Powell's Atlanta Campaign, Volume 2

It is great to be alive in a time when outstanding history is still being written. The second volume of David A. Powell’s massive telling of the 1864 Atlanta Campaign came out in October. I bought it about a week after its released and read it soon thereafter. I tore through the 587 pages in about ten days, making lots of notes. I’ve been pondering it off and on ever since.

Powell’s first volume was superb and this one upholds the same high standard with refreshing insights and fascinating new facts to what has been for me a lifelong interest. What I have learned from Powell in Volume 2: From the Etowah River to Kennesaw Mountain, May 20 – June 27, 1864 has provided me with a much clearer understanding of this part of the campaign, though I don’t necessarily agree with the author on everything.

For newcomers, I think the Atlanta Campaign is the single most important campaign of the War Between the States, for reasons I have covered before. Suffice it to say that if Atlanta does not fall then Lincoln very easily could have lost re-election. It was that close in the Summer of 1864. The depressant Lincoln doubted he would win as late as August. 

Of course, Atlanta fell September 1, over two months before the election. This gave the president a surge of support that was not there before. Lincoln won all but three states and 55% of the vote. It seems it was not close and his re-election was inevitable but that was not case without Atlanta. There were plenty of Northerners who did not care for Mr. Lincoln and his upstart party. 1.8 million voted against him out of 4 million total and he was clearly winning the war.

Be that as it may, Powell takes this vital campaign and dissects it with unparalleled thoroughness and precision. The first significant battle during this period was May 25 at New Hope Church. An advanced Federal division slammed into a Rebel division and was repulsed. The fighting was fierce here for about three hours. Oddly, part of the battle was fought in a cemetery, with infantry from both sides taking cover behind tombstones

Powell points out that it took time for the rest of the Northern corps to reinforce the advanced division. During that time two Confederate divisions were already in line. They could have attacked the flanks of the Yankees resulting in “perhaps devastating results” according to Powell. But neither Confederate commanding General Joseph E. Johnston nor John Bell Hood, whose corps was engaged on the Southern side, seem to have even considered it.

Here is an example of Powell expecting more of the commanders than they could offer. This part of the Atlanta Campaign took place in very rugged terrain with few fields and fewer roads. It was mostly bushy, wooded, dotted with small mountains and sparsely settled. General James McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee was reaching for the only town of significance at Dallas, Georgia.

Importantly, largely ignored by Powell, there was no practical way to monitor and reconnoiter each other’s lines. In fact, there often was not a line at all, other than scattered skirmishers. In these instances of isolation from the rest of the respective army, however, no one could see it or knew about it. Commanders took risks they would never try in the open. Powell assumes they should have known more than they did. Maybe he is or isn’t right but in certain specific cases I think he projects a level of understanding of “the enemy position” that simply was impossible in this rough and overgrown terrain.

Nevertheless, Powell’s insights are welcome because, if nothing else, they are fresh competent eyes seeing things, provoking new thoughts on old subjects for me. He is also meticulous with his numbers. Each brigade or regiment is thoroughly researched (sometimes with limited records or correspondences) and these form the basis for his numbers on sizes of forces and numbers of causalities. Here he is unmatched in my long life to reading and studying the campaign. Powell amassed this data over many years from a wide range of reputable sources that are well documented in the book’s notes.

He briefly marvels at Joe Johnston, usually mediocre and cautious according to Volume 1 of this series, uncharacteristically moving seven of his nine division into motion to extend his line back toward the railroad, covering Sherman’s likewise rapid (for the terrain) extension. Johnston felt he would attack part of Sherman’s army with his entire Army of Tennessee. But he catches Old Joe or likely his post-war supporters at doctoring the official records to make them read incorrectly. It is a stunning indictment of the Confederate narrative.

