Two Wars: An Autobiography of General Samuel G. French

17th. The now monotonous artillery awakened us this morning to reveille before we had made any parched – for coffee, the unfeeling hirelings of toute du monde! Last night all the troops on my left swung back and took a new line that placed me in command of a salient with an angle of about eighty-five degrees, liable to be enfiladed and taken in reverse.

18th. Early this morning both pickets and skirmishers on my left (Walker's Division) gave way and let the Federals in behind Cockrell's skirmishers, and thus the enemy gained possession of the Latimar House in my front. Ector's Brigade skirmishers also came in. The way being clear, the enemy soon advanced in line of battle, and with many guns enfiladed my line all day. This constant firing never ceased, but I could not induce them to come out and make an assault on my front with infantry, and ere night came my loss was 215 men. Capt. Guibor's Battery has lost more men (13) to-day than it did during the entire siege of Vicksburg. Men became in time so familiar with danger and death that, Gallio-like, they "care for none of those things." Toward evening I was ordered to withdraw from this line and occupy Kennesaw Mountain. This was done during the night.

19th. Early this morning the enemy followed us, and soon the skirmishing commenced, and by noon the artillery fire was severe. It ranged up the slope and over the mountain with great fury, and wounded Gen. Cockrell, and thirty-five of his men were hors du combat.

The position of our army to-day is: Hood is on our right covering Marietta or the northwest. From his left Polk's Corps (now Loring's) extends over both Big and Little Kennesaw Mountains, with the left on the road from Gilgal Church to Marietta. From this road Hardee extends the line nearly south, covering Marietta on the west. The left of my division was established on the Marietta road; thence it ran up the spur, or incline, of the mountain called Little or West Kennesaw, and thence to the top of the same; thence on up to the top of Big Kennesaw, where it connected with Gen. Walthall's troops. Featherston was on the right of Walthall and joined Gen. Hood. Walker, of Hardee's Corps, was on my left. Then in order. Bate, Cleburne, and Cheatham came.

Kennesaw Mountain is about four miles northwest of Marietta, It is over two and a half miles in length, and rises abruptly from the plain, solitary and alone, to the height of perhaps seven hundred feet. Its northwestern side is rocky and abrupt. On the northerly and southerly extremities it can be gained on horseback. Little Kennesaw, being bald and destitute of timber, affords a commanding view of all the surrounding country as far as the eye can reach, except where the view is hidden by the higher peak. The view from this elevation embraces Lost Mountain, Pine Mountain, and all the beautiful cultivated plain, dotted here and there with farmhouses, extending to the Allatoona Mountains, a spur of the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina.

20th. Busy this morning in establishing batteries to command the road, and others on the line extending up the mountain and on the top of Little Kennesaw. I changed the line of infantry lower down the side of the mountain fronting the enemy, so as to command the ascent down as far as possible. Lost ten horses and a few men killed and wounded to-day.

21st. I went to the top of the mountain this morning, and while there witnessed an artillery duel between the batteries on Hardee's lines and those of the enemy in front of it. Rather interesting to look down upon, and more exciting than a grand display of fireworks.

22d. The constant rains have ceased, the sky is clear, and the sun, so long hid, now shines out brightly. Skirmishing (I am tired of that word) on my line last night. I rode to the top of the mountain quite early, to where I had placed nine guns in position. During the night the enemy had moved a camp close to the base of the mountain. It was the headquarters of some general officers. Tent walls were raised, officers sitting around on camp stools, orderlies coming and going, wagons parked, soldiers idling about or resting in the shade of the trees, and from the cook fires arose the odors of breakfast, and all this at our very feet. It was tantalizing, that breakfast, not to be tolerated. So I directed the powder in a number of cartridges for the guns to be reduced, so as to drop the shells into the camp below us. I left them in their fancied security – for no doubt they believed that we could not place artillery on the height above them, and they were not visible to our infantry on the mountain side by reason of the timber. How comfortable they appeared, resting in the shade and smoking! At length the gunners, impatient of delay, were permitted to open fire on them. Thunder from the clear, blue sky could not have surprised them more. They sprang to their feet, and stood not on the order of their going, but left quickly, every man for himself, and soon "their tents were all silent, their banners alone," like Sennacherib's of old, and there was a deserted camp all this day.

The enemy appeared this morning to be moving permanently to our left, and the firing in the afternoon extended farther in that direction, Toward dark I opened fire on the enemy's batteries; also again at 11 P.M.

23d. Yesterday Gen. Cockrell had fourteen men wounded. During the night the enemy removed their tents, wagons, etc., from their abandoned encampment that was shelled yesterday, and the place looks desolate. At 10 A.M., when all was quiet on the mountain, the enemy commenced a rapid fire from guns put in position during the night, and concentrated it on our guns on the point of the mountain. Yesterday we had it all our own way; to-day they are repaying us, and the cannonade is "fast and furious." Last night there was fighting on our left, but so different are the reports received that I cannot get at the truth.

24th. There has been but little fighting during the day.

