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Old 08-21-2014, 06:39 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
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August 22nd, 1864:

General Grant was not satisfied with the stretch of track the Federals had captured at Glove Tavern. The Army of Northern Virginia was still being supplied by this line, just with a terminus ten miles further south and a 25 mile wagon road from there. The Weldon line was of particular importance because its southern terminus was Wilmington, NC, the only remaining major port for the Confederacy, and one which the raider the CSS Tallahassee had just successfully returned after taking 31 prizes in the North Atlantic.

Grant's aim was to extend Union control of the railway another 14 miles to Rowanty Creek. Not only would this hurt General Lee's logistics, it would also force him to make another extension of the ever lengthening defensive works, which were already so extensive, stretching from north of Richmond to Glove Tavern below Petersburg, that Lee could only man sections at a time.

General Howard was still occupied with the two Corps he was commanding, extending and improving the trenches around Glove Tavern, two Corps had gone north to beef up General Sheridan's command, the rest of the army was needed to man the siege trenches, so Grant selected General Hancock's Corps for the job.

This was asking a lot. The Corps had just now arrived after returning from the defeat they suffered at Second Deep Bottom. The men were exhausted, Hancock was having another flare up of problems from his Gettysburg groin wound, but they were the only ones available, so away they marched 150 years ago today.

In Washington President Lincoln devoted the day to receiving reports from his most trusted friendly political operatives. Thurlow Weed, one of the founders of the Republican Party and editor of the New York Evening Journal, advised Lincoln that the nation appeared to him to be "wild for peace" and that Lincoln's reelection was an impossibility. Henry Raymond, editor of the rival New York Times and Lincoln campaign manager, also wrote gloomily. He explained that he had been

Quote:
“..in active correspondence with your staunchest friends in every state and from them all I hear but one report,” gave it to him straight: “The Tide is setting strongly against us.”
“The Tide Is Setting Strongly Against Us” | American History Lives at American Heritage

Raymond went on to warn that Lincoln was going to lose New York, Pennsylvania, and even his own state of Illinois. Only if he abandoned emancipation as a war goal did the president stand any sort of chance.
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Old 08-22-2014, 05:11 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
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August 23rd, 1864:

Six days before the Democrats were to meet in Chicago to nominate a presidential candidate, and advised by some of the most informed and influential members of the Republican Party that there was little chance of a second term for him, 150 years ago this morning President Lincoln sat down at his desk and wrote out the following:
Quote:
Executive Mansion
Washington, Aug. 23, 1864.
This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.
A. LINCOLN
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 7.

The president then folded the paper and glued it shut. He took it with him to his midday cabinet meeting and without explaining anything about the nature of the contents, had all of his department heads sign the back of it.

The document would remain sealed until November 11th, after the election, when it had become moot. The purpose of the clandestine aspects was to pledge blindly both himself and his cabinet to a peaceful acceptance of the outcome of the election, regardless of the winner, and to bind them to using the four months that they would have left in office to do all that they could save the Union. The president did not want his assistants to interpret a defeat at the polls as an announcement that all was lost and that there was no longer a reason to make any efforts.

The reason for the secrecy was obvious, telling the public that he did not expect to be reelected would be be a contributing factor to him not being reelected. Who would vote for someone who has already thrown in the towel?
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Old 08-24-2014, 05:52 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
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August 25th, 1864:

The Federals took a severe, humiliating tactical beating 150 years ago today, and to illustrate how the war was going at this point, it was actually a small strategic victory for General Grant.

Grant himself would have little to do with the action today, he had ordered the movement of General Hancock's Corps south of Globe Tavern to extend the wrecking of the Weldon railroad, and then become quite ill, taking to bed and leaving management of matters to General Meade. The object was to destroy another 14 miles of the railway so that the 30 mile wagon trip carrying supplies to General Lee at Petersburg, became a 45 mile journey.