“Officially” Hood was supposed to have arrived a day prior to when he historically was in position. This served the famous post-war Johnston-Hood feud over which commander was least competent given the situation. Hood was to blame for Johnston’s grand plan of attacking with his whole army. Still, this doesn’t change the fact that Joe made a ballsy move. A rare aggressive moment for the usually defense-minded general.

In reality, Hood could not have arrived on the day that was change in the records. It was too difficult to move an entire corps through this terrain and, importantly, he seems to have started off later than Johnston had hoped (or would serve his postwar story). The subsequent claim that Hood failed to launch the attack on time was somewhat invented after the war to make Johnston look better. Powell does not go into the messy details like I just did. He merely, insightfully, proves that the date was changed later by the Confederates.

The fact that Johnston really did attempt to attack Sherman in this terrain with his whole army gets lost in this devastating analysis. Despite the date change, Johnston’s orders were a remarkable moment that simply did not pan out for the Confederates. Still, a scapegoat became necessary, which Hood publicly, vehemently refused to be.

Nevertheless, this bold move created a large gap on the Confederate left flank where only one small division held out against McPherson’s army. Once again, Powell sees this as a lost opportunity and is critical of McPherson for not seizing it. McPherson was (deservedly) criticized a lot in Volume 1 and it becomes clear that Powell doesn’t care for his conduct in the field. For days, Dallas was defending by few Rebels but the Federal advance proceeded with extreme caution.

A few days later, as May ended, a mile-long gap in the Union line formed as the two sides positioned through the wilderness. It was defended by a single regiment but Johnston did not see this opportunity to isolate McPherson’s flank and push him away from the main Northern line. But, of course, as I say, this was due to the nature of the terrain and inability to strongly test the various skirmish lines being formed. All skirmish lines are alike in the woods. You can’t see anything other than trees and vines. But Powell is instructive in pointing out that the gap existed. I really never realized that from previous books and other available research.

Eventually, McPherson took Dallas with only a minor skirmish battle. Sherman and Johnston checked each other through the rugged terrain back toward the east. It was at this time that the final significant Confederate reinforcements for the campaign arrived. It was at this stage, as Powell conclusively documents, that the Northern and Southern armies were closest to being numerically equal. Sherman had to garrison the railroad back to Dalton while Johnston added new units.

Over time, this naturally minimized the Union forces as the Confederates grew. Minus casualties, of course. Whereas, at the beginning of the campaign Sherman outnumbered Johnston 2 to 1 overall, the ration was now more like 4 to 3. Powell rightly concludes that “the odds might never be better.” This was the generally unheralded moment when the South most directly matched Sherman.

It turns out the gap in Sherman’s line was actually noted by in the Confederate operational journal but only as “there only to cover roads.” So, it wasn’t missed,. Nevertheless, this clearly indicates that no probe was ordered to test the line there. Whether or not there should have been is easy to speculate about. There was plenty of daily skirmishing up and down the lines. The relatively thinner line of skirmishers would not necessarily call attention to itself.

At the time, both commanders had their hands full with the slow, persistent advance to Kennesaw Mountain. Here, according to Powell, the Federals did a great job of “methodically” taking one critical position after another with minimal casualties as both sides maneuvered. They did this through expert use of skirmishers. Johnston covered himself well enough but he was losing ground. He also lost one of his corps commanders, the Bishop Leonidas Polk, who was directly hit with a long-ranged Union artillery shot. This story is well known but still very well told with added details by Powell.

Once again Johnston ordered a major attack upon Sherman’s line. It seems he wasn’t going to allow his largest troop count yet to go without a significant effort. But this time it truly was botched by Hood at the Battle of Kolb’s Farm. Powell calls it “hastily conceived, based on a faulty perception of the Federal position, lacked proper understanding of terrain, and was poorly executed.” (page 360) No doctoring of historical documents here. Let me quote Powell at length here so you can get a sense of his style of writing. He cites the commander of the Army of the Cumberland, George H. Thomas.

