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Assault on Kennesaw Mountain |
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Maj. General William Tecumseh Sherman
A cannon atop Kennesaw Mountain. |
The battle of Kennesaw mountain was a battle between two great
veterans of war; Union Maj. General William Tecumseh Sherman( lower right) and General
Joseph E. Johnston(left) of the confederates. William Tecumseh Sherman was born in
Lancaster, Ohio and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1840. William
was the General of the Military Division of the Mississippi which was made up of
around 100,000 soldiers. Joseph E. Johnston was born in Virginia and he graduated
from West Point in 1829. He was a veteran of the Mexican War . Johnston was the general
of the army of Tennessee which consisted of 60000 troops. Some say he was more capable
than Robert E. Lee.
On June 18, 1864 in Cobb county, Georgia. Johnston moved into some newly
constructed defensive works along the slopes of a ridge line anchored by Kennesaw
Mountain. Johnston realized how good that position was so he set up his defensive
troops there. Around the same time that Johnston was setting up, Sherman was planning
an attack on Johnston's lines that were supposedly too thin. He did this because
he wanted to penetrate Johnston's army once and for all so he could just march into
Atlanta. So on the 27th of June at 8:00 am, Sherman decided to attack with a barrage
of cannonball's to soften up the lines but all it did was warn the confederated troops.
Sherman planned fake attacks on the right and left flanks of General Johnston's army
but the real attack was on Kennesaw Mountain. The attack on the sides were major
disasters. Their feint to the left only lasted for fifteen minutes before the north
retreated. The north's right flank was up against very well entrenched confederated
soldiers which made it impossible for the north to get through. The southerner's
on the mountain used there elevation to pin down the Union and claim victory over
the Battle of Kennesaw. There was an estimated 4,000 men who died in that battle.
3, 000 of them were the Unions and less than 1,000 were from the Confederates side.
The south stayed there for another four days but needed to adjust to Sherman's sidestep
so they had to leave the impenetrable position in order to block Sherman's advance
into Atlanta.
In the same year as the
Battle of Kennesaw, the Prussian and Austrian forces occupied Schleswig-Holstein
and defeated the Danish Army. Also, the Paraguayan war was going on in South America.
Earlier, in 1863, Egypt's khedive Mohammed Said dies, and his successor was his cousin.
Also in 1863, Japan begins cotton textiles.
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