The Atlanta and Tennessee Campaigns
IX. Atlanta Campaign - from Dalton to Peach Tree Creek
In the spring of 1864, the federal armies around Chattanooga were assembled under the command of Maj. General William T. Sherman. General Sherman was assigned the task of taking Atlanta. By May, the federal army began campaign operations to flank the confederates out of Dalton. On May the 7th, Hindman's Division, which included Deas' Brigade, was ordered to move to the Cleveland Road along Rocky Face Ridge, to prepare for a possible frontal assault from the federals. By the evening of May the 11th, General Sherman slipped by Johnston, and the confederate commander ordered the Army of Tennessee to pull out of Dalton after dark and proceed southward to Resaca, to establish a new line of defense1.
On May the 12th, Deas' men were deployed in entrenchments along the right flank of the confederate army outside Resaca. The next day, May the 13th, General Sherman opened an attack upon Deas' men. Deas' Brigade was attacked by an infantry column of Sherman's army around noon. The attack was furious, and did not end until 3:00. The infantry assault was repulsed, and General Sherman ordered an artillery bombardment upon Deas' men to soften their position. Nearly all of Hindman's Division was hit by the terrific bombardment.
After sunset, a cannon ball hit (but did not explode) in the 39th Alabama's lines, immediately killing two men and mortally wounding two more in Company A. The commander of Company A, Captain James P. Nall, lost one hand when a cannon ball sheared off his wrist. Later that evening, another cannon ball broke his other arm. Co. A adjusted their location to a new defensive position alongside of Company F to avoid the artillery fire. The commander of Company F was Captain Willis Banks, promoted to the position following Flewellen's resignation after the Battle of Murfreesboro, more than a year ago. Another ball hit, this time exploding, instantly killing Captain Willis Banks. Several other soldiers in Company F were wounded. Captain James P. Nall of Company A retired from the service due to his extensive injuries2.
On May the 15th, other portions of the Army of Tennessee attacked the federal army. Hindman's Division (including Deas' Brigade) remained in the entrenchments, which were described as 'a hill just beyond the road at a point where it curves slightly to the northeast'. Around 1:00 pm, the Division was attacked by another federal assault column. The federals were again repulsed with heavy loss3.
Sherman's men flanked the confederates that evening, making the Resaca position strategically untenable. Late that evening, orders were issued to Hindman's Division to cross the railroad bridge over the Oostanaula River, starting around midnight. By 3:30 am, the withdrawal of Deas' men, together with other brigades in Hindman's Division, was completed4.
On May the 19th, the Army of Tennessee was at and around the Town of Cassville, Georgia. General Joseph E. Johnston had reached a position that favored a strike upon the federal army. As he prepared his orders for an attack, the commander issued an order to be read to all of the army. In the official statement, Johnston praises the Army of Tennessee for its 'firmness in combat and patience under toil, and for the courage and skill with which [you] have repulsed every assault of the enemy'. General Johnston continues, saying that 'by marches by day and by night you have defeated every attempt upon your communications, which, as a result, are secured. [We] will now turn and march to meet the enemy. Fully confiding in the conduct of the officers, and the courage of the soldiers, I will lead you to battle'.
The men's spirits began to soar. The soldiers felt that General Johnston was leading Sherman into a trap. Unfortunately for the confederates, Sherman changed his tactical position, shutting the Army of Tennessee's window of opportunity. Regretfully, Johnston issued orders to the men to retreat southward.
On June the 22nd, an engagement occurs near Kolb's Farm, Georgia. Hindman's Division is ordered to assault the enemy at a location where another confederate division (Stevenson's) had been repulsed. Deas' Brigade, in Hindman's Division, advanced with Tucker's Mississippi Brigade, under a galling artillery bombardment. Both brigades were forced to retire due to mauling by artillery shells. Deas' and Tucker's Brigades were chastised by their commander for pulling back before engaging the enemy in infantry range5.
