly for the control of bald hill in. this course of this, our fourth thousand troops about evenly split on both sides are trying to attack and defend that hell perfect example. this is leggett's defense. his division and because of this defense this hill will be called leggett's hill. from this stage on one of his brilliant big brigadiers manning force in the desperation, the fighters trying to rally his men, he turns to an aide and tells him to get him a flag and the aide seeing the swirling action around, just realizes, okay, this all makes sense and he disappears for several minutes when force looks for him, he sees that aide getting cloth and he -- you, sir, i don't want a flag of truce. i want the american flag. okay. that the eighth i was trying to surrender, but forces. no way. he's trying to rally his men. so that's exactly what's happening. when one of forces men goes down force leans over to try to help the guy a bullet hit some underneath left eye crosses his face takes away part of his jaw goes out his right eye. he will not lose his sight. he will not lose his speech. but he's out of this fight and out of the war for little while. and so this is kind of the action that you see occurring here. okay going on for almost an hour as. it gets closer and closer to 3:00. you then you see lowery and carter's men pushing up against the the eastern side of this entrenched where the union troops are and in there. you see the 45th alabama under harris lampley in brigade, and that's clayburn division. and then you see the 38th tennessee fighting side by side, the 38th tennessee again showing you screwed up, man. he was in this fight commanded by anthony gwynn. that's carter's brigade in manny's division. and carter's brigade. part of it is completely right. but they're fighting together. the 15th iowa, commanded by william belknap. and at this stage, lampley is trying to push his men forward to overtake position where the 15th iowa is, and he turns eastward to face his men who are who are not following. but they're there hugging the ground in a line of several yards beyond him, and he is cursing them for not following him to the earthworks lap. we lose sight of where he is and what he's doing because he spent too long facing that direction. all of a sudden he feels each shoulder being pulled up. william belknap in an aid him by each of his shoulders and pull him up and over the breast works as a prisoner of war. he'll be invited guests to to johnson island prison in lake erie. the wall that before it begins, belknap points out something the lampley that belknap thought he should really and he points to that line of of alabamans below and tells him there's a very good reason why they're not following you. they're all dead. that whole line of troops that hadn't followed him was all dead in that line, all so he's captured. gwin is captured. the major of the 45th alabama. freeman is also that starts to peter out fight all right and by 3:00 that whole line is repulsed this action was tremendous. and for the first time in the battle after 3 hours, you have a distinct lull that overtook the battlefield battlefield. and in that 3 hours, you already had 5000 casualties, a man was going down every other second of this battle and nobody had any perception that by the length of the contest and, almost by the casualties, that it hadn't even reached its halfway point. all right. well, we're well beyond the halfway point of my presentation. i'm going to whip you through the rest of this. this is all off the atlanta cyclorama. this is stuff you wouldn't see the rest of the is actually picked up in a cyclorama and we're going to pick up the afternoon action and in a brief few slides. this is not in your packet, but i'm going to lead you to the next map, which is and what it means is general hood has to change the battle plan. all right. what he thought was cheatham taking over his corps and picking up the route that was going to occur south to north can happen because because there is no route those those 17th corps troops held their position. so hood tells cheatham to to create a diversion to attack the 15th corps because they're sending too many troops to support the 17th corps. and what you have is a bloody diversion, almost the most successful diversion of any battle in a civil war because. in a minute, in a matter of a half hour, leading with 8000 men, you will have and this is in your map packet your next for confederate brigades will breach the 15th corps line because they attacked exactly at that time at 3:00 and no earlier had they attacked earlier there would have been 1500 more union troops and ten more cannons. but that line was was depleted by sending all those troops out to help the 17th corps. and a 16th corps. and at the same time, what's happening is that commander of the 15th course, john logan, he is the senior caucus islander. he's taken over from mcpherson and has ridden away from that part of the field. so morgan al smith is now new corps commander joseph andrew jackson, lt was the brigade commander. he's the new division commander. well, as has jones, the 53rd ohio, who doesn't even know this is a regimental that now is control of the brigade. all that happened within 20 minutes of the