25th. The everlasting "pop," "pop" on the skirmish line is all that breaks the stillness of the morning. I went early to the left of my line, but could not ride in the rear of Hoskin's Battery on account of the trees and limbs felled by the shells. From the top of the mountain the vast panorama is ever changing. There are now large trains to the left of Lost Mountain and at Big Shanty, and the wagons are moving to and fro everywhere. Encampments of hospitals, quartermasters, commissaries, cavalry, and infantry whiten the plain here and there as far as the eye can reach. Look at our side of the long line of battle! It is narrow, poor, and quiet, save at the front where the men are, and contrasts, with here and there some spots of canvas amidst the green foliage, strangely with that of the enemy.

The usual extension is going on. Troops of the enemy are moving to the left, our left, to outflank us, and we lengthen out correspondingly; and now the blue smoke of the musket discloses the line by day trending away, far away south toward the Chattahoochee, and by night it is marked, at times, by the red glow of the artillery amidst the sparklike flashes of small arms that look in the distance like innumerable fireflies.

At 10 A.M. I opened fire on the enemy from the guns on Kennesaw. The enemy replied furiously, and for an hour the firing was incessant. I received an order to hold Ector's Brigade in reserve. In the afternoon there was considerable firing, and all the chests of one of my caissons were blown up by shell from the enemy, and by the explosion of a shell in one of the chests a gunner was killed. They have now about forty guns in front of me, and when they concentrate their fire on the mountain at any one point it is pretty severe, but, owing to our great height, nearly harmless. Thousands of their Parrott shells pass high over the mountain, and, exploding at a great elevation, the after part of the shell is arrested in its flight and, falling perpendicularly, comes down into camp, and they have injured our tents. Last night I heard a peculiar "thud" on my tent and a rattle of tin pans by the side of my cot, and this morning my negro boy cook put his head into my tent with the pans in his hands and said: "See here, master Sam, them 'fernal Yanks done shot my pans last night. What am I going to do 'bout it?" A rifle ball, coming over the mountain, had fallen from a great height and perforated the pans and penetrated deep into the earth.

26th. This is Sunday, and all is comparatively quiet on the lines up to this 4 P.M., except one artillery duel, but now cannon are heard on our extreme left.

27th. This morning there appeared great activity among the Federal staff officers and generals all along my front and up and down the lines. The better to observe what it portended I and my staff seated ourselves on the brow of the mountain, sheltered by a large rock that rested between our guns and those of the enemy, while my infantry line was farther in front, but low down the mountain sides.

Artillery-firing was common at all times on the line, but now it swelled in volume and extended down to the extreme left, and then from fifty guns burst out simultaneously in my front, while battery after battery, following on the right, disclosed a general attack on our entire line. Presently, and as if by magic, there sprang from the earth a host of men, and in one long, waving line of blue the infantry advanced and the battle of Kennesaw Mountain began.

I could see no infantry of the enemy on my immediate front, owing to the woods at the base of the mountain, and therefore directed the guns from their elevated position to enfilade the blue line advancing, on Walker's front, in full view. In a short time this flank fire down their line drove them back, and Walker was relieved from the attack.

We sat there perhaps an hour enjoying a bird's-eye view of one of the most magnificent sights ever allotted to man, to look down upon a hundred and fifty thousand men arrayed in the strife of battle below. 'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life, one glance at their array!

Better an hour on this mountain top
Than an age on a peaceful plain.

As the infantry closed in, the blue smoke of the musket marked out the line of battle, while over it rose in cumulilike clouds the white smoke of the artillery. So many were the guns concentrated to silence those three guns of ours on the mountain brow behind us, and so incessant was the roar of cannon and explosion of shells passing over our heads or crashing on the rocks around us, that naught else could be heard; and so, with a roar as constant as Niagara and as sharp as the crash of thunder with lightning yet in the eye, we sat in silence watching the changing scenes of this great panorama.

Through the rifts of smoke, or as it was wafted aside by the wind, we could see the assault made on Cheatham. There the struggle was hard, and there it lasted longest. From the fact that I had seen no infantry in my front, and heard no musketry near, I thought I was exempted from the general infantry attack. I was therefore surprised and awakened from my dream when a courier came to me, about 9 o'clock, and said that Gen. Cockrell wanted assistance, that his line had been attacked in force. Gen. Ector was at once directed to send two regiments to report to him. Soon after a second courier came and reported an assault made on the left of my line. I went immediately with the remainder of Ector's Brigade to Cockrell's assistance, but on reaching him I found the Federal assault had been repulsed. The assaulting column had struck Cockrell's works near the center, recoiled under the fire, swung around into a steep valley where, exposed to the fire of the Missourians in the front and right and of Sears's Mississippians on their left, it seemed to melt away, or sink to the earth, to rise no more.

The assault on my line repulsed, I returned to the mountain top. The intensity of the fire had slackened, and no movement of troops was visible, and, although the din of arms yet resounded far and near, the battle was virtually ended.

From prisoners, and from papers and diaries found in their possession, I learned that my line, from its position, had been selected for assault by Gen. McPherson, as that of Cheatham's and Cleburn's had by Gen. Thomas.