On June 30th, the Official Records indicate Colonel John G. Coltart in temporary command of Deas' Brigade. On July the 7th, Brigadier General Henry D. Clayton, the original colonel of the 39th Alabama, who had been in command of another brigade of Alabamians, was formally promoted to Major General. Maj. Gen. Clayton was given command of four brigades in another portion of the Army of Tennessee6.
By July the 17th, General Joseph E. Johnston had retreated
the army to the outskirts of Atlanta. President Davis, fearing his
commander would give up Atlanta without a fight, issued orders to formally
relieve General Johnston from command and replace him with General John Bell
Hood. On the same date, the 39th Alabama was in formation astride the
bridge crossing Peach Tree Creek. That evening, the federals drove in the
39th's pickets, and orders were issued to the 39th to immediately fall back
with the rest of the army toward Atlanta. With the enemy within a few
hundred yards in the pitch darkness, the men of the 39th muffled the noise from
the withdrawal of an artillery battery by wrapping their blankets around the
artillery wheels and slowly rolling the artillery cannons and caissons by hand
over the bridge. Sergeant John James of Company H recalled later that it
took all night long to carefully (and quietly) march the necessary two and
one-half miles to their new position7.
X. At Atlanta - Three Days of Hell in July and August of 1864
The Army of Tennessee attacked the federal army near Peach Tree Creek on the 20th of July, but Deas' men were not involved in the action. Two days later, however, Deas' men were summoned to attack the federal left wing outside Atlanta.
The 22nd of July dawned clear and hot. The 39th Alabama, under the command of Lt. Col. William C. Clifton (the commander since Whitfield Clark and Colin McSwean resigned in December of last year), received orders to form companies and march into Atlanta. The men marched in the warm morning sunshine into the center of Atlanta and stacked arms. Nearby, a squad of confederate cavalrymen had opened a commissary depot, and the men's mouths began to water as they saw smoked hams, rice, flour, and coffee. Sergeant John James recalled after the war that he and a detail of men from the 39th went into the commissary and 'helped themselves' to a ham and a 'small quantity of coffee, rice, sugar, and flour'. Sergeant James turned over the food to the mess of the regiment, and shortly, a roaring fire was prepared. By 1:00 in the hot afternoon, a meal was ready to be issued to the regiment. Before the men could put any food on their plates, however, Lieutenant Colonel Clifton ordered the men to assemble into line and, cursing and swearing, the men formed companies, grabbed their muskets, and regretfully marched away from their meal8.
The men marched eastward down a roadway paralleling the Georgia Railroad about a mile and a half beyond the City. South of the 39th's position, the men could hear the sound of a battle raging beyond a distant hill. The next few hours would be perhaps the 39th's greatest and worst moment in their brief history.
The Captain of Company C, Captain Alexander J. Miller, serving as temporary commander of the 39th Alabama, filed an after-action report of the terrible day on August the 2nd. He described the action as follows:
On the morning of the 22nd of July, this regiment withdrew from our outer line of entrenchments, north of the Augusta Railroad, and fell back to the works around Atlanta, immediately on the south side of the Augusta Railroad, where we remained strengthening the works until about 3:00, when we were ordered forward. This regiment was formed on the left of Walthall's old brigade (now Brantley's), and in the rear of the brigade to which it properly belongs.
On the advance we kept some 100 yards in the rear of the first line, our left resting on the line of the Railroad and dressing left. After the line in our front (Deas' Brigade) had driven the pickets of the enemy, and had approached to within 350 to 400 yards of the breastworks, they were halted, and we became the front line, and advanced rapidly up to 40 or 50 yards of the works, when the enemy opened up on us with a most destructive fire of small arms and artillery, which checked our further progress. We remained here, lying down, for about ten minutes, when the order of retreat came down the line from the right. After falling back some 400 yards the regiment separated from the brigade of Gen. Brantley, and with 8 officers and about 50 men, rejoined our own brigade, when we were again ordered forward, and some 300 yards further to the right, and succeeded in driving the enemy from their works, which we held for about 15 minutes, until it was anticipated that the enemy was moving a heavy column by our right flank which was entirely unprotected, for the purpose of cutting us off. The order was then given to retreat, when, after falling back some distance under a very heavy fire of artillery from the front and both flanks, further orders were received to form at our original position south of the Railroad.
