On the Road to Atlanta: Watching War
Union Brigadier General William T. Ward, a hard-drinking and equally hard-fighting Kentuckian, led the Third Division of the XX Corps into Marietta on July 3, 1864. He was new to command, replacing Daniel Butterfield, who took sick leave on June 29. Ward’s division was the advance of Hooker’s corps, and among the very first Federal forces into Marietta after the Confederates evacuated the Kennesaw Mountain line the night before. Sergeant Major Stephen Fleharty and his comrades in the Spencer-armed 102nd Illinois Infantry of the First Brigade—now led by a future president, Col. Benjamin Harrison of the 70th Indiana—were in the van. “We came up with the rear guard of rebel cavalry,” wrote Fleharty, and “our skirmishers opened a brisk fire. The rebels slowly retired, firing irregularly. . . . It was a lively scene. The skirmishers advanced cautiously but steadily, securing advantageous positions and plying their Spencers whenever an enemy was visible. There were stately residences at the roadside with neatly ornamented grounds, enclosed by picket fences. . . . It became necessary to pass through these enclosures and it was astonishing to see the boards fly as the boys crashed through the fences. . . . Three times they formed in line of battle . . . but they were met with such a well directed fire that they were each time thrown into confusion.”[1]
Once near the Institute, Ward reported that “a column of the enemy’s cavalry was discovered moving from the town. . . . Captain Smith’s battery (I, First Michigan) was quickly brought up, placed in position, and opened on the column. It was quickly dispersed. They brought up two batteries . . . [and] opened fire, doing but little damage before they were silenced.” Lieutenant Charles Cox of the 70th Indiana found this action a bit more harrowing. “At 9 o’clck A.M. our brig[ade] ran into a battery (1/2 mile from Marietta) which was covering their retreat, and the [way] the shells ‘came for us’ is unpleasant to even think about—We hugged the ground with all the grace of a pig for over an hour until Smith’s bat[tery] of our division silenced mr rebs guns.” Still, he bragged,” two of our companies drove 1200 rebel cavalry from the place.” Private James Congleton and his fellows in the 105th Illinois—also in Harrison’s brigade—drew the unpleasant task of directly supporting Smith’s guns. “For a time there was hot work,” he wrote, “we were massed right in behind our cannon. . . . [T]he air was full of bursting shells which made our heads snap. . . . We finally got permission to move a little to one side where we were more out of the line of fire. One of our Regiment [was] killed and several wounded. I don’t know the loss of our battery, but they suffered severely. The whole job I believe was planned by the Rebels to have a battery planted there.”[2]
William Trask, of Hardee’s staff, agreed. “Wheeler ambushed them,” he gloated, “giving them ‘blazes,’ but afterwards [they] drove him flying, tearing [Lt. Winslow] Robinson’s Battery up pretty badly.” Colonel Robert Thompson of the 3rd Georgia Cavalry, in Iverson’s Brigade, was also “wounded in the hand and head” here, though, admitted the Memphis Appeal, “the wounds are not considered dangerous.”[3]
Ward observed this fight sitting on a chair in the yard of Mrs. Minerva McClatchey, whose farm sat a mile southwest of the Military Institute. McClatchey and her husband, prosperous slaveholders and ardent secessionists, had moved from Cleveland Tennessee (a Unionist stronghold) to Marietta in 1862, in part so their sons could attend the G.M.I. Now her husband was gone, having taken their slaves south to prevent them from being liberated; her eldest son John had recently died of wounds from fighting in Virginia; and her youngest, William, was with the cadet battalion. Determined to stay, now Minerva and her son Devereaux, were the only ones at home. On July 3rd she had watched Hardee’s Corps march past, the men seeming “gay and lively. . . . O, how sad to see them go.” On the 4th, they had just finished breakfast when “a Regt of Confederate cavalry had formed in the field” engaging the Federals. Next “came the sharpshooters [the 102nd Illinois] stealing through the shrubery in the yard.” One Yankee nearly shot Devereaux, until an officer prevented it. “Gen’l Ward came up and Genl. Weitzel—all of Hooker’s corp. I met them on the porch,” wrote Minerva, “and invited them to take a seat . . . they took chairs in the yard—‘it was cooler and they could see what was going on better.’” Soon Ward, his staff, herself, Devereaux, and a myriad of other Federals were caught up in the artillery duel. “The bullets and shells were flying thick and fast. I walked back and forth from one door to the other and felt resigned to my fate.”[4]
Colonel John Coburn’s Second Brigade, trailing Harrison, included the 22nd Wisconsin. The evening before, these Badgers had witnessed a gratifying sight: The abrupt resignation and departure of their heartily despised regimental commander, Col. William C. Utley, who before leaving assembled the men and delivered an angry diatribe directed at his replacement, Lt. Col. Edward Bloodgood. Most of the regiment agreed with Sgt. Charles Dickenson, who was delighted to see the last of Utley and the equally worthless Capt. Isaac Miles, whom Dickerson believed, “by their inefficiency, they might imperil the lives of better men than themselves.” Now, while moving up on this scorching morning, Dickerson noted gruesome evidence of the Rebel gunners’ effectiveness. “We saw by the roadside one of our men who had been wounded by a rebel shell. He was lying on his back with his knees drawn up, but still alive, and a man stood beside him, waiting for an ambulance to come along. He had evidently been struck by three pieces of the shell, one had torn off his chin and under jaw, another had raked across his chest, cutting deep into the breastbone, and the third had torn off both his kneecaps. It was a horrid, bloody sight, and to a person unaccustom’d to battle scenes, it would have caused a shudder.”[5]
[1]“July 3,” Charles A. Booth Journal, WHS; Philip J. Reyburn and Terry L. Wilson, eds., “Jottings from Dixie” The Civil War Dispatches of Sergeant Major Stephen F. Fleharty, U.S.A. (Baton Rouge, LA: 1999), 237
[2]OR 38, pt. 2, 326; Caroline Cox Wyatt and Lorna Lutes Sylvester, “‘Gone for a Soldier’: The Civil War Letters of Charles Harding Cox,” Indiana Magazine of History, vol. 68, no. 3 (September, 1972), 207-8; “July 3rd,” James A. Congleton Diary, LOC.
[3]Kenneth A Hafendorfer, Civil War Journal of William L. Trask, Confederate Sailor and Soldier (Louisville, KY: 2003), 164; “Col. Thompson Wounded,” Columbus (GA) Daily Sun, July 8, 1864. It is unclear whom Trask refers to. Captain N. T. N. Robinson’s Louisiana Battery was not present, having been transferred back to Mississippi with the 1st Louisiana Cavalry. His battery was reorganized in the spring of 1864, when some of his men and guns were attached to other batteries. Lt. Winslow was not commanding a battery at this time but was possibly commanding a section in one of Wheeler’s other batteries.
[4]T. Conn Bryan, “A Georgia Woman’s Civil War Diary: The Journal of Minerva Leah Rowles McClatchey, 1864-65.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly, vol. 51, no. 2 (June 1967), 200-201. Mrs. McClatchey was mistaken about Godfrey Weitzel, who was in the Army of the James at this time, in Virginia.
[5]Richard H. Groves, Blooding the Regiment An Account of the 22d Wisconsin’s Long and Difficult Apprenticeship (Lanham, MD: 2005), 322-24; “Entries for July 2nd and 3rd,” Charles Dickerson Diary, WHS. For months, Utley had been feuding with Lt. Col. Edward Bloodgood, his tenure marked by incompetence and frequent absences. Utley was also sick, described by Coburn as “a partial invalid,” and had applied for sick leave. Many, including Bloodgood, took this as a sign that Utley was fleeing pending court-martial charges and said as much. When he heard about it, Utley charged up to Bloodgood in the latter’s tent and struck him in the face. Bloodgood refused to hit back, and instead quickly drew up charges of his own and presented them to Ward, who in turn then informed Utley that “if his resignation was tender’d immediately, it would be accepted.”
