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Part 1 . Battle is Joined
Throughout the close early morning darkness of July
22, 1864, C.S. Lt. General William Hardee was to push
his corps of ragtag Confederates in a circuitous u-shaped
route south / southeast out of the inner defenses of
Atlanta, with the goal of sweeping back to the north
before dawn. From this position Hardee’s men could
get in behind the left flank of the U.S. Army of
the Tennessee – which had filed into this
threatening position east of the city only the previous
day – and launch a surprise attack. As Hardee’s
men “rolled up” the Union left and drove
them back on the center of their main line, C.S. Major
General Benjamin Franklin Cheatham’s other corps
would smash into a then – as hoped and planned
– “wavering” Union center and unhinge
their entire position. So followed the battle plan of
the newly installed and overtly aggressive chief of
the C.S. Army of Tennessee, Lt. General John
Bell Hood. The fate of Atlanta and to a large degree
the life of the Confederacy itself would rely on the
outcome of this day.
I “moved out,” strategically, after the
notorious morning rush hour. It was a Thursday morning
– the battle was fought on a Friday – and
by 10 a.m. it already felt like 100° out (this would
be my overriding thought of the day: fighting with powder-fired
weapons in long-sleeve wool / flannel uniforms, in this
kind of heat: brutal). The air was still, humid and
grey as I headed south on Moreland Avenue – the
same stretch along which the two-mile long Union line,
facing west, had been aligned. Moreland has been an
enigmatic roadway during my tenure in Atlanta, hovering
somewhere between enterprising and slum. The more south
you get, the more industrial – and strangely –
more rural it gets. My first stop was where McDonough
Boulevard meets Moreland. Up McDonough less than a mile
is Atlanta’s Federal Penitentiary. A
vast spread of “fenced-in” projects lines
the northwest corner of the intersection, within symbolic
distance of the Fed’s pen. Yet the main feature
of the vicinity is the old Star Light Drive-In,
still remarkably in operation. In this locale was the
historical marker that would begin my day: “Hardee’s
Night March.”
Hardee marched his four divisions out from under the
southern end of rolling entrenchments, bunkers, palisades
and chevaux-de-frise (formidable x-shaped rows of spiked
logs designed to prevent frontal assaults) that made
up the tough inner defense line of Atlanta. The column,
many miles long, turned south at the intersection of
today’s McDonough / Moreland to avoid detection
– marching south another half-mile before turning
northeast. I followed the column’s “tack”
up today’s Fayetteville / Key Road to the next
historical marker: “Hardee’s March Turned
N.E.” It took me a minute to locate the marker
in thick overgrown brush before the kudzu-drowned and
deteriorating lot of a closed grocery / restaurant.
The surrounding neighborhood was more third-world than
not. A resident of what can only be described as a shack,
stood on her front porch in curious wonder – as
if I were the first person to ever make the effort to
seek out and read that marker. The whole strangely rural
area could just as easily be a low-income district in
a small town off 441 in south Georgia, as located here
within a few miles of the state capitol. It’s
a depressed careless stretch known to few in this city.
The bleary Confederate column moved up modern-day Key
Road to the William Cobb house, which stood in an area
now dominated by one of greater Atlanta’s wastewater
treatment plants. Two historical markers fill in the
facts of the march to this point. The untold story is
this road now passing through another forgotten urban
area: Atlanta’s Prison Farm. Unused for
some time, it is totally unkempt: covered under by roadside
trash, whole dumptruck-full heaps of old couches, renovation
refuse and dead appliances. At least a part of the “farm”
found use as an actual landfill. Downtown skyscrapers
were visible beyond the unnatural hill, the grey haze
so thick that they were hard to pick out in the picture
I took. The road is also lined by old buildings consumed
in vines. Most seem to have belonged to a hunting /
fishing club, my suspicion being that this was the original
use of the “farm.” A good deal are only
four crumbling walls without roofs. They only add to
the desolate nature of this stretch south of East
Atlanta. . . . . In 1864, this area not only seemed
rural; it was rural. Hardee pressed his columns hard
along these roads. His men stumbled through the pitch
black darkness and up to the modern-day intersection
with Bouldercrest Road (the historical marker is missing),
where local scouts turned the force north in heading
for the planned assembly points south of modern-day
Glenwood Road (a main artery that runs through East
Lake, East Atlanta and Grant Park,
and delineates the southern border of the battle). Today,
this area simmers between the kind of urban slum unique
to the American South – sparse, “rural,”
exuding neglect nonetheless – and working / middle
class suburbs on the upswing. Confederates piled into
this area throughout the murky dawn of July 22, 1864.
Two markers mark two separate assembly points: “Cleburne
& Maney’s Divisions” at Bouldercrest
/ Flat Shoals Avenue, south of East Atlanta,
and “Walker & Bate at Sugar Creek”
near Longdale Park, south of East Lake and
Civil War era Terry’s Mill. Along this
line, Hardee aligned these four-divisions and readied
their assault. But the circuitous march had covered
some fifteen miles in the dead of night. Stragglers
were everywhere. The troops were without rest, blown
by the audacious move and hadn’t yet fired a single
bullet. Yet despite the straggling, and as far as they
could tell, the maneuver had succeeded in placing Hardee
on the Union flank undetected. The element of surprise
was still theirs.’
