July 20, 1864---The Battle of Peachtree Creek

JULY 20, 1864:         

The Battle of Peachtree Creek. 

Following a battle plan already designed by his former commander Joseph E. Johnston C.S.A., General John Bell Hood decides to stop the Union advance at Peachtree Creek. 

Unfortunately for the notoriously aggressive Hood, he fails to reconnoiter the Union lines sufficiently, and thus is unsure where the Union lines are weakest. Hood’s lack of knowledge in ordering the battle leads to a three hour delay as his subordinates shift troops hither and thither to place their strongest forces into positions that will allow them to attack the Union’s strongest forces. While this shuffling of regiments goes on, the Federals are constructing defensive earthworks which strengthen their positions even more. An impatient Hood finally tires of what he sees as dithering, and launches his attack three hours late, yet prematurely, before his units are fully in place. 

Although the attack is full of elan and the welkin rings with the spine-tingling Rebel Yell, Hood’s forces are battered against the Yankee positions.   

Hood loses 3,000 men to Sherman’s 2,000, and he is unable to drive the Union away from Peachtree Creek. 

Hood, though more aggressive than Johnston, has accomplished nothing in this battle but to bring Johnston’s nightmare to life in losing irreplaceable men even while gaining nothing. 

The aftermath of the Battle of Peachtree Creek. Confederate graves, marked with wooden headstones, are visible.

Having lost his first battle as commander of one of the main Southern armies John Bell Hood, however, is undeterred.

July 19, 1864---Marching on Atlanta

JULY 19, 1864:                   

General William Tecumseh Sherman U.S.A. is overjoyed at the replacement of Joe Johnston with John Bell Hood. Having worried throughout the Atlanta Campaign about his overstretched supply lines and unseen battle traps while facing the canny Johnston, Sherman announces that the appointment of the impulsive Hood is just what he wanted. Sherman is so confident facing Hood that he divides his forces. 

The Army of The Cumberland marches on Atlanta, while The Army of The Ohio and The Army of The Tennessee begin flanking movements around the newly-promoted General John Bell Hood C.S.A.’s Army of Tennessee is badly outnumbered. Unable to divide his forces to address all three threats, Hood decides to attack The Army of The Cumberland as the most immediate threat to Atlanta.

July 18, 1864---The Civil War Soldier

JULY 18, 1864:                   

About 2.75 million soldiers fought in the Civil War --- 2,000,000 for the North and 750,000 for the South. The average Yankee or Rebel was a white, native-born, male farmer, belonging to a Protestant sect. He was single, and aged between 18 and 29, with an average age of 25. The typical soldier stood about 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed about 143 pounds.  

Besides farmers, both armies were made up of men in more than 300 different careers, including accountants, surveyors, locksmiths, teachers, carpenters, shoemakers, blacksmiths, house painters, masons, teamsters, and mechanics. Given the greater population of the North, it is surprising that the Southern army contained a greater number of merchants, lawyers, and dentists.

Most Civil War soldiers were born in the United States, but approximately one-quarter of Federal troopers were recent immigrants. Some 200,000 (approximately 10% of all Union men who served) were German-born. At least 150,000 Irish immigrants served the Union cause as well. Other significant groups included 45,000 men born in England and 15,000 Canadian-born men. Not all of these men were citizens when they served.  The Union armies were also comprised of men born in France, Norway, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, Austria, and Poland. Fewer immigrants served in the Confederate armies, but the few that did represented the same broad spectrum. African-American soldiers made up roughly 10 percent of the Union army. Approximately 180,000 black soldiers wore the blue uniform; 40,000 lost their lives. Excepting Louisiana’s briefly extant Corps d’Afrique of 1861, African-Americans were not permitted to join the Confederate cause until its last days. Only a very few ever saw combat.

Soldiers on each side initially earned about $11.00 per month. In June 1864, the Confederacy raised each soldier’s pay to $18.00 per month, but due to rampant inflation, this sum was worth less than the lesser amount earlier in the war. The Confederacy struggled to pay even that, and many men fought for little or no money as time went on. The Union raised its monthly wage to $16.00 that same June. Black soldiers had initially been paid $10.00 per month, minus the $3.00 clothing allowance that white troops received --- in short, only $7.00. Eventually, there was wage parity (on paper) but many U.S.C.T. never saw the increase.

