For several days after the Battle of Atlanta, there was a lull in
military activities around the city. Both sides were reorganizing.
Sherman selected Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard to command the army that
McPherson had led. On the Confederate side, Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee
replaced Cheatham as commander of the corps that had originally been
Hood’s.
By July 26, Sherman had decided upon his next maneuver. His goal was the
railroads south and west of Atlanta—the last links between that city and
the rest of the Confederacy—and to reach them he would swing Howard’s
Army of the Tennessee around from his extreme left to his extreme right.
The movement began that afternoon and by nightfall on the 27th, Howard’s
men were west of Atlanta. Early the following day the advance was
resumed. The only effective opposition came from a small body of
Confederate cavalry.
Hood was aware of Sherman’s new maneuver and determined to block it by
sending the corps of Lee and Stewart west along the road to the little
settlement of Lickskillet. By noon the opposing forces were in the area
of a meetinghouse known as Ezra Church, about 2½ miles west of Atlanta.
The Confederates had been ordered to attack and prevent the Northerners
from crossing the road, and Lee and Stewart sent their men forward in a
series of assaults against the XV Corps. The Federals had not had time
to entrench, but they had piled up barricades of logs and church
benches, and these afforded some protection.
“Our skirmishers, overpowered by numbers, were compelled to fall back to
the main line,” wrote a Union officer,
followed at an interval of but a few paces by dense columns of the
enemy, which, covered as they were by the undergrowth, advanced within
forty or fifty paces of our lines, when a terrific and destructive
fire was opened upon them, and was continued steadily until their
advance was checked, at the distance of some twenty to thirty paces.
Their lines were cut down, disordered, and driven back some distance,
when they rallied and again came boldly forward to the charge, but
under the murderous fire of our rifles were no more able to disorder
or discompose our lines than before. They gained a little ground
several times, only to lose it inch by inch, after the most terrible
fighting on both sides.... After a very short interval, which did not
amount to a cessation of the battle, new and largely augmented columns
of the enemy came pouring in upon us, with the same results, however,
as before, although their colors were planted within twenty paces.
For 4 or 5 hours the assaults continued, but the Confederates attacked
piecemeal—separate units rushing forward—rather than striking a unified
blow, and all their desperate courage was not enough to overcome this
handicap. The Southern army is estimated to have suffered about 5,000
casualties in this battle. Federal losses were reported at 600.
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[Illustration: {uncaptioned}]