During the engagement our regiment suffered severely in killed and wounded, and among the number was one valuable officer killed [Captain C. H. Mathews] and six severely wounded. Of these severely wounded was the commanding officer, Lt. Col. William C. Clifton, which devolved the regiment to [Captain Thomas J.] Brannon [of Company K], who led it on the second charge9.
A Major in the 47th Ohio reported after the battle that he was impressed by the 'beautiful battle flags' of Deas' Brigade and the 'steadiness of their ranks' in their advance on the 22nd of July10. After the war, Sergeant John James recalled the battle as follows:
"We charged a temporary line of breastworks of the yankees in a wooded area and were thirty yards into their works before we knew it. They fired into us so heavy that our line fell to the ground. While lying there, shooting at them, a ball struck me over the hip joint and lodged under my knee. There was a stump a few feet from where I was lying and I then got behind that. Looking up and down our line I could see that our men were retreating, and I decided that I had better get away. I threw off everything - knapsack, cartridge box, canteen, haversack, and got up and kicked off my old shoes and pulled out to the rear. Lt. Col. Clifton, who was wounded in the thigh, was making back to this temporary line that we had taken from them and saw me coming. I had started to run across the corner of an old field. He told me that if I tried to cross the field the yanks would kill me. I turned and ran around the old field and soon overtook him. [I] went on to the hospital which was a church in Atlanta with a grove out in front. I lay down under a tree and was lying there resting when Lt. Col. Clifton came up. He commenced to laughing and says to me, "Sergeant, you can out run any man I ever saw"11
.
The area that Louis Frazier and his comrades fought in is located along the south side of the railroad running parallel to Seaboard Avenue, near the intersection with Holiday Avenue, in the eastern side of the City of Atlanta. The area is fully developed. There is a monument locating the spot where General W. H. T. Walker (CS) fell during the battle on the east end of the battlefield, and there is a marker noting where Major General James McPherson (US) fell in the southern area of the battlefield. The 'old field' that Sergeant James refers to is now the location of a parcel shipping center, and is nearly entirely paved and filled with large shipping trucks.
The action on the 22nd of July was the most devastating action to the brigade to this point in the war. The 19th Alabama recorded their regiment as being 'badly cut up', and reported one captain killed and three wounded. It is not known how many of the enlisted men were killed and wounded. The Captain of Company D, 22nd Alabama Infantry, Captain Thomas M. Brindley, was killed in action, along with their Colonel. The 25th Alabama lost 49 percent of their men, but captured two stands of colors, and more prisoners than they numbered. Colonel John G. Coltart of the 26th-50th fell with a bullet wound12.
Six days later, the men of Deas' Brigade were called into action again, this time on the west side of the city.
General Deas was not available to command his men in this engagement. Temporary command was given to George Johnston, the colonel of the 25th Alabama Infantry. George Johnston was formally promoted to Brigadier General on July 26th, 1864. Two days after his promotion, Brig. Gen. Johnston led the 19th, 22nd, 25th, 26th-50th, and the 39th into battle.
Around noon on the 28th, the 39th Alabama, under the interim command of Captain Thomas J. Brannon, as Lt. Col. Clifton had been wounded during the battle on the 22nd, formed up alongside of a brigade of Mississippians known as Sharp's Brigade. The men were ordered to advance, and the brigades attacked the federal line near a small meeting house called Ezra Church. The Alabamians under Johnston's command attacked the federals strongly and overran a part of the federal line, but the Mississippians under Sharp, located just to the left of the Alabamians, began to withdraw. Sharp's men fell apart due to 'utter exhaustion' (according to the Mississippians), and Louis and his comrades were driven from the federal works 'with great slaughter'. Brigadier General George Johnston, proudly leading his men into battle with his general's commission only two days old, fell with a severe leg wound. He would eventually recover and return to command just before the close of the war13.