By this point, I was back in more familiar surroundings.
In the mid ‘90s, East Atlanta began its
slow steady climb from a sketchy commercial / residential
village to the thriving eclectic spot it has become.
So called “urban pioneers” are now outnumbered
by “settlers.” The village boasts of a number
of successful restaurants, bars and shops, and has largely
replaced Little Five Points as the epicentre
of the city’s (and southeast’s) “independent”
music scene. It’s a place where the artistic underground
feels right at home. Further east down Glenwood beyond
its cross over I-20, the same revitalization has been
intermittent and slower in coming. Recent trends seem
positive. Across both, the Battle of Atlanta erupted.
Major General James McPherson was hand-picked by Sherman
to command the U.S. Army of the Tennessee after
Sherman’s ascendancy to theatre command in the
west. To many historians, few military endorsements
could come down through our history with more credibility.
Only 35, McPherson was proven and capable; and on the
morning of July 22, 1864, he put his talents to work
– sensing the vulnerability of his left flank.
With a considerable portion of this army out west in
the trans-Mississippi theatre, McPherson’s command
consisted of three corps: XV, XVI, XVII. Major General
John “Black Jack” Logan’s XV held
the right (from modern-day Memorial Drive north through Edgewood into Little Five Points),
Major General Francis Blair’s XVII held the left
(modern-day East Atlanta and the Moreland /
I-20 interchange), with Major General Grenville Dodge’s
XVI in reserve. McPherson ordered XVI Corps south to
link with XVII, and protect against any flank attack.
In hindsight, this could be the most fortuitous move
of the entire Atlanta campaign. But “good luck”
relies on good foresight. It is what great generals
do. And in McPherson, the Union had a great “on-field”
impresario (an interesting side note is that this order
was countermanded by a skeptical Sherman; but his lieutenant
convinced the chief of its necessity – and for
the Union it was a good thing that he did). Three markers
track the swift march south of the XVI’s vanguard:
Sweeny’s Division. The first: “Sweeny’s
Division Encamped,” stands in Candler
Park’s park and marks the start point. The
second: “Sweeny’s March South,”
stands only one mile south in Kirkwood at Clay
Street / Hosea Williams (though the draconian cut-through
of the railroad and MARTA make it a disorienting roundabout
trek), marks the approach. The third: “The
Battle of Atlanta Began Here,” at Clay /
Memorial Drive, marks first contact with Hardee’s
Confederates. In reverse, three markers trace the initial
advance of Hardee’s far right: Bate’s division.
The first: “Bate’s Division at Terry’s
Mill Pond” (which sat southeast a few hundred
yards), at Glenwood / I-20 marks the beginning of their
advance. The second: the same “Battle of Atlanta
Began Here,” marks their run-in with Sweeny;
and the third: “An Unexpected Clash,”
back across Memorial in the parking lot of the Alonzo
Crim High School, marks the initial skirmish that would
explode into the Battle of Atlanta. Hood’s
surprise had itself been surprised. In fact, everyone
involved – Union and Confederate – were
caught off-guard. But the sheer weight of Hardee’s
four-division corps still threatened to overwhelm the
Union left if it could be brought to bear. And at the
outset, Sweeny’s single division was the only
thing that stood in their way.
Within one mile of each other, the two highest ranking
casualties of the battle occurred. Two monuments mark
these fated locations. They are the only two monuments
to be found across a landscape oblivious to its own
history. The first marks the death of William H. T.
Walker, whose C.S. division was in line to the left
of Bates. Picked off at long-range by a Union sniper,
Walker was in fact one of the first casualties of the
battle. The monument resides in a small triangle of
land at the outlet of Wilkinson Drive onto Glenwood,
right alongside the I-20 interchange. It is a hustling
intersection. As true of most intown thoroughfares,
the area is anti-pedestrian. I would guess with a degree
of certainty that the monument is not even noticed by
75% of motorists who pass by. Of those who pass by regularly
and have noticed it, I would say – with an even
greater degree of certainty – that 99% have no
idea what the Walker monument represents. And though
the popular belief of history as a bunch of dull dusty
facts reflects poorly, culturally, therein lies a challenge:
to make it attainable. Providing a modern-day frame
of reference helps. With this in mind I advanced over
the same land Bates and Walker’s men did 140 years
earlier. What in 1864 was a series of swampy fields
run through by Sugar Creek, is now a low-income neighborhood
bracketed by DeKalb Memorial Park. Filling the half-mile
stretch from Glenwood to Memorial, the park encompasses
the entire approach of Hardee’s right wing. A
man with a pitching wedge was the only other person
in the park as I passed through, his dog chasing each
ball. The air was oppressive, my shirt long since soaked
clean through as I looped back to my car. It was tropical
heat and I wondered how the casual golfer could be enjoying
himself. I also wondered if he had any idea who Major
General W. H. T. Walker was, or of the historical significance
of the park. Probably not, I figured. This motivated
me.
End Part 1 . Proceed to Part II: The Bald Hill and the Fight South
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