By August 24th, both of Hancock's divisions had arrived at Ream's Station and set to work. The ruined three miles of track that day and 150 years ago this morning had managed another five when word arrived that a large rebel force was moving in their direction. These were 10,000 men under General Hill, who like Grant became ill and had to turn operations over to a subordinate, in this case General Heth. Hancock recalled his men and formed them into a defensive posture using the deteriorating trenches which had been dug there in June in anticipation of a cavalry raid. Hancock and his men were exhausted, fought out from their work north of the James and then their long march to Ream's Station. They had not had the time or energy to try and improve the defenses and found themselves in a tight U formation.

At 2 pm Heth sent three brigades forward and they were beaten back. Next Heth brought up his artillery and commenced a softening bombardment. At 5:30 pm six brigades went forward and hit the center section of Hancock's line manned by green troops who immediately turned and bolted for the rear, opening a large gap in the Federal line. General Nelson Miles, commanding the division that had been hit, ordered his reserve brigade to advance and fill the gap. They refused. They went to the ground and would neither advance nor open fire. Hancock appeared in person and with much loud profanity attempted to rally the men, but nothing could make them budge. Heth's men slammed on through and the haul of prisoners was immense.

The center of the Federal line had collapsed completely and the U formation in which they had begun the battle was now reversed, the line became a horseshoe with the open side facing the rebels. The rest of the Union line barely held and then used the cover of darkness to withdraw back toward Petersburg. Hancock had suffered 2,747 casualties, of whom 2,046 had surrendered without putting up any sort of fight. Lost also were 19 artillery pieces and a dozen regimental colors. It was a serious humiliation for Hancock and his Corps which had long been famed as the Army of the Potomac's best and most aggressive unit. Heth lost fewer than 800 men.

Despite the one sided beating, Hancock had managed to rip up another eight miles of track and a new terminus for the Weldon railway had to be established further south, making the wagon trip another ten miles longer. An even more important consequence, one that Grant had in mind when he ordered the operation, was Lee being forced to recall General Anderson and his men from the Valley where they had been reinforcing General Early and preventing General Sheridan from going over to the offensive. Lee had subtracted many men from the Petersburg line to cope with the threat to the Weldon railroad, and had to now man an extended line to Ream's Station, consequently, Anderson's men were needed to fill in the gaps created in the Petersburg trenches.

Another result was having to pull the battered Second Corps, and its exhausted and ailing commander, out of the war for a rest and refit. They would be out of combat until late in October. It was also the end of the serial combat which had marked Grant's campaign since the first week of May. For the next month Grant would cease his attempts at extending his lines and settle down for a conventional siege where the main danger was artillery bombardments and snipers alert to anyone sticking their heads above the trench.

There had never been anything like the last four months in the history of American military endeavors. To corner Lee and keep him in place had cost the Federals more than 70,000 casualties. They had inflicted about half that amount on Lee's army, but of course the North had the capacity to eventually replace those losses, the South did not.

So while it did not appear to the Northern public that they were winning anything, Grant's campaign was actually succeeding.

Lee himself had noted that it the situation deteriorated into a siege, it would just be a matter of time. All hopes had to rest on the defeat of President Lincoln and the Republicans in the November election. As long as no grand Federal triumph was permitted between now and then, the odds favored being able to negotiate an end to the war with the newly elected Democrat president.

Ream's Station...Climax Of The Fight

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Old 08-25-2014, 05:26 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
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August 26th, 1864:
A belligerent looking Army of the Ohio turned out before the Confederate defenses around Atlanta 150 years ago this morning. Artillery was brought up and shifted around, troops marched back and forth, formations were made and dissolved, cavalry trotted around the flanks, supply wagons rolled toward the front.

