Shortly after dawn on June 27, 1864, Union artillery crews sprang into action on 200 guns facing miles of the Confederate defenses along the Kennesaw Line near Marietta, Georgia.

Jostled and jarred awake by the tremendous barrage, Private Sam Watkins and his fellow riflemen of the 1st/27th Tennessee Regiment (Consolidated) stood up in their trenches and watched, enthralled as hundreds of Yankees surged toward them from the Federal lines 400 yards away.

Although the concentrated shelling did little more than alert the defenders that a ground attack was imminent, the Confederates marveled at the volume and intensity of the fire. To them it was one more manifestation of Yankee wealth and ingenuity. “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 … point,” wrote Watkins. For the next three hours one tightly packed Federal column after another charged into the teeth of the Confederate rifle fire.

The stakes that day could not have been higher. After his advance into north Georgia had stalled in the rain and mud just 20 miles from Atlanta, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman had decided to launch an all-out frontal assault against the entrenched positions of General Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate Army of Tennessee in the hope of bringing the campaign to a rapid, decisive end. A Union breakthrough in strength somewhere along the line would split Johnston’s army, lead to the capture of Marietta and a Yankee drive to the Chattahoochee River, and ultimately to the capture of Atlanta. Such a string of events would prove catastrophic to the Confederacy and might result in the South’s surrender. For these reasons, the Kennesaw Line had to be held “at all hazards,” according to Johnston and his lieutenants.

In March 1864, the American Civil War neared its fourth year, and newly promoted Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant prepared to head east to Washington to assume his duties as general-in-chief of all Union armies. Grant chose Sherman to succeed him as commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, a sprawling swath of territory that encompassed most of the war’s western theater. Grant’s instructions to his fellow Ohioan for the coming campaign were straightforward. Sherman was to move south from Chattanooga, Tennessee, along the Western and Atlantic Railroad and not only destroy Johnston’s army, but also systematically demolish the enemy’s industrial capability.

The petulant Sherman began his advance into Georgia on May 4 with an army group numbering 98,000 men against Johnston’s 49,000. But the terrain favored the Southerners, for behind Johnston lay 100 miles of mountain ranges, rivers, and tangled forests. It was ground that would prove a formidable ally to the Confederate defenders.

Sherman’s invasion force consisted of three armies: 60,000 men of Maj. Gen. George Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland, 25,000 men of Maj. Gen. James McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee, and 13,000 men of Maj. Gen. John Schofield’s Army of the Ohio.

Johnston’s Army of Tennessee during the Atlanta Campaign consisted of Lt. Gen. William Hardee’s corps, Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood’s corps, and Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s cavalry corps. When Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk’s 16,000-man Army of Mississippi joined Johnston’s army in May, it raised the number of Johnston’s troops to 65,000 men.

Johnston had established a strong position west of Dalton on Rocky Face Ridge astride the Western and Atlantic Railroad 25 miles south of Chattanooga, where he awaited the Federal advance. Sherman responded by commencing a series of flanking movements that resulted in Johnston withdrawing to Resaca on May 12. After two days of hard fighting near Resaca, Johnston withdrew south to Cassville on May 15 to avoid being outflanked.

Believing he had an opportunity to strike Sherman a telling blow, Johnston ordered a major attack at Cassville on May 19. Johnston’s plan called for Polk’s corps to draw the Union forces toward them so that Hood’s corps could strike them in the flank. But the usually aggressive Hood, alarmed by an erroneous report that a strong enemy force had unexpectedly gained his flank, pulled back and called off his attack. Afterward, Johnston fell back 10 miles to a new line south of the Etowah River. The Confederates established a new defensive position around Allatoona Pass.

свернуть