attack. these men have not used to being able to handle these new duties that quickly. and because of that, since the first time you're going to see this corps routed. and here's hood with a new battle plan. he's not routing the force northward, but he can destroy, completely destroy army. the tennessee by sending all these troops eastward. all right. and the moment that's above the august, the troops herd house near the georgia railroad and you see digresses is for 20 pounder parrots and there's six more guns of the battery. a battery of ten pounder parts. all those guns are captured. here's an image from the cyclorama fire showing the troop herd house and showing the confederates around those guns. all right. those four guns, rarely in a contest of this size with almost 60,000 men engaged as one man actually make a difference. but in this case, one will make a difference. there he is. that's blackjack, logan. all there he is on a cyclorama image. it helps that you're your army commander. used to be a jockey in his teenage years because you could ride a horse darn fast. and it also helps that your coal. black charger has a great war name of slasher and this this very inspirational who won one of the iowa troop said i am sure biggest coward in the world would stand on his head on top of the brass works if logan there and told him to do so or as legate would say, he seemed to call out the men. every particle of fight that was in them, the mark of the perfect commander got 100% fighting ability out of his men, and logan had a great homespun style. i could tell you from champion hill a year earlier, he told an indiana regiment to attack the hill and he adjutant said general, the rebels are awfully thick up there. logan cursed him. he said, --, that's the place to kill them where they're thick, right? so that's exactly what you shooting and what happens in a half is that a completely juvenile nation of the 15th corps by their inspirational that is what's picked up by the cyclorama and logan restores that line but there is one more final act before curtain closes and that is by hour by hour patrick clayburn who you see here, who has taken it upon taking it upon himself with the blessing of hardy, i just said tooken. did you hear that. i said took it with the blessing of hardy. he will put together a force of all these straggling men that never got the contest, brigades that didn't involved some that did. and he's going to create two battle lines a 3500 man battle line in a 2500 man battle line behind and from 6 to 8 p.m., he puts additional attacks against bald hill, generally emanating from from southwest to northeast. but leggett's man are able to hold that 17th corps takes 1800 casualties this stay and counting the 700 they had from the day before or 2500 in two days. but they hold that line. and in one of these attacks, francis walker is, while he's on one knee and the other knees propped up and his head goes down, the troops past and they he's praying, but he's dead in that position. all right. and what this battle meant when all was said and done, if you're general hood, you could say it went. the sun sets at 750. the battle just about 8:00. and the troops kind of ended up to the same position with a little more real estate owned by the confederates. so if you're general hood, you could make the claim, hey, we captured eight cannons. we took out thousands of of that army, and they did 3722 of them killed, wounded and captured. we decapitated, took out general mcpherson, which they but the cost to hood tremendous general lost over a hundred officers commanding regiments brigades companies and in the case of walker a division general hood lost over 6000 206,300 men in the process and for the first time in this campaign he has less less than 40,000 infantry less than thousand infantry. he knows that this campaign can't carry on with the hail mary anymore. he does not have the troops for it. for general mc general sherman, he's held on. he's got more than twice as many men as hood. the rest of the campaign is inevitable and you don't know it at time. but the battle of atlanta is the decisive moment is. every campaign has its decisive moment the battle of atlanta on july 22nd, clearly. is that because even though the carries on for another month, nobody understood more than bel hood and perhaps next to him will need to come to sherman that it was all downhill hood from that point on there no way that it was going to able to ever to conduct a full scale assault for the rest of that action. so that's why this campaign is considered that way with the battle? atlanta, the campaign itself, we consider one of the most decisive campaigns of, the war, because it all depends on lincoln's election. and even a month after this battle, lincoln is passing around the blind memorandum signed by his cabinet because he is sure he's going to lose the election. and they are going to help the next coming administration. mcclellan with their with their peace platform to bring south back in on a peace agreement which will bring in slavery intact. that's i'll call the south there dixie so if lincoln loses, that's what'll happen. he's already prepared for that. he sent frederick douglass with his agents to the south