Gen. McPherson was a distinguished officer, and it would be a reflection on his judgment and skill as a general to infer that he did not, under the eye of his commander, with ample men and means, make what he deemed adequate preparations for its accomplishment; but owing to the ground and the determined resistance encountered, his men by intuitive perception, awakened by action, realized that the contest was hopeless, and, where persistence was only death, very properly abandoned the field.

Gen. Cheatham's loss was 195; mine (French's), 186; all other Confederate losses, 141. Being a total of 552. What the Federal loss was I do not know, but it was estimated at from five to eight thousand.

The following orders of Gen. Sherman will explain the attack clearly; and the telegrams the result of the battle.

    Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, }
    In the Field near Kennesaw Mountain, June 24, 1864. }

The army commanders will make full reconnoissances and preparations to attack the enemy in force on the 27th inst., at 8 A.M. precisely.

The commanding general will be on Signal Hill, and will have telegraphic communication with all the army commanders.

1. Maj. Gen. Thomas will assault the enemy at any front near his center, to be selected by himself, and will make any changes in his troops necessary, by night, so as not to attract the attention of the enemy.

2. Maj. Gen. McPherson will feign, by a movement of his cavalry and one division of his infantry, on his extreme left, approaching Marietta from the north, and using artillery freely, but will make his real attack at a point south and west of Kennesaw.

3. Maj. Gen. Schofield will feel to his extreme right and threaten that flank of the enemy, etc.

4. Each attacking column will endeavor to break a single point of the enemy's line and make a secure lodgment beyond, and be prepared for following it up toward Marietta and the railroad in case of success.

By order of Maj. Gen. W. T. Sherman.

    L. M. Dayton,
    Aid de Camp.
    Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, }
    In the Field, June 27, 1864, 11:45 A.M. }

Gen. Schofield: Neither McPherson nor Thomas has succeeded in breaking through, but each has made substantial progress at some cost. Push your operations on the flank and keep me advised.

    W. T. Sherman,
    Major General Commanding.
    Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, }
    In the Field near Kennesaw, June 27, 1864, 11:45 A.M. }

Gen. Thomas: McPherson's column marched near the top of the hill, through very tangled brush, but was repulsed. It is found impossible to deploy, but they hold their ground. I wish you to study well the positions, and if possible to break through the lines to do it. It is easier now than it will be hereafter. I hear Leggitt's guns well behind the mountain.

    W. T. Sherman, Major General Commanding.

As nothing decisive was obtained by Sherman's attack, the fire slackened, except on the skirmish line. After dark the enemy withdrew to their main trenches, the roar of guns died gradually away, and the morning of the 28th dawned on both armies in their former positions. The battle of Kennesaw, then, was a display of force and an attack on the entire length of our line by artillery and infantry, under cover of which two grand attacks were made by assaulting columns, the one on my line and the other on Cheatham's.

28th. After the battle of yesterday there is less activity in front, and the enemy move about in a subdued manner and less lordly style, and yet they resent defeat by a cannonade this afternoon.

29th. Everything is quiet this morning, and so continued till 5:30 P.M., when they opened on our guns on Kennesaw with a new battery to aid the previous ones. Perhaps they design attacking my line again. A great number of shells fell in camp, or rather they were fragments of shells bursting high over the mountain. At dusk cannonading burst out again.

30th. Rather quiet this morning. At 2:30 A.M. last night we were all aroused by a severe rattle of musketry on the left. We got up and saddled our horses, but after about twenty minutes the firing ceased and all was quiet till morning. It appears that this night attack was caused by a false alarm. This morning I rode to Marietta, it being the first time I have left my line. This afternoon I went to the batteries on the mountain with Gen. Mackell, and then again with Gen. Stevens. There has been but little firing to-day.

July 1. After lying down last night I was aroused by some shells passing overhead, and then again by some sharp musketry on my left. The awful lies found in the newspapers, manufactured by correspondents, lauding certain generals and magnifying their victories, should ruin them.

This afternoon the enemy turned fifty-two pieces of artillery on the three guns I have on the west brow of Little Kennesaw, and continued the fire until long after dark. Seldom in war have there been instances where so many guns have been trained on a single spot. But it was only in the darkness of the night that the magnificence of the scene was displayed – grand beyond imagination, beautiful beyond description. Kennesaw, usually invisible from a distance at night, now resembles Vesuvius in the beginning of an eruption. The innumerable curling rings of smoke from the incessant bursting of shells over the mountain top, added to the volumes belching forth from our guns, wreathed Kennesaw in a golden thunder-cloud in the still sky, from which came incessant flashes of iridescent light from shells, like bursting stars. The canopy of clouds rolling around the peak looked softer than the downy cotton, but ever changing in color. One moment they were as crimson as the evening clouds painted by the rays of the summer setting sun, and the next, brighter than if lit by the lightning's flash, or bursting meteors. However brilliant and varied and beautiful to the sight, it was not one of pure delight, because it was not a grand display in the clouds for amusement, and when it died away, when silence came, and night threw her dark mantle over the scene, there was no feeling of joy, only one of relief from the excitement of hope and fear ever incident to the wager of battle.