The official after-action report by the interim commander of the 39th Alabama, Captain Alexander J. Miller (as the interim commander during the engagement, Captain Thomas J. Brannon, had become ill), on August the 2nd is as follows:
On the evening of the 27th of July, we evacuated our position on the Augusta Railroad and marched out on the north side of the Macon and Western Railroad, where we camped for the night. On the morning of the 28th, we proceeded 2.5 miles on the [Lick Skillet] dirt road, where we halted and formed in line of battle, our brigade being in the front line.
The order to forward was given. Then, after 350 yards, we reformed. We then charged forward through an old field, over a fence at the edge of woods, and up to within 80 yards of the enemy line, where we were checked and driven back, the line giving way on the right.
After falling back to our original skirmish line, we reformed, and advanced again, stayed one-half hour, then fell back beyond the crest of the hill. After remaining here a long while, we moved out by the right flank to the rear, down the main road, for about a mile and a half, where we stacked arms and camped until 1:00 a.m.
The regiment lost heavily, though not as much as on the 22nd of July. Captain T. J. Brannon [Company K's commander, who served as interim commander when Clifton was wounded on the 22nd], who has since become sick, was in command14.
The area that Louis Frazier and the 39th Alabama fought on is the west side of present-day Mosley Park, located near the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive and W. Lake Avenue, in the western part of Atlanta. The area is fully developed, and there is a sign marking the location of the Ezra Church site15.
On July 31st, the 39th is listed as being under the interim command of Captain Thomas J. Brannon. Lt. Col. William C. Clifton had not recovered from his wounds sufficiently to return to command, and the prospects of his returning soon were not good. General Deas' elected to appoint a new commander of the 39th Alabama, and in August of 1864, while in the entrenchments surrounding Atlanta, Brigadier General Zachariah Deas formally selected Captain Drewery H. Smith of Company I to assume command of the 39th Alabama Volunteer Infantry.
Captain Drewery H. Smith received promotion to the rank of Major and was formally transferred to command of the 39th. Major Smith, recalled after the war by one of his men as being a twenty-five year old 1st Lieutenant in March of 1862, who was "delicate", and whose "poor health prevented him from achieving the success which he would have otherwise obtained, for he was a good man and a good officer", was the second out of four commanders of the 39th to have come from Louis Frazier's company, Company I.
General Sherman, exhausted in his attempts to decimate the City of Atlanta with artillery bombardments, began a series of flanking maneuvers to the west and southwest of the City with the intention of cutting off General Hood's railroad supply link from the south. As the month of August began to draw to a close, the federal army crept west and south, stretching General Hood's ragged army thinner and thinner. On August the 31st, the two armies collided in a bloody engagement near the town of Jonesboro, Georgia.
On a blistering hot day in August, Deas' command received orders to assault the federal army outside the town of Jonesboro. The men of Deas' Brigade advanced up a slight slope to a heavily-manned earthen breastwork around 2:00 pm. The men approached to within sixty yards of the federal works, when a galling fire from the yanks struck the men head-on. Instantly killed in the volley was the new commander of the 39th, Major Drewery H. Smith. Command of the regiment immediately fell upon Captain Alexander A. Cassaday, the highest-ranking captain of the unit, commanding Company G. Volley after volley of hot lead poured into the faces of the men of the 39th, and, with their commander down, the men fell to the rear in disorder. Some soldiers found themselves in such an exposed position that retreat was not possible, and were forced to throw down their weapons and surrender16.
Louis Frazier and his comrades fought on an area of ground just north of North Avenue in the Town of Jonesboro. Louis' comrades began their assault approximately 500 feet north of the present-day landmarks of the intersection of North Avenue and Fayetteville Road (on Fayetteville Road). The men advanced in a westerly direction toward the present-day U. S. Hwy. 41, probably meeting the shattering volley from the federals along the present-day highway right-of-way. The federals were entrenched along a high rise of ground just west of the highway.
