Kennesaw Mountain

KENNESAW MOUNTAIN NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PARK GEORGIA master of defensive strategy, but with his his army, caused by the constant maneuver attack. General Hood accepted the com the season, may be purchased for $1. All smaller army he could not prevent the flank ing, contributed to his decision. Also, he mand, and with it, the implied condition. fees are deposited in the U.S. Treasury and ing movements which threatened his line of realized that his rail supply line through In July, Hood attacked Sherman in three partially offset appropriations made for oper supplies and communications. He had to hostile territory was vulnerable. And the major battles. In each of them, Sherman, ating the park. protect this line by withdrawing from one campaign had dragged on now for over a the victor, inflicted heavy losses on the Con KENNESAW MOUNTAIN position to another. month. If his part in the war's grand strat federates. In a fourth battle Sherman cut About Your Visit Hence, Johnston was trading space for egy was to be fulfilled, Sherman had to seek the last railroad into Atlanta, and the Con NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PARK time, hoping to find a chink in Sherman's a decisive action. federate army evacuated the city. Sherman Come first to the visitor center. Here, a armor, and defeat his opponent in detail. There was, of course, much to be gained entered Atlanta on September 2. museum, library service, and general infor Sherman, using only a part of his force to by a successful direct assault. Sherman knew The occupation of Atlanta opened the mation are available. You will appreciate pin the Confederates in position, flanked that once Johnston's army was defeated, the way for Sherman's devastating sweep across more fully the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain Scene of a major engagement of the Atlanta Campaign—Gen. William with the remaining force. Thus he repeat capture and destruction of Atlanta would be Tecumseh Sherman's great flanking movement that split the heart of Georgia to Savannah—"The March to the if you take the walking tours of Big Kenne edly forced Johnston to retire, hoping to easy. In spite of the risk, he prepared for saw and Cheatham Hill illustrated in this the Confederacy in two during the summer of 1864. Sea." strike the Southern army while it was in action. folder. motion and vulnerable. Although Sherman This was to be no partial engagement. The truce during the Battle of Kennesaw From the top of Big Kennesaw you have a found no such opportunity, his tactics pressed Artillery bombardments, feints, and flanking The Park Mountain. sweeping view of the battlefield, and a num Johnston deeper and deeper into Georgia, movements, with two simultaneous attacks From a sketch by In 1899 a group of Union soldiers ac ber of exhibits there depict the major troop Kennesaw, the bold and striking twin mountain, hammer in this great coordinated campaign and closer to Atlanta. in force on the Confederate center—these lay before us, with a high range of chestnut hills A. R. Waud, famous quired 60 acres at Cheatham Hill and in 1917 movements and actions. In the Cheatham to crush the Confederacy and end the war. Gradually Sherman pushed the Confed tactics based on numerical superiority and trending off to the northeast. ... To our right Civil War artist. donated it to the U.S. Government as a bat Hill area you will see well-preserved earth The Confederate army was entrenched at erates back to the vicinity of Marietta to a coupled with surprise, were calculated to was a smaller hill, called Pine Mountain, and tlefield site. Since then, it has grown from works typical of those used in the entire Dalton, Ga., 25 miles southeast of Chat position on and around Kennesaw Moun overwhelm, disorganize, and destroy John beyond it in the distance, Lost Mountain. a battlefield site of 60 acres to a battlefield Atlanta Campaign. tanooga, one-fifth the distance to Atlanta. tain. There, on June 5, Johnston entrenched ston's army. On each of these peaks the enemy had his signal park of 3,000 acres. The National Park Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the on a line 10 miles long between Lost, Pine, If you plan to visit in a group we suggest station, the summits were crowned with batteries, The frontal attacks on the Southern center Service has administered Kennesaw Moun Confederate forces at Dalton, prepared to and Brush Mountains. Sherman saw Ken you make advance arrangements with the and the spurs were alive with men busy in felling Sherman expected to be the decisive blows. tain National Battlefield Park since 1933. trees, digging pits, and preparing for the grand resist the expected advance of the Federals. nesaw, Pine, and Lost Mountains as a superintendent for special service. Gen. George