Cannon at the top of Kennesaw Mountain, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park

By the early part of 1864, the Union Army was concentrated in two locations: in the Potomac area of Virginia fighting against Confederate General Robert E. Lee and in Chattanooga, Tennessee, ready to push into northwest Georgia with plans to capture Atlanta, the hub of most all railroad lines. Union general William T. Sherman headed the 100,000 men that comprised the Army of the Tennessee, the Army of the Cumberland, and the Army of the Ohio (all named after rivers). Commanding the Confederate forces (the Army of Tennessee with 55,000 men) was General Joseph Johnston, who at the start of the Atlanta Campaign was near Dalton, Georgia, a northwestern city not too far from Chattanooga.

At the time, the Confederates were highly outmanned and outgunned and had no illusions of winning the war. The strategy was only to prolong it. The people of the North were tired of war, and because 1864 was an election year, they were ready to vote out President Lincoln and elect Democrat George McClelland, who was running on a campaign to end the war by making peace with the Confederacy. The election would be held in November, so the Confederate Army had to hold out for another six months or so. Lincoln had written letters in which he stated he was certain to lose. Only a victory in Atlanta, which would mean an inevitable victory for the Union, could save him.

Sherman began his campaign on March 7, 1864, and first encountered Johnston’s troops at a steep ridge called Rocky Face. After a small battle, Sherman tried to outflank, or “get around back” of Johnston, forcing Johnston to retreat to Resaca. This scenario was repeated over and over: at Adairsville, New Hope Church, Pickett’s Mill, and Dallas. All of these cities were located along the Western & Atlantic rail line, which ran from Chattanooga to Atlanta, the supply line for both armies. To put the tactic into layman’s terms, imagine somebody trying to get around you, and you are trying to block him. If he moves left and you move left in time, you block him. But if he moves left before you can move and starts to go around you, you must back up, or retreat, to stay in front and have another chance of blocking him. If the attacker successfully outflanks the defender, it can now attack from both the front and the back, all but insuring the defender’s defeat.

By June 19^th, Johnston’s retreats had taken him to Kennesaw Mountain. Trenches were dug and cannon were hauled to the top of the many mountains and hills in the area. The eventual battle line ran from Kennesaw Mountain at the northern end to a farm owned by the widow of Peter Kolb at the southern end, approximately a seven to eight mile stretch. Moving southward from Kennesaw Mountain, the terrain is a series of gradually diminishing smaller mountains and hills, including Little Kennesaw Mountain, Pigeon Hill, and Cheatham Hill, until the terrain levels out at Kolb’s Farm. The range runs pretty much north to south as far as the compass goes. Sherman was attacking from the west, while to the east lay Atlanta and the rail lines Johnston was defending. The summit of Kennesaw Mountain is only about 800 feet higher in elevation that ground level (similar to Georgia’s Stone Mountain), so it is not a large mountain by any means, but when your army is on any hill and the enemy is below, it is a great defensive position.

On June 22^nd, Sherman sent General John Schofield’s XXII Corps and General Joseph Hooker’s XX Corps to the Kolb Farm in an attempt to outflank Johnston’s southern position. From the top of Kennesaw Mountain, this movement was in plain view of Johnston, so he sent 11,000 men under the command of General John B. Hood to the farm to block the Union flanking move. When Hooker and Schofield learned the Confederates were coming, they quickly dug defensive earthworks. Fighting broke out at the 600-acre farm that evening when Hood, without orders, decided to attack the Union line, which in hindsight could be considered a preemptive attack. While he successfully kept the Union troops from flanking him, the Confederates lost the battle in terms of casualties (1,500 Confederate casualties to 250 Union).

At this point, Sherman concocted a new plan. If he were to create a diversion by sending part of this army to attack the Confederate’s northern flank at Kennesaw Mountain and part to attack once again at the Kolb Farm, Johnston’s middle defenses might be thin. On June 27th at 8 AM, the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain began. Union troops hit the middle of the Confederate line in two places: at the area stretching from Pigeon Hill to Little Kennesaw Mountain and at Deadman’s Angle, which would become known as Cheatham Hill. Union troops were repelled in both instances, with heavy loses, and Sherman ended the attacks, resorting once again to his flanking maneuvers. This strategy again forced Johnston to retreat, and on July 2^nd, the Confederate Army abandoned Kennesaw Mountain and moved to the east side of the Chattahoochee River to make one more stand. Eight hundred Confederate and eighteen-hundred Union soldiers were killed in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain (this does not include other prior skirmishes, including the fighting at Kolb’s Farm).

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