All of this was a show, designed to leave the impression that General Sherman was gearing up for a major frontal assault. It was in fact only half of the Army of Ohio, its other Corps had been joined to the five Corps which composed the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Cumberland. While one Corps from the Army of Ohio was making their demonstration to fix the rebels in place, the other six were being shifted across the front on a wide sweep around the rebel left flank. The target was the Macon Railroad, due south of Atlanta, and General Hood's last reliable supply line. Sherman had tried for it previously with just the Army of the Tennessee, and been stopped at Ezra Church. Now he was throwing six sevenths of his entire command into the maneuver.

Sherman intended to hit the railway in three separate places, from Rough & Ready in the north to Jonesboro in the south. This was intended to force the rebels to scatter their strength to defend the multiple targets. The capture of the railway would mean the fall of Atlanta, Hood could not remain in his trenches without rail supply.

The nature of Sherman's plan showed that he had decided to depart a bit from his original orders from General Grant who had told him that wherever the rebel army went, that was where he was to go, the army, not cities or territories, was the target. If Sherman's current plan was a success, it would indeed lead to the capture of Atlanta, but it would also leave a huge escape door to the SE for Hood and his army. So Sherman was now undoubtedly aiming for Atlanta, not Hood. This turned out to be an extremely fortuitous decision on Sherman's part because it would produce an outcome as vital to the winning of the war as anything that had happened previously or anything that was to come.

Sherman's Plan:

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Old 08-26-2014, 05:32 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
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August 27th, 1864:

If General Sherman could have scripted General Hood's reaction to the great turning movement which had gotten underway the day before, he would have written nothing different from that which Hood actually did.

The first clue that something was up was silence. Beginning August 9th, Federal guns had been shelling the city of Atlanta every day, forcing its citizens to either flee to other communities, or live in dugout shelters and bombproofs during the hours when the cannons roared. Now suddenly they stopped. Probes were ordered forward and they discovered the empty Yankee trenches and detected rear guard elements in place off to the west. What was Sherman doing?

Hood morphed into Pollyanna. He assumed that General Wheeler's raid on Dalton must had been more successful than any of them had hoped, that it had wrecked Sherman's supply lines and left the Union commander with no option but to retreat. Hood summoned his cavalry and ordered a pursuit.

The consequence was that instead of moving his army to meet the threat that was building up to the SW, Hood's infantry remained in place in the Atlanta defences while the cavalry was engaged in a useless skirmish with the rear guard elements of the flank march. Thus the six Union Corps slipping around Hood's left flank, were left completely unmolested on their march.

Hood would waste three vital days in this dreamy, unrealistic fantasy scenario of his before the truth finally became apparent. Greatly aiding in sustaining the illusion was the wild reception that Hood now received from the citizens of the "relieved" city. Church bells rang, balls were organized, and even the cream of young Atlanta society, aristocratic girls who had been sent to Macon for safety reasons during the siege, returned by rail to a joyous reception. The residents wandered out to the now vacant Union trenches and went souvenir hunting.

Only when word reached Hood on the 29th that at least one Union Corps was upon the Macon railroad and in the process of wrecking it, would Hood finally recognize the reality of the situation.

For now, the party was on.

John Bell Hood...The Savior Of Atlanta...For At Least Three Days

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Old 08-27-2014, 05:43 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
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August 28th, 1864:

150 years ago today members of the Democrat Party were gathering in Chicago for their nominating convention which would open on the 29th.

There would be the typical nonsense, General Sherman, who had absolutely zero interest in politics, would have his name bandied about for the first two days as a possible candidate. There would be a movement to try and place former president Franklin Pierce's name in nomination, which was sustained only until Pierce made it clear that he was not even slightly interested. Senator Lazarus W. Powell of Delaware would see his name presented before the convention and he too acted to squelch this activity, stating that he believed that their nominee should not come from a slave holding state.

In reality there were only two serious candidates, two men who enjoyed sufficient support to achieve the nomination. Each one represented one of the two wings of the party.


