BGuthrie Photos: GA -- Kennesaw Mountain Natl Battlefield Park

GA -- Kennesaw Mountain Natl Battlefield Park:

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[1] KENNMT_061012_002.JPG	[2] KENNMT_061012_010.JPG	[3] KENNMT_061012_014.JPG
[4] KENNMT_061012_027.JPG	[5] KENNMT_061012_034.JPG	[6] KENNMT_061012_038.JPG
[7] KENNMT_061012_044.JPG	[8] KENNMT_061012_048.JPG	[9] KENNMT_061012_054.JPG
[10] KENNMT_061012_057.JPG	[11] KENNMT_061012_061.JPG	[12] KENNMT_061012_069.JPG
[13] KENNMT_061012_078.JPG	[14] KENNMT_061012_080.JPG	[15] KENNMT_061012_090.JPG
[16] KENNMT_061012_100.JPG	[17] KENNMT_061012_104.JPG	[18] KENNMT_061012_109.JPG
[19] KENNMT_061012_112.JPG	[20] KENNMT_061012_130.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. KENNMT_061012_002.JPG: Climax at Cheatham Hill: Confederate defenders here defeated the main Union assault. On June 27, 1864, more than 8,000 Union infantrymen attacked an equal number of well-entrenched Confederates along this low-lying hill. One Tennessee veteran compared the assault to "ocean waves driven by a hurricane... sweeping on as if by irresistible impulse." The Confederates repulsed the first Federal charges. While attempting to rally his eight Union regiments, 27-year-old Brig. Gen. Charles G. Harker was shot off his white horse. Although one Federal brigade reached the Confederate lines 1/4 mile to your right, Union troops soon retreated in disarray. About 1/4 mile to the left, two other Union brigades charged toward an angle in the Confederate defenses. This trail follows the Confederate earthworks to the area that both sides later named "The Dead Angle".
2. KENNMT_061012_010.JPG: Camouflaged Cannons: Tennessee cannoneers positioned two 12-pounder howitzers within this redoubt. Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham ordered these artillery crews to camouflage the earthen mounds with cut underbrush and to hold their fire unless attacked. For the next week, they kept under cover as Union bombardments tried to weaken the Confederate lines. On the morning of June 27, a Union barrage preceded close-packed Federal attackers. The gunners here waited silently as blue-clad columns pushed through the dense forest despite Confederate small arms fire. Finally, at point-blank range, the cannon crews opened fire. Flying canister stunned the Federal lines and, according to one Confederate officer, "did great execution."
3. KENNMT_061012_014.JPG: Camouflaged cannons
4. KENNMT_061012_027.JPG: Field Fortifications: Confederate engineers and work crews started digging earthworks around Kennesaw Mountain a few days before their army fell back to this position on June 19. For the next week, Southern soldiers improved their earthwork defenses despite constant rain. The Southerners dug deep, throwing the dirt toward the Union side of the trenches. The earthen wall -- called a parapet -- was topped with a braced log, leaving an open space beneath it for soldiers to shoot through. Fighting from behind these defenses, the Confederates held a great advantage over the attacking Federals during the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain on June 27, 1864. Today within Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, 11 miles of shallow ditches remain from those formidable earthworks. Help preserve these fragile resources by staying on the park's trails.
5. KENNMT_061012_034.JPG: Field Fortifications
6. KENNMT_061012_048.JPG: The Dead Angle: This bend in the Confederate line became the battle's focal point. At 9:00am on June 27, 1864, thousands of yelling, blue-clad soldiers charged across the distant field toward the Tennessee soldiers in these earthworks. As the Federals came forward at double time in successive lines, the Confederates raked the enemy with rifle-musket fire. Despite hundreds of casualties, the Federals surged toward this protruding angle in the Confederate defense line. Union Col. Daniel McCook, a brigade commander, fell mortally wounded on the brink of these earthworks while leading his troops. As Federals reached the Southern lines, savage hand-to-hand combat broke out. Confederate Maj. Gen. Frank Cheatham's Tennesseans stubbornly held their line, and those Federals not shot, clubbed down, bayonetted, or captured sought shelter. The Union charge was broken.
7. KENNMT_061012_054.JPG: The Dead Angle
8. KENNMT_061012_057.JPG: Tunnel entrance
9. KENNMT_061012_061.JPG: The Assault Falters: Beaten Federals entrenched within 30 yards of the Confederate earthworks. As the Union attack stalled, two surviving Federal colonels hastily discussed retreat. Realizing the withdrawing under heavy fire would invite more bloodshed, they decided to dig in along this brow of the hill not covered by fire from the Confederates' earthworks only 30 yards away. While half of the Federals fired toward the earthworks, the rest furiously scooped shallow trenches with their bayonets and tin cups. After nightfall, the Federals brought up tools from the rear and built two lines of fortifications. For the next six days, both sides exchanged sniper fire, expecting an attack at any moment. On a seven-hour truce to bury the dead on June 29 interrupted the tense stalemate. As the standoff continued, the Federals started a tunnel here, intending to blow up the Southern earthworks on July 4. But during the night of July 2, the Confederates quietly slipped away, forced to retreat as Sherman's Union army outflanked them again. A small stone arch, erected in 1914, marks the tunnel entrance.
10. KENNMT_061012_069.JPG: Monument to the Fallen: Illinois veterans erected this memorial 50 years after the battle. The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain on June 27, 1864, cost the Union army an estimated 3,000 killed, wounded, or missing soldiers. The Confederates suffered fewer than 1,000 casualties. After the war, the dead of both sides were reburied in separate cemeteries in nearby Marietta. Here at the Dead Angle, Col. Daniel McCook's brigade lost 397 men, most of them from Illinois. In 1899, survivors from McCook's brigade bought 60 acres of land here and donated it to the State of Illinois to build a state-funded monument. Union veterans dedicated it on June 27, 1914 -- the battle's 50th anniversary. From this beginning, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park has grown to nearly 3,000 acres of the ground that two great armies struggled over so long ago.
11. KENNMT_061012_090.JPG: Illinois memorial
Wikipedia Description: Battle of Kennesaw Mountain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain was fought on June 27, 1864, during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War. Despite its name, much of the battle was fought to the southwest of Kennesaw Mountain, near Marietta, Georgia. The main participants in the battle were the Union armies under the command of Gen. William T. Sherman and the Army of Tennessee under the command of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston.

