A Thousand Words a Battle: Kennesaw Mountain
The “Dead Angle,” Kennesaw Mountain
June 27, 1864
In May and June 1864, Federal forces under William T. Sherman outmaneuvered and outfought Confederate under Joseph E. Johnston, driving them from northeast Georgia back toward Atlanta. Johnston finally blocked Sherman’s way by digging in along the slopes of Kennesaw Mountain near Marietta, Georgia.
Confederate Pvt. Sam Watkins and the 1st Tennessee found themselves posted “on an angle, a little spur of the mountain . . . extending far out beyond the main line of battle.” The enfilading fire of forty pieces of Federal artillery continually raked them. “We would work hard every night to strengthen our breastworks,” Watkins wrote, “and the very next day they would be torn down smooth with the ground by solid shots and shells from the guns of the enemy. Even the little trees and bushes which had been left for shade, were cut down as so much stubble.” This “constant firing” continued for more than a week against their salient. “In the meantime,” he said, “the skirmishing in the valley below resembled the sounds made by ten thousand wood-choppers.”
Well, on the fatal morning of June 27th, the sun rose clear and cloudless, the heavens seemed made of brass, and the earth of iron, and as the sun began to mount toward the zenith, everything became quiet, and no sound was heard save a peckerwood on a neighboring tree, tapping on its old trunk, trying to find a worm for his dinner. We all knew it was but the dead calm that precedes the storm. On the distant hills we could plainly see officers dashing about hither and thither, and the Stars and Stripes moving to and fro, and we knew the Federals were making preparations for the mighty contest. We could hear but the rumbling sound of heavy guns, and the distant tread of a marching army, as a faint roar of the coming storm, which was soon to break the ominous silence with the sound of conflict, such as was scarcely ever before heard on this earth. It seemed that the archangel of Death stood and looked on with outstretched wings, while all the earth was silent, when all at once a hundred guns from the Federal line opened upon us, and for more than an hour they poured their solid and chain shot, grape and shrapnel right upon this salient point, defended by our regiment alone. . . .
All of a sudden, our pickets jumped into our works and reported the Yankees advancing, and almost at the same time a solid line of blue coats came up the hill. I discharged my gun, and happening to look up, there was the beautiful flag of the Stars and Stripes flaunting right in my face. . . .
My pen is unable to describe the scene of carnage and death that ensued in the next two hours. Column after column of Federal soldiers were crowded upon that line, and by referring to the history of the war you will find they were massed in column forty columns deep; in fact, the whole force of the Yankee army was hurled against this point, but no sooner would a regiment mount our works than they were shot down or surrendered, and soon we had every “gopher hole” full of Yankee prisoners. Yet still the Yankees came. It seemed impossible to check the onslaught, but every man was true to his trust, and seemed to think that at that moment the whole responsibility of the Confederate government was rested upon his shoulders.
Talk about other battles, victories, shouts, cheers, and triumphs, but in comparison with this day’s fight, all others dwarf into insignificance. The sun beaming down on our uncovered heads, the thermometer being one hundred and ten degrees in the shade, and a solid line of blazing fire right from the muzzles of the Yankee guns being poured right into our very faces, singeing our hair and clothes, the hot blood of our dead and wounded spurting on us, the blinding smoke and stifling atmosphere filling our eyes and mouths, and the awful concussion causing the blood to gush out of our noses and ears, and above all, the roar of battle, made it a perfect pandemonium. Afterward I heard a soldier express himself by saying that he thought “Hell had broke loose in Georgia, sure enough.”
I have heard men say that if they ever killed a Yankee during the war they were not aware of it. I am satisfied that on this memorable day, every man in our regiment killed from one score to four score, yea, five score men. I mean from twenty to one hundred each. All that was necessary was to load and shoot. In fact, I will ever think that the reason they did not capture our works was the impossibility of their living men passing over the bodies of their dead. The ground was piled up with one solid mass of dead and wounded Yankees. I learned afterwards from the burying squad that in some places they were piled up like cord wood, twelve deep.[1]
Federals sustained some 3,000 casualties in the day’s assault; Confederates around 1,000 in their defense. However, Sherman outflanked Johnston on the left, forcing Johnston on July 2 to once again withdraw.
— Chris Mackowski
[1] Sam Watkins, Co. Aytch, Maury Grays, First Tennessee; or, A Side Show to the Big Show (Chattanooga, TN: Times Printing Company, 1900), 136.