After this frightful day, Deas' men were ordered
to remain in a defensive position for the remainder of the day, and to withdraw
and return to Atlanta after sunset. Marching back to Atlanta in the pitch
darkness at 1:00 in the morning, the men received orders from a staff officer
that General Hood needed them to return to Jonesboro at once, as the
confederates that had remained in Jonesboro were in danger of being cut off
from the rest of the Army of Tennessee. Captain Cassaday
quickly turned his men around, and the men hustled at the double-quick back in
the direction they had come from. Remarkably, another staff officer
intercepted the men a few miles shy of Jonesboro and informed the men that
General Hood had abandoned Atlanta, and the men were to 'make haste' to
Lovejoy's Station.
XI. With Hood on Hood's Tennessee Campaign - Victory or Capitulation
Over the next several days, the Army of Tennessee played a cat-and-mouse game outside of Atlanta with the federal army, as Sherman tried to corner Hood's men. The Army of Tennessee was too exhausted (and demoralized) to commit itself to a full engagement with the enemy, and rapidly withdrew itself out of Sherman's grasp repeatedly. On September 29th and 30th, the Army of Tennessee embarked on a campaign to regain lost territory by marching northward, to Tennessee. The army crossed the Chattahoochee River near Palmetto, Georgia on pontoons, and Hood's Tennessee Campaign began.
The men marched to Marietta, then to Allatoona, then to Cedartown, and by October the 10th, the army had crossed the Coosa River near Rome, Georgia. The City of Rome was bypassed. The army followed the west bank of the Oostanaula River in a northeasterly direction until October the 12th, when the army approached Resaca, Georgia. By October the 15th, the army left Dalton, Georgia in a southwesterly direction along the Chatooga Valley, towards Gadsden, Alabama. The Army left Gadsden on October the 22nd, and proceeded toward Guntersville, Alabama. On the 26th of the same month, the army was in the Decatur and Florence, Alabama area. The army remained there for about three weeks.
On November the 16th, General John Bell Hood orders the Army of Tennessee to observe a 'day of prayer' for the confederate cause. The army breaks camp on the 21st to enter Tennessee.
By the 26th, Deas' Brigade arrived in front of
Columbia, Tennessee. The enemy were found to be
heavily entrenched on the south side of the city. Deas'
men began to entrench facing the enemy, and both sides prepared for a
conflict. The federal army, however, evacuated Columbia on the next day,
and retreated northward. On the morning of the 29th, Deas'
men were detached from the main army (along with three other brigades under the
division commander, General Ed Johnson), and the men received orders to advance
around the left flank of the federal army and cross the Duck River to pursue
the Federal army1.
XII. Spring Hill - Franklin - Nashville
Late in the evening of the 29th of November, Deas' Brigade arrived in Spring Hill, Tennessee. The men were ordered into line to prepare for an engagement with the enemy. As the sun began to set, the men in the 39th wondered why they were not ordered to advance. The enemy could be heard in the near distance, and the minutes passes anxiously. The federal army was in a tough predicament - Hood had performed quite a feat in moving the Army of Tennessee past a significant portion of the yanks. A large portion of the federal army risked being cut-off and either captured or annihilated due to this maneuver. Regretfully, due to a mix-up in the command structure of Hood's command, the federal army was allowed to escape unmolested.
The next day, Deas' Brigade was ordered to advance with the Army northward in pursuit of the escaped enemy. Deas' men were in the rear of the confederate army's advance.
