Major-General William T. Sherman, commanding a combined force of three Federal armies in northern Georgia, had resolved to directly attack the enemy line anchored on Kennesaw Mountain. General Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the Confederate Army of Tennessee, had strengthened his flanks to prevent them from being turned, so Sherman felt he had no choice but to try breaking through his center.
June 27 began hot and humid, with temperatures quickly reaching 100 degrees. At 8 a.m., 200 Federal guns opened on the Confederate lines, and Confederate gunners responded. A witness wrote, “Kennesaw smoked and blazed with fire, a volcano as grand as Etna.”
To the north, about 5,000 Federals from Major-General James B. McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee began advancing toward Little Kennesaw and Pigeon Hill. These were held by some 5,000 Confederates of Major-General William W. Loring’s corps. McPherson hoped to break the enemy defenses and isolate Loring to the northeast. The entrenched Confederates awaited the Federals’ approach.
As the Federals scaled the steep ridges, Confederate artillerists fired down into them. When their guns could not be depressed any lower, the Confederates rolled rocks and other impediments down the hill. The Federals reached the forward rifle pits, with many using their rifles as clubs, but they could not reach the main line. The fight raged for two hours before the Federals were ordered to fall back.
About two miles south, 9,000 Federals from Major-General George H. Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland began advancing across a mile-wide front at 9 a.m. Facing them were two divisions of Lieutenant-General William Hardee’s corps under Major-Generals Patrick R. Cleburne and Benjamin F. Cheatham.
The Federals marched in columns to apply maximum power against specific points on the line, thereby increasing their chances for a breakthrough. However, this left them vulnerable to artillery, which cut large swaths into the formations. The Confederate defenders noted the Federals’ bravery, with one recalling, “They seemed to walk up and take death as coolly as if they were automatic or wooden men.” Johnston noted that “the characteristic fortitude of the northwestern soldiers held them under a close and destructive fire long after reasonable hope of success was gone.”
Only a few Federals managed to reach the Confederate lines, including Colonel Daniel McCook, who was killed after shouting, “Surrender, you traitors!” He was Sherman’s law partner before the war and became the fourth of 15 “Fighting McCooks” to die in combat. McCook had prepared his brigade for what he knew to be an almost hopeless advance by reciting the poem “Horatius” by Thomas Babington Macaulay, which began, “For how can men die better; Than facing fearful odds…” Vicious hand-to-hand fighting ensued, and this area of the field became known as the “Dead Angle.”
Thomas issued orders around 10:45 for the Federals to fall back. According to Sherman, “By 11:30 the assault was in fact over, and had failed. We had not broken the rebel line at either point, but our assaulting columns held their ground within a few yards of the rebel trenches, and there covered themselves with parapet.” Federals pinned down by enemy fire had to wait until nightfall to withdraw.
Sherman wrote Thomas at 1:30, “Do you think you can carry any part of the enemy’s line today?… I will order the assault if you think you can succeed at any point.” Thomas replied, “We have already lost heavily today without gaining any material advantage. One or two more such assaults would use up this army.” Sherman called off the attack, noting, “At times assaults are necessary and inevitable. At Arkansas Post we succeeded; at Vicksburg we failed.”
Major-General Oliver O. Howard, commanding the Fourth Corps of Thomas’s army, wrote, “We realized now, as never before, the futility of direct assaults upon entrenched lines already well prepared and well manned.” A Federal major observed, “The rebel works and position are too strong to be carried by assault. We must flank ‘em.”
Johnston, not yet aware of the extent of his victory, wired Richmond, “The enemy advanced upon our whole line to-day. Their loss is supposed to be great; ours known to be small.” But the Confederate army was not in good condition, despite their victory. One soldier recalled:
“I never saw so many broken down and exhausted men in my life. I was as sick as a horse, and as wet with blood and sweat as I could be, and many of our men were vomiting with excessive fatigue, over-exhaustion, and sunstroke; our tongues were parched and cracked for water, and our faces blackened with powder and smoke, and our dead and wounded were piled indiscriminately in the trenches.”
The Federals sustained 2,051 casualties (1,999 killed or wounded and 52 missing), while the Confederates lost 442 (270 killed or wounded and 172 missing). These numbers were small compared to the terrible battles in Virginia, but they were the greatest losses in this campaign thus far. Sherman came under severe criticism for this failed attack, but he wrote in his report:
“I perceived that the enemy and our officers had settled down into a conviction that I would not assault fortified lines. All looked to me to outflank. An army to be efficient, must not settle down to a single mode of offence, but must be prepared to execute any plan which promises success. I wanted, therefore, for the moral effect, to make a successful assault against the enemy behind his breastworks, and resolved to attempt it at that point where success would give the largest fruits of victory.”
This was Johnston’s greatest tactical victory of the campaign. However, Sherman turned this into a strategic victory for the Federals when Major-General John Schofield’s Army of the Ohio extended its right flank beyond Johnston’s left. This allowed Sherman to turn Johnston’s flank once more, even though it would force the Federals to detach themselves from their supply line on the Western & Atlantic Railroad.
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