This series of books features excellent maps, which I hope will be compiled into an atlas when all five volumes are published.  That's what they did for his Chickamauga trilogy. A brilliant atlas of the great battle with Powell's excellent commentary followed all the books.  Great maps really aide the readers understanding.  This features the Battle of Kolb's Farm with some text highlighted by my reading.

“Only George Thomas fully grasp the true significance of Kolb’s Farm. […] Thomas intuited what the commanding general did not: if Hood had moved from the enemy left to their right, the James McPherson’ Army of the Tennessee faced dramatically thinned opposition in just Wheeler’s cavalry. Indeed, Thomas urged: ‘Now is the time for McPherson to strike.’ A number of Thomas’s officers felt felt this would have resulted in a great victory. ‘Had the Army of the Tennessee advanced on Marietta on the 23^rd,’ claimed Chaplain Van Horne, ‘the confused flight of Johnston’s army or a battle for which he was in no way prepared would have certainly resulted. McPherson, with more than thirty thousand men, would have been in the rear of the mountains and Johnston could have made no dispositions to meet him that would not have exposed his left flank and his communication.’

“But neither McPherson nor Sherman picked up on this weakness. McPherson completely missed Hood’s entire movement, begun on the night of the 20^th, and failed to notice the enemy’s trenches were weakly held on the 21^st. Van Horne charged that ‘the attitude of Wheeler’s cavalry induced General McPherson to believe that the enemy was massing against him.’ Similar to his repeated refusals to attack William Bate’s small force at Dallas, McPherson’s passivity on the 21^st and 22^nd only provided more evidence that Sherman’s young protege lacked the skills to wield army command.” (page 364)

Significantly, Sherman pulled McPherson out of the line for reposition elsewhere and put General John M. Schofield’s small Army of the Ohio, in its place. Whatever was about to transpire elsewhere would not interfere with Schofield testing the Southern cavalry and probing southward.

Sherman attacked Johnston at Kennesaw Mountain and was totally defeated with a few thousand causalities. It was the biggest Confederate victory of the campaign but Powell points out that some Southerners postwar thought Johnston missed an opportunity for something larger than it was. Powell devotes almost 90 pages to the battle as it was historically fought. It is the most vivid description, blow-by-blow, of each attack that I’ve ever read.

Powell reviews Sherman’s justification for making the attack. He is not overly critical of it other than to point out, rightly, that many of Sherman’s subordinates questioned the need or logic for the grand assault. Interestingly, the author states: “Despite the assault’s overall failure, once again the Yankees skirmishers dominated the picket line, capturing nearly 300 Rebels during the initial rush.”

To me, this is a startling fact. First of all, that it is so well documented how much better Northerners were at skirmishing. I also find myself wondering about Confederate morale at this point in the war. Could it be that many of their skirmishers saw this as an opportunity to become prisoners of war and check out of the fighting and desperate supply conditions faced by the Southern army dating back to the debacle at Chattanooga in 1863. Whatever, that is just pondering a fact Powell brings to the reader’s attention.

Ultimately, while Kennesaw Mountain raged, Schofield’s men found a way southward toward Atlanta beyond the Confederate left flank, below Dallas. Sherman ordered him to proceed after Thomas acknowledged he could cut loose from the railroad for supplies for a few days in order to execute a more sweeping maneuver. Thomas was all for it. The enormous Union supply wagons were loaded down and off they went, getting closer to Atlanta.

This forced Johnston to retreat from the mountainous terrain he had enjoyed defending. The book ends with “Atlanta was now only 16 miles away.”

How wonderful to read what is perhaps the best general scholarship on the Atlanta Campaign as it is being first published. Volume 2 lives up to the promise of 2024’s Volume 1. The next volume in Powell’s massive The Atlanta Campaign will cover the complex situation that is now becoming increasingly obvious. Johnston can’t keep retreating. Sherman has him practically pinned against the city. I will buy it and all subsequent volumes as soon as I can. This is a highly recommended series.