Former Governor Horatio Seymour of New York was the champion of the Copperheads, those Democrats who favored ending the war immediately on any terms, including an independent South. He was backed behind the scenes by Clement Vallandigham who had snuck back into the US from Canada following his expulsion into the Confederacy. President Lincoln was making a pretense of not knowing Vallandigham had returned, he felt that ignoring him would be less dangerous than making a martyr out of him for a second time. Vallandigham had to operate clandestinely, and that is why he was promoting Seymour for the nomination rather than himself.

While the Copperheads had a fundamental, unambiguous solution to the war....just quit...the other faction of the party, was more vague and their platform rested on a number of things which were beyond their control. These were the Peace Unionists who also favored ending the war short of full Union victory, but also with the understanding that the Southern states would be returning to the fold. Their notion was that by now the South must be in recognition that they were losing the war, and that if the North promised to repeal the Emancipation Proclamation, the South would be willing to return to the pre war status of things.

Where they were vague was on the question of what was supposed to happen if the South agreed to stop the war, but only on the basis of Southern Independence.

This faction was championing George McClellan, still a general in the army, but militarily inactive since his dismissal by Lincoln in 1862. McClellan's credentials included his approving attitude toward slavery and the fact that he was hated so severely by the Radical Republicans. The prevailing theory also ran that he would attract the soldier vote, that his former popularity with the Army of the Potomac ranks had never faded.

The election of Lincoln in 1860 had been made possible by the Democrat Party splitting and nominating two candidates, Stephen Douglas and John Breckinridge. This time around they would not repeat that mistake, in fact they would shoot themselves in the foot again, but this time by trying to fuse two irreconcilable positions into one.

Horatio Seymour .................................................. ................. George McClellan

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Old 08-28-2014, 05:46 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
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August 29th, 1864:

An unpleasant wake up call for General Hood 150 years ago today.

There had been a hint the previous day that perhaps all the celebrating and toasting of Hood in Atlanta might be a bit premature. A report had arrived which stated that Federal infantry had been spotted below Fairburn and Red Oak....south of the city. This was not yet alarming, but it did establish that not all of General Sherman's men were fleeing back across the Chattahoochee River.

The balloon bursting news arrived this morning. Large, organized bodies of Union troops had been spotted approaching Rough & Ready, eight miles below Atlanta on the Macon Railroad line, and Hood at last became aware that he had been.....hoodwinked.

Now the reaction was furious. General Hardee was ordered to pull his Corps out from the Atlanta defenses and rush to Rough & Ready, or points further south, to cope with the threat materializing there. General Stephen Lee's Corps was shifted to the area of trenches vacated by Hardee and told to prepare for an instant march south to reinforce Hardee if needed. The Atlanta defenses would be manned by Hood's remaining Corps under General Stewart.

Once more Hood guessed and guessed incorrectly. He concluded that Sherman's plan was to lure him out into the open south of the city, and in his absence, the bulk of Sherman's army would fall on the weakened defenses to the north. Hood was unaware that only one Corps from General Schofield's army was all that remained of the Union presence north of the city. Characteristically, Hood's plan for turning back the threat would be exactly the same as in his three earlier defeats....an attack. Hardee, or Hardee in conjunction with Lee, would fall on the Federal flankers while they were on the march, a plan based on his ignorance that the flanking march was actually 6/7ths of Sherman's army.

Hood did recognize that he was in very serious danger and orders were issued to have everything prepared for an emergency evacuation of Atlanta should he lose the Macon Railroad.

There were no balls or parties that night.

__________________________________________________ __________________

In Chicago on this day the Democrat National Convention was called to order and the keynote speech was delivered by Horatio Seymour. He and the speakers who followed all condemned the war as a complete failure, the Republicans as corrupt and power mad, and President Lincoln as a despotic tyrant who had trampled on the Constitution. Seymour told the delegates:

Quote:
The Administration cannot save the Union. We can. Mr Lincoln views many things above the Union. We put the Union first of all. He thinks a proclamation more than peace. We think the blood of our people more precious than the edicts of the President.
The Civil War: A Narrative - Shelby Foote - Google Books

In sum, nothing unexpected.

