On the Road to Atlanta: Cheatham Hill
Friday I will compare notes with several other historians concerning Sherman’s June 27th Assaults against the Confederates defending Kennesaw Mountain. Spending time on the actual battlefield is always valuable.
an excerpt from Mitchell’s Brigade, Davis’s Second Division, 14th Corps:
“Uncovering the angle at the very point at which I had been advised I would find it,” wrote Colonel Banning, “I started my regiment upon a left wheel,” coming up on the 113th’s right. “The enemy was still reserving his fire, and continued to do so until my command got close up to his ditches . . . when he opened upon my single line with grape and canister from both flanks and a full line of small arms from my front.” Though this deployment was preplanned, it confused Corporal Warfield. “Where the 113th went I never saw. I suppose they were all killed. The 121st never stopped, but rushed on to the works. . . . I had fixed my eyes on a place in the works where I intended to cross, but I didn’t cross. When I was within a short distance . . . . the command was given to halt.”[1]
“A.B.R.” of the 121st described this same moment:
All this time we . . . had not fired a gun—the charge being made with bayonets fixed and with orders not to fire until we had gained the works. . . . We still advanced in the face of a murderous fire to within 30 or 40 yards of the fortifications. We had passed the line in front [the 113th] who having received a murderous fire, and being thrown into some confusion, fell back and left us unsupported. At this moment a most terrific crossfire from the left swept through our ranks and mowed the men down at an awful rate. . . . Some one mistaking the retrograde movement of [the 113th] for an order to retreat, gave the command for our Regt. to fall back about 20 paces and was again rallied in a splendid manner.[2]
The 113th was indeed falling back. McCook’s men were giving way on the 113th’s left. Accordingly, “we had almost reached the works,” recounted Lt. Col. Darius Warner, when “it became evident that we could not capture them, and I sent word along the line for the men to cover themselves and commence firing. After I thought we were doing well, and the men were well hidden under rocks and behind logs,” Warner observed a “favorite Sergeant”—Francis McAdams—“standing out in full view of the enemy, loading and firing as though he were at target practice. I was sure he would be killed, for the rebels seemed to be literally skinning the hill.” Turning towards him, Warner urgently gestured for McAdams “to lie down.” Taking a bullet “in the upper arm, near the shoulder.” That, Warner recalled, “was the last shake of my right hand.” The wound was severe and required amputation.[3]
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[1]OR 38, pt. 1, 703; C. R. Warfield, “Charging Kenesaw,” National Tribune, September 6, 1894.
[2]A.B.R., “Letter from the 121st,” Marysville (OH) Tribune, July 20, 1864.
[3]OR 38. Pt. 1, 699; McAdams, Every-Day Soldier Life, 352; “The Battlefield of Little Kenesaw,” Mount Sterling Public Library Digital Archives, https://tinyurl.com/3xbkvatr, accessed 10/17/2024.