Officially, the daily Union ration consisted of 22 ounces of bread and either 12 ounces of pork or a pound of salted beef. Unofficially, and in reality, most men received hardtack, boiled beef, or bologna, usually less than fresh. Vegetables were provided as available. Coffee was the standard beverage, and smoking tobacco was a common addition to a soldier’s kit.   Confederates were supposed to receive (but rarely did) a daily ration of 12 ounces of bacon or 20 ounces of salted beef along with 18 ounces of flour or 20 ounces of corn meal or hardtack. Usually, Confederates got by on cornbread and coffee, and answered their oral cravings and pangs by smoking.   

In the Union army 80% of the men were in the infantry. 14% were in the cavalry. Six percent were in artillery units. In the Confederate army, 75% of the men served in the infantry, 20% served in the cavalry, and 5% served in artillery units.

Roughly 210,000 Union soldiers were captured and imprisoned in the South; 30,000 of them died. 215,000 Confederates were imprisoned in the North, and 26,000 of them died.

700,000 Americans died in the Civil War. Approximately 400,000 Yankees died in the war --- 150,000 in battle and 300,000 of disease, or roughly 20% of those who fought. The South lost about 300,000 men --- 100,000 in battle and 200,000 to disease (roughly 33% of those who fought).  Of every 1,000 Federals, 112 were wounded; 150 of every 1,000 Confederates were wounded. A Yankee stood a 1 in 8 chance of dying due to illness and a 1 in 18 chance of dying in battle. A Rebel faced a 1 in 5 chance of succumbing to disease and a 1 in 8 chance of dying in combat. About fifteen percent of the wounded became narcotics addicts due to the opium and cocaine used as standard medical pain killers in the 1860s. 

July 17, 1864---Joe Johnston is dismissed

JULY 17, 1864

 

The Battle of Snicker’s Ferry (The Battle of Cool Spring): 

 

A small Union force of 5,000 tries to waylay Jubal Early’s 14,000-man force which is retreating from Washington. The Union force is comprised of infantry only, and is overwhelmed by Early’s cavalry and artillery. The Union suffers 500 casualties (mostly killed); the Confederacy suffers 400 casualties (mostly wounded). 

 

James B. Stebbins and Myron E. Stowell, both from Deerfield, Massachusetts, both members of Deerfield’s First Congregationalist Church, and both Union men, were both killed on May 18th 1864, 1,000 miles apart. Stebbins was killed at Yellow Bayou, Louisiana. Stowell was killed at Spotsylvania Court House. Today, Deerfield holds a memorial service for them in which the officiant, Reverend Perkins K. Clarke, called upon the community to renew its faith in "Christian combat." 

 

General Joseph E. Johnston C.S.A. is peremptorily relieved of command of the Army of Tennessee by an angry Confederate President Jefferson Davis:  

 

You failed to arrest the advance of the enemy to the vicinity of Atlanta, far in the interior of Georgia, and express no confidence that you can defeat or repel him, you are hereby relieved from command of the Army and Department of Tennessee, which you will immediately turn over to General Hood. 

 

The one-armed, one-legged General John Bell Hood, who has been angling for Johnston’s command for some time, is named to replace him.  

 

Almost since Fort Sumter, Johnston and Davis have been at odds, and when the news breaks, the Richmond newspapers blame the act on the increasingly disliked Davis’ “cold snaky hate” for Johnston, who is a popular commander. Johnston’s dismissal causes a spike in Confederate desertions. 

 

In truth, there is more to Johnston’s removal than “cold snaky hate”. Over the course of the Spring and Summer, Johnston has allowed his army to be pushed all the way from the municipal boundaries of Chattanooga to the municipal boundaries of Atlanta. The “Second City of The South” is now facing seizure by the Federals under General William Tecumseh Sherman. 

 

In some ways the battlefield interactions of Sherman and Johnston mirror those of Generals Grant and Lee in Virginia. The two armies have pirouetted around each other for 120 miles, about twice the distance Grant gained on Lee. With every move, Johnston has been forced to move his army into a blocking position in front of Sherman’s.  