Then they turned to the business of the Party's official platform. In this a complete victory was scored by Clement Vallandigham and the Copperheads. The platform called an immediate cessation of the hostilities and a convention of all states called to settle the issues. The Emancipation Proclamation would be repealed as an enticing gesture to get the South to stop the fight and rejoin the Union.

As for what would happen if the South was for peace, but unwilling to forfeit their independence, nothing was said.

There was never a chance for this program to have succeeded even if the Democrats had won the election. Once the war was stopped, it would be impossible to get it restarted and prosecuted with the vigor needed to subdue the South, certainly not after the population had elected a president who promised peace. Further, as was made clear by President Davis in his memoirs, he was delighted to encourage this reunion delusion in the minds of the Democrats, but the war was being waged for Southern independence, not for concessions from the Yankees. There was never a chance that Davis would have agreed to anything less than recognition of the Confederate States of America. Davis was absolutely confident that if a new Democrat president agreed to any sort of a truce, the Confederacy was assured of survival.

Another huge potential problem completely glossed over by those Democrats willing to trash the Emancipation Proclamation, was that among the 190,000 black men who would eventually serve in the United States armed forces, 135,000 of them were currently in uniform and active. Many were runaway slaves who had been liberated by the arrival of the Yankee armies and then enlisted. How would a repudiation of the Proclamation sit with these armed men? How would the Democrats respond if as a condition of reunion, the former slaves among the soldiers must be restored to slavery? What if the South decided to execute them for rebellion against their masters?

Contrasting this muddle among the Democrats, the Republican platform was unambiguous and impossible to misunderstand. The war was to be pressed to a successful conclusion, the rebels would be compelled to surrender, and the Proclamation was to me made permanent and universal via a Constitutional amendment which abolished slavery forever in every portion of the US.
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Old 08-29-2014, 05:19 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
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August 30th, 1864:

Reports reached General Hood 150 years ago this morning that the Federals on his flank were closing on not only Rough & Ready, but also on Jonesboro, ten miles further south. This confirmed for Hood what he had already decided must be the case. One of General Sherman's three armies was striking at the railroad in order to lure him out of his Atlanta defenses. As soon as he pulled sufficient troops from the lines to cope with the flank threat, Sherman's other two Armies would attack the depleted trench defenses.

Hood wasn't going to be fooled by this. He would have General Hardee, already dispatched to the trouble area, fall on the flankers as they approached, and when the Union rushed reinforcements to their aid, General Lee's Corps would then be rushed by rail for a combined surprise attack on the flankers at Jonesboro on the morning of the 31st. Then the next morning both Hardee's and Lee's Corps would combine for an assault which would roll back the flanking columns, drive them until their backs were to the river and there destroy them.

It was something of a wishful thinking plan, one that required the Yankees to cooperate by doing precisely what Hood expected. And of course it was based entirely on misconceptions regarding where the bulk of Sherman's was. The fighting would begin tomorrow and Hood would receive a rapid education about his military miscalculations.
__________________________________________________ ____________

In Chicago General George B. McClellan received 174 votes on the first ballot while former NY governor Horatio Seymour Seymour received but twelve, outpolled by even Connecticut Governor Thomas H. Seymour who was given 38 votes. After a second ballot, McClellan led 202 to 23 and the nomination was his. Leading Copperhead Clement Vallandigham, who wasn't supposed to be at the convention, who wasn't even supposed to be in the country, shed his clandestine cover and stood before the convention to ask it to make McClellan's nomination unanimous, which on the third ballot they did.

What remained for the next day was to select a vice presidential candidate, and to balance the ticket that spot was given to Copperhead favorite, Ohio Senator George Pendleton. His credentials included his life long hostility toward blacks (he was to vote against the 13th Amendment the following year.) The basic themes of the convention had been that the war was a failure and the Republicans were willing to sacrifice lives, the Union, proper social order and all human decency in their inexplicable love affair with colored persons. It was the politics of fear.

