Existing comment:
This Illinois state monument stands in "The Dead Angle". From two signs:
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 distance 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 the 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. ...
Survivors from both sides named this area "The Dead Angle." Confederate Pvt Sam Watkins later wrote, "The ground was piled up with one solid mass of dead and wounded Yankees."
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 that 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 Confederate 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 entrenchments.
For the next six days, both sides exchanged sniper fire, expecting an attack at any moment. Only 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 at Sherman's Union army outflanked them again. A small stone arch, erected in 1914, marks the tunnel entrance. |