 

Unlike Grant’s Overland Campaign however, Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign has been relatively --- relatively --- bloodless. There has been much low-level skirmishing, but few of the massive high-energy set-piece assaults that marked Grant’s interactions with Lee. For the last hundred miles, he has been seeking a place to stand and fight --- indeed he found one on May 20th, at Allatoona, Georgia, where he was set for a large battle, but was flummoxed when Sherman declined his invitation to dance by making a wide flanking movement around him. Johnston had to scramble to catch up to Sherman. When Johnston does fight --- as he did at Kennesaw Mountain --- he does well.
   

Grant is quiet and pugnacious. Lee is thoughtful and aggressive. Sherman is ferocious and reflective. Johnston is militant and intelligent.

 

Despite Sherman’s ferocious reputation and Johnston’s militant one, neither commander wants to waste a man, and Johnston particularly does not want to waste a shot.  

 

Johnston’s tendency to withdraw rather than fight has given him the reputation of being the George B. McClellan of the South. But very unlike McClellan, Johnston is not just imagining a massive force before him --- he sees it with his own eyes. Sherman’s army began the Atlanta Campaign with 100,000 men. Losses and garrisoning have reduced his effectives to about 85,000.

 

Johnston, who began the Campaign with roughly 40,000 men has had to detach some thousands to bolster Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and has lost more to combat and illness. He has perhaps now 22,000 effectives, a shrunken supply train, and like Lee before Richmond and Petersburg, no place to go except in front of the enemy.   

 

Still, Lee has a larger army than Johnston (even though a reserve pool no longer exists), and can risk more. So, unlike Lee with Grant, Johnston fears to throw his entire force into a fray with Sherman. To lose men in any numbers will be the doom of the Confederacy in the Western Theatre. Johnston is cognizant of the fact that a costly set-piece battle with Sherman (even if he wins the day) could reduce The Army of Tennessee to little more than a Jubal Early-sized strike force; and then, in the foreseeable future, a replenished Union army could crush him at its leisure. Johnston has been utterly unwilling to allow that.  

 

Atlanta is critical to holding the lower South. Though it is not yet the political capital of Georgia, the very new city is the economic and manufacturing capital. Founded in 1837, it is the railroad hub of the Deep South, one of the few places where a large manufacturing infrastructure exists, and has a burgeoning population of over 10,000, including most of the South’s Captains of Industry. The loss of Atlanta will be a psychological blow as well, perhaps equal to the loss of Richmond itself.  

 

All this is at risk. In short, if Atlanta falls, Georgia falls, and the South falls with them. This puts iron into the backs of Atlanta’s defenders.  

 

And then, just as Joseph E. Johnston is about to make his stand, John Bell Hood takes his place.

 

Marietta Street, Atlanta GA, 1864 

 

 

July 16, 1864---"To watch for an opportunity"

JULY 16, 1864:                   

As consternation grows in Richmond over the fate of Petersburg and Atlanta, Confederate President Jefferson Davis wires General Joseph E. Johnston demanding to know why Johnston’s only apparent plan of attack is to retreat. Johnston wires back a worrisome and unsatisfactory answer which reads in part:

. . . As the enemy has double our number, we must be on the defensive. My plan of operations must, therefore, depend upon that of the enemy. It is mainly to watch for an opportunity to fight to advantage. We are trying to put Atlanta in condition to be held for a day or two by the Georgia militia, that army movements may be freer and wider.

Across the Atlantic, the generally pro-Confederate Illustrated London News carries a belated account of the sinking of the C.S.S. ALABAMA and the rescue of its crew by the H.M.S. DEERHOUND. The newspaper castigates its interviewee Captain John Winslow U.S.N. for not having the U.S.S. KEARSARGE aid the sinking vessel:

[H]e made no such attempt to rescue them as a generous enemy would have done . . . It is therefore probable that, if it had not been for Mr. Lancaster's prompt interference, Captain Semmes and his brave comrades would have shared the fate of Mr. Herbert Llewellyn, the surgeon (an Englishman, the son of a clergyman in Wiltshire), who perished with their sinking vessel. The DEERHOUND has therefore earned, in our opinion, the fairest honours of the day.