The confederate army attacked the federal Army of the Cumberland at Franklin, Tennessee, at 4:00 pm on the 30th. Deas' men arrived onto the field after darkness had fallen. Following major assaults by others, which were unsuccessful, the division which included Deas' men, Ed Johnson's Division, was lined up with torches in the darkness at 9:00 pm for an advance. The Alabamians were fired upon by the enemy within 30 paces of the federal breastworks. Deas' Brigade, along with two of the other three brigades in the division, under a heavy fire of artillery and musketry, "gallantly [drove] the enemy from portions of [the] line". Finding itself within the enemy's breastworks, Deas' men swung their muskets as clubs and thrust their bayonets into the enemy. Many men fell with agonizing wounds during a frightful hand-to-hand combat in the cool, dark night. Brigadier General Deas, leading his men, fell with a bullet wound. Confusion quickly set in, as all semblance of order melted away in the violent hand-to-hand struggle. One by one, the gray soldiers began to withdraw, and the survivors of the devastating attack limped their way back to the confederate lines, stumbling over the dead and wounded in the pitch darkness.
The Battle of Franklin had been a dreadfully one-sided affair. The enemy were strongly posted behind well-made breastworks, and were heavily fortified with artillery and infantry. Six confederate generals were killed or mortally wounded in the deadly frontal assaults ordered by General Hood. After the battle, Deas' Brigade was praised for its gallantry by Lieutenant General Stephen D. Lee, the commander of the corps containing Ed Johnson's Division. In his after-action report, Lt. Gen. S. D. Lee mentions that, "the brigades of Brantley (Mississippians) and of Deas (Alabamians) particularly distinguished themselves. Their dead were mostly in the trenches and on the works of the enemy, where they nobly fell in a desperate hand-to-hand combat. These noble brigades never faltered in this terrible night struggle"1.
Deas' Brigade suffered heavily in the cold night of November the 30th, 1864. Lt. Col. E. Herbert Armstead, recently promoted in the 22nd Alabama, was killed during the close-quarter action. Major Thomas Prince fell with a serious wound, and one of their captains, Captain William Baldwin, Jr., recently promoted to command of Company G of the 22nd, was struck with a mortal wound.
The Adjutant of the 25th Alabama, John Stout, had been hit at Murfreesboro and Atlanta. This engagement would not be any different. While assisting the commanders with communications tasks, John Stout fell with a third bullet wound. Two captains in the same unit also fell with serious wounds. The 26th-50th was 'badly mutilated', according to the historical record2.
Two days later, on Friday, the 2nd of December, the survivors of Deas' Brigade limped and staggered their way into Nashville along the Franklin Pike around 2:00 in the afternoon. Four days later, in an attempt to lift the men's spirits, General Hood issued an order to all of the men in the army, directing that the names of those who passed over the enemy's works at Franklin would be forwarded to Richmond, to be placed upon a Roll of Honor at the War Department. The order was probably never carried out. Had it been, the members of the 39th would have graced the pages by their noble sacrifice.
Around December the 10th, Lieutenant Colonel William C. Clifton, recovered from his wounds, returned to command of the regiment. During the same week, due to bitterly cold weather, General Hood ordered Lee's Corps and Stewart's Corps to withdraw a short distance from their battle lines around Nashville in order to acquire more wood, as both the armies were rapidly depleting the forests near Nashville.
On December the 15th, General Thomas' federal army attacked the Army of Tennessee. Thomas sent federal troops along Hood's left to attack some redoubts that Hood had placed. Sensing the threat to his left, General Hood diverted Deas' men to the Hillsboro Pike to address the attack. Soon, the federals swept over the redoubts and approached the Alabamians. Seeing an overwhelming federal force bearing down upon them, the Alabamians abandoned their inferior defensive position behind a low stone wall and fled to the rear. The men were ordered to form near the center of the confederate line on the 16th.
This action occurred along the Hillsboro Pike just south of the Richland Creek crossing, in the present-day community of Forest Hills, south of Nashville.
Deas' men fought better on the second day of
action, but were eventually overwhelmed, along with the rest of the Army of
Tennessee. The army fled in disorder southward along the Franklin Pike by
4:30 in the afternoon. The division commander, General Ed Johnson, was
captured during the disorderly withdrawal. Lt. General Stephen D. Lee was
wounded the next day during the flight southward through Franklin3.