Prelude:

All throughout north Georgia, Sherman had advanced his army southeast along the railroad from Chattanooga, Tennessee, towards Atlanta, Georgia. Johnston would take up defensive positions, only to retreat whenever Sherman marched his troops around the Confederate army to flank them. At Kennesaw Mountain, Johnston had a massive network of trenches and earthworks prepared to halt the Union advance. This time, when Sherman tried to march his army southwards around Kennesaw, he was met by an attack at Kolb's farm from Confederate troops under the command of John B. Hood. Although the Union soldiers turned back Hood's hastily prepared attack, Sherman's army could not flank the Rebel army any further. Muddy roads had become nearly impassable because of a series of June rainstorms. Sherman knew that in these conditions, a march further away from his supply line at the railroad would be too slow. Instead, Sherman believed that Hood's expansion of the southern end of the Confederate line had stretched Johnston's army too thin. The Union general drew up plans for an attack on the middle of the Confederate defenses.

The battle:

The Union army began the attack early in the morning with a thunderous artillery barrage on the entrenched Rebels. This was followed up by an infantry attack in three parts: the Army of the Cumberland under the command of George Henry Thomas would lead the main attack on William J. Hardee's soldiers in the center; to Thomas' left, the Army of the Tennessee under the command of James B. McPherson would lead a secondary attack aimed at the slopes of Little Kennesaw Mountain; and to Thomas's right, the Army of the Ohio under the command of John Schofield would hold down Hood's corps at the southern end of the line. The fiercest fighting came at a bend near the center of the Confederate line, a place later known as the Dead Angle. Despite repeated attempts to overrun the Confederate defenses, the Union army could not dislodge Johnston's well "dug-in" army. Estimated casualties were 3,000 for the Union side, and 1,000 for the Confederates.

Aftermath:

Following the battle, both sides sat at a stalemate. By July 1, the roads had dried out enough for Sherman to continue his flanking movements. Johnston, with the advantage of lookouts on top of Kennesaw Mountain, observed Sherman's movements and again retreated before the Union army could go around him. The next major battle would be the Battle of Peachtree Creek.

Military historians have claimed that Sherman's attack was a needless waste of lives against a firmly entrenched opponent. Sherman, however, believed that his actions were justifiable, since they showed Johnston that he was not afraid to fight. Whatever the case, Kennesaw Mountain was one of the few victories for the Confederates during the Atlanta Campaign.

The site of the battleground is now part of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, where both Confederate deliberate trenches on top of the mountain and Union hasty rifle-pits are still easily identified by the casual inspection of any visitor.

Trivia:

The first commissioner of Major League Baseball, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, was named for Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia, but using a variant spelling. His father, a physician, fought on the Union side and reportedly nearly lost his leg in the battle. Author Ambrose Bierce also fought at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, where he was wounded in the head.

--

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, at 905 Kennesaw Mountain Drive between Marietta and Kennesaw, Georgia, preserves a Civil War battleground of the Atlanta Campaign, and also contains Kennesaw Mountain. The name Kennesaw is derived from the Cherokee Indian "Gah-nee-sah" meaning cemetery, or burial ground.

History:

The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, fought here between General William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union army and Joseph E. Johnston of the Confederate army, took place between June 18, 1864 and July 2, 1864. Sherman's army consisted of 100,000 men, 254 cannon and 35,000 horses, while Johnston's army had only 50,000 men and 187 cannons. Much of the battle took place not on Kennesaw Mountain itself, but on Little Kennesaw and the area to its south. 5,350 soldiers were killed during the battle.

Park:

Established as Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Site on February 8, 1917, it was transferred from the War Department on August 10, 1933, and redesignated a national battlefield park on June 26, 1935. As with all historic areas administered by the National Park Service, the park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.

The park is the site of some of the heaviest fighting of the Atlanta Campaign during the Civil War. There are three accessible battlefield areas at the park, characterized by earthworks, cannon emplacements and monuments to the groups that fought.

With the expansion of urban sprawl from nearby Atlanta, Georgia, concerns have been raised that the preserved areas of the park may be in danger from overuse and misuse.
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