to free slaves to let them know that they've been emancipated. the south takes over again and the emancipation proclamation no longer hold. lincoln. as soon as atlanta falls everybody is is trumpeting a success. they're very confident lincoln's going to win the election. jeff ward will tell you how the shenandoah campaign will make their confidence even stronger. lincoln is elected and the war is going to end on his terms. and you could it all back to this day on july 22nd, 1864. this was a day dixie died. thank you very much. time for a few questions. okay. one of the big what ifs of, the civil war is what if davis had left johnson in charge? you have a opinion on that? if the question is, what if johnson was left in charge instead of hood and there is evidence johnson actually had laid out the battle plan for peachtree creek. but i think hood was in a in a position, had to fight his way out. i don't think johnson would have been nearly as aggressive. i think i personally think atlanta would have been abandoned by the confederates without nearly as many casualties. but, you know, this is war. the had think about it this way. what if hood's plan worked? what if he did roll up that union? would would lincoln have won his reelection if if the success and in that was stymied. what is what is thomas doing? all of this is going on. thomas is up and he he won the battle of peachtree creek. but in a way, you could say those attacks against him froze in his position. he hasn't been ordered to press too strongly against from north to south against atlanta. at the same time that their battles are occurring. so he's pretty much in a stagnant position. stewart, who is opposing him, is weighed for the momentum to roll its way up to his position and he's going to he's ready to attack thomas. but as he will write in his report, it never became a general, although it really did, because cheatham is as well before him. and to give you evidence, this clearly was the plan to roll it up northward. when she then attacked his corps, he attacked it. he attacked it on ashland stevenson's division, starting from the south 20 minutes later, followed by john c brown, followed 50 minutes later by clayton. he had to roll it up south to north. he kept he kept that strategy strategy. is. hood's failure at atlanta. one of the reasons why he decided to let sherman go and a lot of people his harebrained scheme to try to get to nashville if was that one of the reasons his failure at lana the reason he decided try and go north and let sherman go to the sea. if you didn't hear the question what was the strategy for the subsequent nashville campaign? i they'll make a case for this. it had to it had to deal with his strength. he just he just didn't have the numbers to repel sherman that time. and he was trying to get sherman to detach troops, go after what sherman eventually did. and what's interesting is through rest of the atlanta campaign, this battle and ezra church not only took men out of the fight but took the fight out of the men. i actually surprised at how stubbornly the confederates fought in the nashville campaign. consider how demoralized they should have been by the end of the atlantic campaign. so that was very impressive, considering the way they felt toward the end of that campaign. but that's exactly what his intention he he thought that he could carry the campaign toward the north. got davis's blessing for this and early on some success with it but then thomas tracked him down and got him at nashville and franklin of course. has of this train been left untouched or has atlanta covered all the well at the battle of atlanta, which was supposed to be part of a in the turn of the last not this recent one. what's going to be this for for battlefield park with the interconnecting areas and early in the 1900s, that plan went awry. today, much of atlanta, of course, is developed a lot of the cyclorama imagery is completely developed. they name the streets to grass avenue and you see some of the some of the commanders names on the roads but what's what you should know is that you could still do a lot of that first part of the battle of atlanta, as i do tours. you could do a lot of it from greenspace, from parks that just happen. be at this position where where confederate troops attacked union troops. i'll give you an example. i talked about walker being killed in walker park. that's where just our guest hit hit morals men. the kentucky brigade that opened the battle there. and they're in a wooded area that still exists today, the florida attack in an open field, even govan the start of galvanize attacks in a in a park area. so a lot of it can still be depicted from green space, but it probably wasn't intended to be that way. it just turned that way. yeah, good point. legates hill is on interpretable. it became i-20 interchange. it was leveled out quite a bit. and it's not even worth trying to depict. so a lot of it a lot of it is overgrown by the city's development. and a lot of that actually occurred in the 1880s, by the way, a lot of atlanta grew over that battlefield within 20 years of the battle. very good. great job. all right. thank you. i'm going to call everybody's attention. it seems like you're all having