Then before closing the convention there was the reading of McClellan's letter of acceptance of the nomination. It came as a shock to the Copperheads who had enacted a peace first, talk later platform as their solution to the war. McClellan finally threw off months of ambiguity and came out in favor of prosecuting the war as long as the southerners demanded independence. Drop the demand for that and McClellan was willing to make numerous concessions to restore the Union based on the pre war status which would include the repudiation of the Emancipation Proclamation.

So, the consequence was that the party left Chicago with a platform which called for an immediate armistice with talks to be convened after the fighting had stopped, and a candidate who called for the South to renounce independence as a condition for peace talks.

This divide between platform and candidate would be exploited greatly by the Republicans.

Senator George Pendleton..VP Nominee

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Old 08-30-2014, 05:43 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
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August 31st, 1864:


The battle of Jonesboro, which turned out to be the decisive fight of the Atlanta Campaign, and perhaps in a larger sense, the war, was not a particularly bloody or prolonged affair.

As planned, General Hood dispatched General Stephen Lee's Corps south to join with General Hardee, giving the rebels two Corps, about 23,000 men, with which to strike what Hood was convinced was one or two Corps from General Howard's Army of the Tennessee. Instead, SW of Atlanta lay six of General Sherman's seven Corps, 60,000 plus soldiers with one division advanced across the Flint River, the others entrenched on the west bank. Hardee was to strike that isolated division early in the morning and drive it either into the river where it would be destroyed, or drive it north where Lee would be waiting to pounce. That was the plan.

And of course it all went wrong. Lee was greatly delayed in his movement and did not reach his jump off position until 2 pm. By that time the Federals had advanced General Ransom's Corps east of the river where they occupied a strong, entrenched position next to Logan. Lee was supposed to wait until he heard the guns from Hardee launching his attack to get started, but his advance went off prematurely when the noise from a fight between some of Hardee's troops and a brigade of General Kilpatrick's cavalry was mistaken for the signal.

Lee advanced unsupported and was quickly repulsed. Hardee then finally got underway, but by that time another Federal division under General Blair had joined Logan and Hardee was quickly repulsed. At that point, Hardee who held the theater command, called off further attacks.

Hood was angered that his plan to destroy the Union flanking march had failed, but he concluded that he had frustrated the attempt to get to the Macon Railroad. Hood still had not figured out that only one Federal Corps remained north of the city and he ordered Lee to rush back to Atlanta to assist General Stewart's Corps in repelling what Hood was certain would be a general assault on his trenches there.

Hood's serial state of being misinformed and confused as to the position of the Yankees was largely a product of his having little in the way of cavalry on hand. General Wheeler and the bulk of the rebel riders were still in southern Tennessee where they had moved after their blow against Dalton which Hood thought had caused Sherman to retreat. The consequence was that it was not until sometime in the late evening, when reports arrived indicating large bodies of Federal troops from all three of Sherman's armies had moved to cut off Hardee from the rest of Hood's army, that the curtain was lifted from Hood's eyes and the ugly truth materialized at last.

Atlanta was lost. The enemy was on the last rebel rail supply line, and was in between Hood and a third of his army. Preparations for an immediate evacuation were begun. There was no longer a question of saving the city, there now was just the question of whether or not Hood would lose Hardee's Corps as well as the city.

The fighting this day had not been that severe by earlier standards. Hardee and Lee had lost about 2200 men, the Union suffered around 1500 casualties. The battle had however doomed Atlanta and the impact would be immense.


The First Day At Jonesboro



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Old 08-31-2014, 05:35 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
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September 1st, 1864:

General Sherman had switched the focus of his campaign from the destruction of the Army of Tennessee to the capture of Atlanta, and now it was just about in his hands. However, the isolation of General Hardee's Corps at Jonesboro presented Sherman with an opportunity to eradicate a third of General Hood's army and 150 years ago today Sherman concentrated on that.

