BATTLE OF ATLANTA, JULY 22.—RECAPTURE FROM THE CONFEDERATES OF DEGRESS’S BATTERY.
The view is west toward Atlanta; the Confederates in capturing the battery charged along the Georgia railroad from the rolling-mill, and took advantage of the cover of the railroad embankment and cut. (This picture is a
reproduction from the Panorama of the Battle of Atlanta.)
which (General Morgan L. Smith’s) was driven from its line. This took place about 3 o’clock, after the Sixteenth Corps’ fighting was mainly over. It was a part of the attack from the Atlanta defenses made by Hood on both the Seventeenth and Fifteenth corps.
When General Logan assumed command of the Army of the Tennessee he placed General Morgan L. Smith in command of the Fifteenth Corps, and General Lightburn succeeded to the command of Smith’s division. This all happened just before Flood’s attack on the Fifteenth Corps. The line had been weakened as before indicated, and the enemy succeeding in pushing a column through a cut in the Augusta railroad line, and driving back a portion of General Lightburn’s troops and flanking the rest, the whole division, to use the language of General Lightburn’s official report, “broke in confusion to the rear.” This left in the enemy’s hands sections of an Illinois battery (A, 1st Artillery) stationed near the railroad, and also DeGress’s famous battery of four 20-pounder Parrotts, placed on the right of this division. General Lightburn’s report is very brief. He simply says he checked the retreat of his division at the line occupied by his troops on the morning of that day, re-formed, and, with the assistance of General Wood’s division and one brigade of the Sixteenth Corps, commanded by Captain Mersy, recaptured all the guns of Battery H, 1st Illinois (DeGress’s), and two of Battery A. He had but six regiments in line when his division was driven back. . . .
THE BATTLE OP ATLANTA, JULY 22. From the painting by James E. Taylor. 268
advanced to give timely warning of the approach of an enemy.
I happened to be with General Logan when he received the order to take command of the Army of the Tennessee in place of General McPherson. I shall not easily forget the ride I had with him as he made his way to the point of danger, the left. Although whizzing balls sped about our ears as we entered the open ground near Dodge’s position, and shells now and then exploded overhead, General Logan moved on the most direct line, and with no delay, to General Dodge’s headquarters. He heard, in a few terse sentences, from General Dodge, how affairs stood there. Dodge’s battle at that time was about won, and his command, after the enemy had spent its force in unsuccessful assaults, intrenched quickly, almost on the battleline. Both General Fuller’s and General Sweeny’s divisions had captured battle-flags and prisoners. A part of General Fuller’s command had changed front under fire with conspicuous bravery and steadiness, Fuller having himself planted the colors of the 27th Ohio, to indicate the new line. Among the regiments engaged were the 27th, 39th, 43d, and 81st Ohio; the 7th, 9th, 12th, 50th, 52d, 57th, 64th, and 66th Illinois, and the 2d Iowa. The brigade (Martin’s) from the Fifteenth Corps did not take part in the action, and was subsequently sent farther to the rear to assist in the defense of Decatur.
What may be considered a separate action, although intended by Hood to be simultaneous, was the attack on the Fifteenth Corps, one division of