Civil War News
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The Atlanta Papers (cont.)
The Atlanta Papers cover and spine. This month, we march on with our look into Sydney C. Kerksis’s The Atlanta Papers; a collection of Federal accounts from the Atlanta Campaign. Major W.H. Chamberlin of the 81st Ohio Volunteer Infantry delivered Paper No. 18—‘Recollections of the Battle of Atlanta’—to the Ohio MOLLUS Commandery. Chamberlin, who served on the staff of Major General Grenville Dodge (XVI Corps), provided a detailed account of the July 22, 1864, battle. Colonel Robert N. Adams, D.D., led the 81st Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Battle of Atlanta and recalled ‘The Battle and Capture of Atlanta’ in Paper No. 19. Adams
Kilpatrick’s Raid Map.
stated the fighting proved “…the bloodiest and most decisive battle of the campaign,” then avowed, “General McPherson did take and hold that position, which proved to be the ‘key to Atlanta,’ but at the sacrifice of himself and thousands of his brave men.” Continuing to focus on the fighting east of the city on July 22, Major General Dodge authored Paper No. 20, ‘The Battle of Atlanta.’ Dodge addressed a lingering question at the time, 1895, as to why the battle “…was never put ahead of many others its inferior, but better known to the world and made of much greater comment?” The general surmised the loss of Major General James McPherson in the fighting “… counted so much more to us than victory, that we spoke of our battle, our great success, with our loss uppermost in our minds.” Lieutenant Colonel William E. Strong of McPherson’s staff, remembered his fallen chieftain in Paper No. 21, ‘The Death of General James B. McPherson.’ Strong opened his account with a strong statement: “Numerous accounts have been published, but none of them go into details, and none that I have seen are entirely correct.” Details indeed! Within the following 32 pages, researchers can glean valuable information about the general’s
death. Strong cites wartime reports, newspaper accounts, and other documents in his attempt to clarify when, where, and how the general fell. The writer numbered among the first to arrive at McPherson’s side after the fatal shot struck the officer, and recalled, “Raising his body quickly from the ground, and grasping it firmly under the arms, I dragged it…through the brush to the ambulance….” Shifting away from July 22, 1st Lieutenant Granville C. West, who served in the 4th Kentucky Infantry (mounted during Atlanta Campaign) penned ‘McCook’s Raid in the Rear of Atlanta and Hood’s Army, August 1864,’ Paper No. 22. West offered a general history of his regiment before detailing McCook’s attempts to break the rail lines servicing Atlanta. The writer criticized Major General George Stoneman, scheduled to meet McCook’s force near Lovejoy Station. Stoneman decided to liberate the prisoners at Camp Sumter in Andersonville; the cavalry general and a sizable portion of his command ended up prisoners themselves after the Battle of Sunshine Church. West suggested had Stoneman joined McCook, “our united forces would have been masters of the situation;” instead, they “remained there [Lovejoy] nearly all
April 2019
Colonel Robert N. Adams, author of Paper No. 19..
April 2019
Civil War News
day expecting him [Stoneman], and wasted some precious hours….” The Chicago Board of Trade Battery made an appearance in Paper No. 23, ‘With Kilpatrick Around Atlanta,’ as 1st Lieutenant George I. Robinson of the battery recounted the attempt to break the Macon & Western Railroad, and the resultant engagements near Jonesboro. Robinson, a gifted writer, weaves an engaging narrative, one occasionally laced with dry humor. Recalling when he first learned Major General William T. Sherman had requested Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick to lead his cavalry during the campaign, Robinson remembered even greater surprise “…when at about the same time the battery under my command was ordered to report to Gen. Kilpatrick.” Capturing more of the action covered in the previous chapter, 1st Lieutenant William L. Curry of the 1st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry provided Paper No. 24, ‘Raid of the Union Cavalry, Commanded by General Judson Kilpatrick, Around the Confederate Army in Atlanta, August, 1864.’ Like Robinson, Curry wrote a fluid-prose, and among his various accounts of the raid, he gave a thorough explanation of how cavalrymen damaged rail lines. “The men then
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form along one side of the track in close order, and at command grasp the rails and ties and turn the track over, and sometimes a half mile of tracks is turned before a joint is broken.” Next, “… the men move along rapidly, and many rods of the track will be standing up on edge. If there is time, the rails are then torn loose from the ties by picks and axes, carried for that purpose; the ties are piled up and the rails on top of them, and the fires are fired; thus the rails are heated in the middle and bent out of shape…twisted around trees or telegraph poles.” Concluding his lesson on cutting the rails, Curry added the final ingredient to the recipe “…the rails are left to cool.” In closing, he suggested, “…no doubt some of them are there yet [Curry wrote in 1898] to mark the trail of the cavalry raiders.” Remember to check WorldCat http://www.worldcat.org/ for help in finding this source in a local library; search The Atlanta Papers + Kerksis. Researchers may also have luck in securing a copy of this 1980 Morningside Press publication from an online bookseller. Next month, we will complete the review of The Atlanta Papers. Until then, continued good luck in researching the Civil War! Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author, lecturer, instructor, and a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, the Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, the Georgia Association of Historians, and the Georgia Writers Association. Readers may contact him at mkscdr11@ gmail.com, or to request speaking engagements, via his website www.civilwarhistorian.net. Follow Michael on Facebook www.facebook.com/michael.k.shaffer and Twitter @michaelkshaffer.
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