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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 these formidable earthworks. Help preserve these fragile resources by staying on the park's trails.
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." |