General Slocum with one of the two Corps of the Army of the Ohio remained north of the city, fixing Hood in place. General Schofield, with the other half, was at Rough and Ready, blocking any attempt by Hood to march the rest of his army to the relief of Hardee. Sherman's plan for today was to have General Howard and the Army of the Tennessee fix Hardee in place at Jonesboro while General Thomas and two Corps from the Army of the Cumberland swept down on Hardee's right flank and crushed him. There would be more than 45,000 Federal troops moving against the 12,000 men Hardee had left. His doom seemed certain.

Of course this was war and the difference between plan and execution was frequently severe. Today was no exception. The problem was the slowness of General Thomas in getting his men into position. At three in the afternoon, only the 14th Corps, led by Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis, was in its assigned position to move against Hardee's center which was the base of an arc the rebels had formed around Jonesboro. General Stanley's 4th Corps which was supposed to be on Davis' left, was a no show.

Tired of waiting, Sherman ordered the attack to commence anyway at 4 pm. Davis led his men forward, was repulsed, regrouped and struck a second time. His troops broke through at the apex of the arc, rolling up one Confederate regiment and aiming to to do the same with the rest. But here they encountered the finest fighter in the Army of Tennessee, General Patrick Cleburne.

Davis and Cleburne had more in common than simply facing one another on the field today. Both were hard charging, intelligent fighters whose advance up the ranks had been stymied by factors unrelated to battle. In the case of Davis, you may recall his last mention in this thread, back in 1862 when he murdered his commanding general, Bull Nelson outside his hotel room. Davis had eluded legal consequences for this crime, but that deed, along with distrust of Davis by the Radical Republicans because of anti-black views Davis had made public, meant that Davis still held the same rank he did back when he was murdering Nelson. Because he was so valued as a fighter, Davis had been given command of a Corps, but not the rank of Major General which typically came with it.

Cleburne had proved his worth over and over. It was his stand at the south end of Missionary Ridge, holding off Sherman, which allowed General Bragg's army to escape even greater destruction as it retreated. Throughout the Atlanta campaign, Cleburne had delivered on every task presented to him. Despite this, and despite the frequent poor performances of the Corps commanders of the Army of Tennessee, Cleburne remained a division commander. His "crime" had been his proposal to recruit and arms the slaves of the South for use in combat. This blasphemy against the southern cultural doctrine of the colored man's divinely ordained inferiority, had branded Cleburne as a man not to be trusted with high command.

Now Davis came up against Cleburne who swiftly had rearranged his lines to close the gap created by the Federal breakthrough. Davis sent his men forward in numerous charges, but all were beaten back by Cleburne. With no success on the rebel flank, Sherman could have sent General Howard and the Army of the Tennessee forward to try their luck against the rebel left, but Sherman had vowed back at Kennesaw Mountain that he would never again make a frontal attack against a fortified position. Howard was held back.

Finally, just as the sun was going down, Stanley and the other Corps from Thomas' army finally arrived. By now it was too late to get another major effort going, so Sherman called off the attacks for the day. Sherman went to bed for the night, but was awakened by a roaring sound to the north. Explosive sounds could be heard, but what were they? Had Hood caught on to the fact that only one Union Corps was north of Atlanta and moved out to attack Slocum? Had Slocum ignored his orders and made an attempt to break his way into the city? Sherman and his top commanders passed the night speculating.

Today's fight had cost Sherman about 1200 casualties to Hardee's 1000. They didn't know it at the time, but these were the last combat casualties of the Atlanta Campaign. Sherman had lost 31,500 men in getting to where he was today, the rebels had lost 35,000. However, when the figures are adjusted for the time after Hood replaced General Johnston, Sherman lost about 14,000 while Hood lost a third of his army, just under 20,000 casualties.

Second Day At Jonesboro

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