Batteries of the Sixteenth Corps fairly mowed great swaths in the advancing columns. They showed great steadiness, and closed up the gaps and preserved their alignments; but the iron and leaden hail which was poured upon them was too much for flesh and blood to stand, and, before reaching the center of the open field, the columns were broken up and thrown into great confusion. Taking advantage of this, General Dodge, with portions of General Fuller's and General Sweeney's Divisions, with bayonets fixed, charged the enemy and drove them back to the woods, taking many prisoners.
General McPherson's admiration for the steadiness and determined bravery of the Sixteenth Corps was unbounded. General Dodge held the key to the position.
Had the Sixteenth Corps given way the rebel army would have been in the rear of the Seventeenth and Fifteenth Corps, and would have swept like an avalanche over our supply trains, and the position of the Army of the Tennessee would have been very critical, although, without doubt, the result of the battle would have been in our favor, because the Armies of the Cumberland and the Ohio were close at hand, and the enemy would have been checked and routed further on.
General Blair, in his official report of the battle, says:
I witnessed the first furious assault upon the Sixteenth Army Corps, and its prompt and gallant repulse. It was a fortunate circumstance for that whole army that the Sixteenth Army Corps occupied the position I have attempted to describe, at the moment of the attack; and although it does not become me to comment upon the brave conduct of the officers and men of that Corps, still I can not refrain from expressing my admiration for the manner in which the Sixteenth Corps met and repulsed the repeated and persistent attacks of the enemy.
The Sixteenth Corps has a record in that battle which we seldom see in the annals of war. It met the shock of battle and fired the last shot late that night, as the enemy stubbornly yielded its grasp on Bald Hill. It fought on four parts of the field, and everywhere with equal success. It lost no gun that it took into the engagement, and its losses were almost entirely in killed and wounded – the missing having been captured at Decatur through getting mired in a swamp.
At no time during the Atlanta campaign was there present in the Sixteenth Corps more than two small Divisions of three Brigades each, and at this time these two Divisions were widely scattered; on the Atlanta field only ten Regiments and two Batteries were present, three entire Brigades being absent from the Corps. It was called upon to meet the assault of at least three Divisions or nine Brigades, or at the least forty-nine Regiments, all full to the utmost that a desperate emergency could swell them, impelled by the motive of the preconcerted surprise, and orders from their commander at all hazards to sweep over any and all obstructions; while, on the other hand, the force attacked and surprised was fighting without orders, guided only by the exigency of the moment. Their captures represented forty-nine different Regiments of the enemy. How many more Regiments were included in those nine Brigades I have never been able to learn. The fact that this small force, technically, if not actually, in march, in a perfectly open field, with this enormously superior force leaping upon them from the cover of dense woods, was able to hold its ground and drive its assailants, pell-mell, back to the cover of the woods again, proves that when a great battle is in progress, or a great emergency occurs, no officer can tell what the result may be when he throws in his forces, be they 5,000 or 20,000 men; and it seems to me to be impossible to draw the line that gives the right to a subordinate officer to use his own judgment in engaging an enemy when a great battle is within his hearing.
Suppose the Sixteenth Corps, with less than 5,000 men, seeing at least three times their number in their front, should have retreated, instead of standing and fighting as it did: What would have been the result? I say that in all my experience in life, until the two forces struck and the Sixteenth Corps stood firm, I never passed more anxious moments.
Sprague's Brigade, of the same corps, was engaged at the same time within hearing, but on a different field, – at Decatur, – fighting and stubbornly holding that place, knowing that if he failed the trains massed there and en route from Roswell would be captured. His fight was a gallant and sometimes seemingly almost hopeless one – giving ground inch by inch, until, finally, he obtained a position that he could not be driven from, and one that protected the entire trains of the Army.
As Hardee's attack fell upon the Sixteenth Army Corps, his left Division (Cleburn's) lapped over and beyond Blair's left, and swung around his left front; they poured down through the gap between the left of the Seventeenth and the right of the Sixteenth Corps, taking Blair in front, flank, and rear. Cheatham's Corps moved out of Atlanta and attacked in Blair's front. General Giles A. Smith commanded Blair's left Division, his right connecting with Leggett at Bald Hill, where Leggett's Division held the line until they connected with the Fifteenth Corps, and along this front the battle raged with great fury.
As Cleburn advanced along the open space between the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Corps they cut off from Blair's left and captured a portion of two Regiments of his command, and forced the Seventeenth Corps to form new lines, utilizing the old intrenchments thrown up by the enemy, fighting first on one side and then on the other, as the attack would come from Hardee in the rear or Cheatham in the front, until about 3:30 p. m., when, evidently after a lull, an extraordinary effort was made by the rebels to wipe out Giles A. Smith's Division and capture Leggett's Hill, the enemy approaching under cover of the woods until they were within fifty yards of Smith's temporary position, when they pressed forward until the fight became a hand-to-hand conflict across the trenches occupied by Smith, the troops using bayonet freely and the officers their swords. This attack failed; it was no doubt timed to occur at the same time that Cheatham's Corps attacked from the Atlanta front, which Leggett met. The brunt of Cheatham's attack was against Leggett's Hill, the key to the position of that portion of the Army of the Tennessee. General Giles A. Smith's Division had to give up the works they occupied and fall into line at right angles with Leggett's Division, Leggett's Hill being the apex of the formation; and around this position for three-quarters of an hour more desperate fighting was done that I can describe. Up to midnight the enemy occupied one side of the works while we occupied the other, neither side giving way until Hood saw that the whole attack was a failure, when those who were on the outside of the works finally surrendered to us. Their attack at this angle was a determined and resolute one, advancing up to our breastworks on the crest of the hill, planting their flag side by side with ours, and fighting hand to hand until it grew so dark that nothing could be seen but the flash of guns from the opposite sides of the works. The ground covered by these attacks was literally strewn with the dead of both sides. The loss of Blair's Corps was 1,801 killed, wounded, and missing. Blair's left struck in the rear flank, and the front gave way slowly, gradually, fighting for every inch of ground, until their left was opposite the right flank of the Sixteenth Corps; then they halted, and held the enemy, refusing to give another inch.
It would be difficult in all the annals of war to find a parallel to the fighting of the Seventeenth Corps; first from one side of its works and then from the other, one incident of which was that of Colonel Belknap, of the Union side, who, reaching over the works, seized the Colonel of the Forty-fifth Alabama, and, drawing him over the breastworks, made him a prisoner of war.
About 4 p. m. Cheatham's Corps was ordered by Hood to again attack; they directed their assault this time to the front of the Fifteenth Corps, using the Decatur wagon-road and railway as a guide, and came forward in solid masses, meeting no success until they slipped through to the rear of the Fifteenth Corps by a deep cut used by the railway passing through our intrenchments.
As soon as they reached our rear, Lightburn's Division of the Fifteenth Corps became partially panic-stricken, and fell back, giving up the intrenchments for the whole front of this Division, the enemy capturing the celebrated Degress Battery of 20-pounders and two guns in advance of our lines. The officers of Lightburn's Division rallied it in the line of intrenchments, just in the rear of the position they had in the morning.
General Logan was then in command of the Army of the Tennessee. He rode over to my position, and I sent Mersey's Brigade
