April 2023
Each brigade, therefore, “bore the brunt of the massed enemy fire along a narrow front.” With 4,000 infantry and 16 cannon the Confederates repelled the attack and inflicted heavy casualties. One Federal division lost 800 men “in only a few minutes.”
The brochure for the Atlanta Campaign Trail includes a
number of “points of interest,” sites shown on the brochure’s large map but not interpreted by GCWHT markers. One point of interest is Pickett’s Mill Battlefield State Historic Site. The state of Georgia has created an excellent facility to educate visitors about the battle fought here on May 27, two days after New Hope. Here, as at New Hope, a poorly-executed Federal assault resulted in a bloody repulse.
The day after Pickett’s Mill, the armies clashed again in the Battle of Dallas. Two markers tell the story of a failed Confederate assault on the Union right. Believing the Federals were withdrawing from this part of the line, and hoping to catch the enemy on the move, the Confederates probed with dismounted cavalry to determine the Federals’ strength. Finding that the works were still fully manned, the cavalry commander sent word to call off the attack. A Florida brigade and the famed Orphan Brigade of Kentuckians did not get the message. They attacked. Moving against the well-prepared Federals, these brigades suffered severe losses. The GCWHT marker quotes an Ohio soldier who wrote that “they
If you ever get to Gordon County, stop by and visit Sheriff Mitch Ralston, collector of artifacts and restorer of old wagons.
came with their heads bowed down and their hats pulled over their eyes as if to hide from view their inevitable death.”
A marker in a downtown park provides only a brief description of the May 28 engagement, stressing instead the effects the fighting had on the town and its vicinity. For two weeks “nearly 170,000 soldiers in the Federal and Confederate armies faced each other in Dallas and throughout Paulding County.” Many wounded Confederates were taken to Dallas, where they received inadequate care in the town’s “impromptu hospitals.” A Confederate captain later wrote of wounded soldiers “lying in hospitals and uncared for, some of them with limbs amputated, and undressed for two days, until from neglect – the weather being warm – insects had found a lodgment in every wound.”
Even before the action at Dallas on his right, Sherman had decided to move his force east, back to the railroad. Johnston hastened toward Kennesaw Mountain and the prepared works on terrain highly favorable to the defending Confederates. The story of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain is well-known. Kennesaw is mapped by GCWHT as another point of interest. As at Pickett’s Mill, GCWHT has installed no marker here, leaving the interpretation of this battle to the Kennesaw National Battlefield Park. Most readers will be familiar with the story: Sherman attacked on June 27 and was checked with serious losses. The Federals still held the advantage, however, and again moved around Johnston’s left flank, forcing another retreat.
We will pause here, and resume our tour next month at the Battle of Peachtree Creek, where the Army of Tennessee, under a new commander, attacked the Federals at the very gates of Atlanta.
Gould Hagler is a retired lobbyist living in Dunwoody, Ga. He is a past president of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table and the author of Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation, published by Mercer University Press in 2014. Hagler speaks frequently on this topic and others related to different aspects of the Civil War and has been a regular contributor to CWN since 2016. He can be reached at gould.hagler@gmail.com.
Georgia Civil War Heritage Trails has clearly marked the route with directional signs that lead to interpretive markers. The organization’s website (https://www.civilwarheritagetrails.org/) also contains each marker’s GPS coordinates. Brochures for the Atlanta Campaign Trail and other driving routes, available from GCWHT, contain much useful information, including excellent maps. I suggest that travelers make use of all three resources. If you use only the GPS coordinates to get from one stop to the next you will be led upon modern roads and miss much of the fun. If you are like me you will miss a sign now and then or take a wrong turn. When this happens the GPS coordinates will get you back on track. GCWHT’s address is P.O. Box 1864, Evans, Georgia, 30809.