H. Thomas' Army of the Cum The park includes the principal points of struggle impending. The scene was enchanting; On the 7th of May, Sherman with 100,000 triangle "... covering perfectly the town one part of the Confederate line could not be emy) . These obstacles, coupled with dogged berland was to make one assault at a point combat in the vicinity of Kennesaw Moun too beautiful to be disturbed by the harsh clamor troops moved against Johnston's 50,000 of Marietta, and the railroad back to the used to reinforce any other part of the line. resistance from Confederate infantrymen, in the Confederate center, a hill south of the tain. Many of the Federal and Confederate Administration of war; but the Chattahoochee lay beyond, and I Confederates. Chattahoochee." At 9 o'clock on the morning of June 27 whose rifles poured deadly fire into the ad Marietta-Dallas Road, defended by Gen. earthworks constructed during the battle are had to reach it. B. F. Cheatham. the Confederate defenders, alerted by the vancing Federals, stopped a breakthrough— Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield object of the furious attack. well preserved. Thus Sherman wrote of the natural barrier Campaign Strategy Gen. James B. McPherson's Army of the heaviest artillery fire they had experienced Park is administered by the National Park The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain By 11:30 a.m. the assault was over, and that arrested his progress toward Atlanta, the Tennessee was to assault the Confederate thus far, sprang for their weapons. All Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. A Sherman's troops were repulsed. goal of his summmer campaign in 1864. Sherman had to assume the offensive and No one knows exactly why Sherman de center at the south end of Little Kennesaw along the line the cannons pounded, and How To Reach the Park superintendent, whose address is Marietta, penetrate hostile territory. Superior forces, cided to risk this direct attack at Kennesaw Mountain. Both assaults were to be made at when they subsided the first blue line of On this battlefield Sherman failed to break Ga., is in immediate charge. The park is 2 miles north of Marietta, ample supplies, and a rail line for communi Mountain. No doubt unrest and fatigue in the same time, June 27, so that troops from Federal infantrymen began to move forward. the Confederate lines. Johnston's battlewise Events Leading to Atlanta Ga., and about 20 miles northwest of At cations favored the Federals. Sam Watkins of Company H, 1st Tennes troops halted the equally combat-tested Fed lanta. You may reach it by U.S. 41, follow Mission 66 But let us go back a year to the summer of Aware that he faced an opponent well see Regiment, defending Cheatham Hill, eral forces and demonstrated the awful ing Park Service signs to the visitor center 1863 and review the events that led Sherman schooled in military matters, Sherman care Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Courtesy Gen. Joseph Eggleston Johnston. Courtesy recalled that penalty exacted upon attackers when brave Mission 66 is a program designed to be located near the point where old U.S. 41 to this battle at Kennesaw Mountain, and fully tested the positions on which Johnston National Archives. National Archives. and experienced men fought from behind completed by 1966 which will assure the thence to Atlanta. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's offered battle. While he made assaults at ... all at once a hundred guns . opened trenches, barricades, and field fortifications. passes the northern tip of Big Kennesaw upon us, and for more than an hour they poured maximum protection of the scenic, scientific, capture of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, was both Resaca and New Hope, he did not Mountain. their solid and chain shot, grape and shrapnel Sherman lost 2,500 men and Johnston 800 wilderness, and historic resources of the the decisive action that gained for the North commit his entire force to an all-out attack. right upon this salient point, ... all of a sud in these attacks. Having learned that frontal In season (April to August) there is a National Park System in such ways and by complete control of the Mississippi River. Whenever reconnaissance or attacks demon den ... a solid line of blue coats came up the assaults would prove too costly, Sherman 50-cent fee for automobiles and motorcycles such means as will make them available for Late in November, Northern armies, based strated too much strength in the Southern hill. resumed the flanking tactics that had served to use the road from the visitor center to the the use and enjoyment of present and future principally at Nashville, had won control of positions, Sherman flanked or bypassed them, Column after column of Federal soldiers were him so well.

Load more