New Hope Church, Georgia,

Paulding County, May 25–26, 1864;

Pickett’s Mill, Georgia,

Paulding County, May 27, 1864; and

Dallas, Georgia,

Paulding County, May 28, 1864

By Jay Luvaas

When US Major General William Tecumseh Sherman’s army crossed the Etowah River on May 23, the Atlanta campaign entered a new phase. Sherman’s purpose had been to turn or outflank CS General Joseph E. Johnston’s army by threatening the railroad in his rear. Sherman knew from a visit to the area twenty years earlier that Allatoona Pass was very strong. Instead of attacking Johnston there at the pass, where he was guarding the railroad, Sherman surprised the Confederates by leaving his railroad supply line and striking out cross-country south to Marietta via Dallas with more than 85,000 fighting men and twenty days’ supplies in his wagons. Sherman’s army group advanced in separate columns: US Major General James B. McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee in the west near Van Wert, US Major General George H. Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland in the center along the main road to Dallas, and US Major General John M. Schofield’s Army of the Ohio to the left rear.

US Major General Joseph Hooker’s XX Corps of the Army of the Cumberland took the lead. On May 25 his three divisions advanced on roughly parallel roads: US Major General Daniel Butterfield’s division on the left, US Brigadier General John W. Geary’s in the center, and US Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams’s on the right. Geary’s division encountered Confederate cavalry near Owen’s Mill on Pumpkinvine Creek. The lead brigade pushed ahead for three more miles and encountered Confederates who fought a delaying action for about a mile back to CS Lieutenant General John Bell Hood’s main line centering on New Hope Church. CS Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk’s Corps was not far away in the direction of Dallas. The total Confederate strength was about 70,000. Geary halted on a ridge in the woods, entrenched, and waited for Butterfield and Williams to arrive.

The terrain was crisscrossed by small ravines and covered by dense woods with considerable underbrush, and as Williams’s division advanced in three lines, the troops could scarcely see the main Confederate rifle pits. The massed Union formations were exposed to a continuous fire of canister and shrapnel. Hooker’s troops were repulsed at all points, although the leading line advanced to within twenty-five or thirty paces of the Confederate defenses before the Confederates forced them to fall back and entrench. The Confederates lost 350 men, while Hooker reported losses of 1,665.

US Major General Oliver O. Howard’s IV Corps moved into position on Hooker’s left during the dark, rainy night, prolonging the line beyond Brown’s Mill. The next morning the leading division of US Major General John M. Palmer’s XIV Corps arrived and entrenched on Hooker’s right. On May 26 Schofield’s army came up to extend Howard’s line to the left. To meet this threat, Hood moved CS Major General Thomas C. Hindman’s Division to the right of his line. For four days the fighting in the area near New Hope Church was incessant. Visibility was poor in the dense woods, and the lines were so close that the troops were constantly under fire. The Confederates had the advantage of position, being entrenched on higher ground. Sherman’s superior artillery and ability to maneuver were generally negated by the terrain. “We have been here now five days,” a Union general wrote his wife, “and have not advanced an inch. . . . On some points the troops sent to relieve us did not hold, and some of our dead lie there unburied. . . . It is a very tedious and worrying life.”

At first Sherman assumed that only Hood’s Corps was in his front. He ordered McPherson to move into Dallas, linkup with US Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis’s division of Palmer’s XIV Corps, and then advance toward New Hope Church to hit Hood’s left flank. On May 26 US Major General John A. Logan’s XV Corps moved south through Dallas on the Powder Springs Road and ran into CS Lieutenant General William J. Hardee’s Corps behind strong fieldworks that extended across the Powder Springs and Marietta Roads. McPherson’s men threw up a line of works during the night. The next day, May 27, Sherman ordered McPherson to close in toward Hooker. McPherson would then be able to move his army to the left around Johnston’s right flank and place it between the Confederates and the railroad.

On May 27 Howard led 14,000 Federals to the Union left to attack the Confederates on Hood’s right, initiating the battle of Pickett’s Mill. This was the bloodiest thus far in the campaign. After struggling through dense forests and deep ravines and over difficult ridges, US Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood’s division of Howard’s corps attacked the Confederate right flank at 4:30 p.m. However, CS Major General Patrick R. Cleburne’s Division had been detached from Hardee’s Corps and sent into position on Hood’s right, and had just extended the line to Pickett’s Mill. The next fifty minutes were terrible for US Brigadier General William B. Hazen’s brigade, which began the assault. Everything went wrong. US Colonel William H. Gibson’s brigade suffered heavier losses than Hazen’s and was unable to provide support. Hazen’s first line advanced a quarter mile across a ravine and was hit by CS Brigadier General Hiram B. Granbury’s heavy fire. Hazen’s men exhausted their ammunition supply, and CS Brigadier General Mark P. Lowrey’s Brigade edged into a position from which it attacked Hazen’s second line.

Several hundred yards to the east, US Colonel Benjamin F. Scribner’s brigade of US Brigadier General Richard W. Johnson’s division of the XIV Corps found its way blocked by CS Brigadier General John H. Kelly’s dismounted cavalry, sheltered behind rude breastworks. Scribner was not close enough to align with Hazen, so Lowrey’s Brigade was able to fire into Hazen’s left rear. The fighting lasted well into the night, but the Confederate flank held firm. The Union troops withdrew in the dark and entrenched on a ridge farther to the north. Wood’s division alone suffered about 1,400 casualties in what one Union officer described as “the crime at Pickett’s Mill.” The Union forces, Cleburne reported, “displayed a courage worthy of an honorable cause. . . . The piles of his dead on this front [were] pronounced by the officers . . . who have seen most service to be greater than they had ever seen before.” Cleburne lost about 450 men and the Federals about 1,600. The final battle in the area was at Dallas on May 28. Because of faulty communications, CS Major General William B. Bate’s Division, on the left of Hardee’s Corps, mistakenly stormed out of its trenches late in the afternoon to assault Mc- Pherson’s force in his front. “Fortunately,” Sherman noted, “our men had erected good breastworks, and gave the enemy a terrible and bloody repulse.” The Union troops held, and in about two hours Bate’s men fell back, leaving more than 300 dead on the field. Federal losses were about 380, and Confederate between 1,000 and 1,500. On June 1 all three Union armies slid a few miles to the left. By June 4 Union cavalry occupied Allatoona Pass. With the great railroad bridge over the Etowah rebuilt, Sherman could sidestep Johnston, link up with the railroad, and push on toward Marietta and the Chattahoochee.

The fighting along the Dallas–New Hope Church–Pickett’s Mill line represented a new phase in Civil War tactics, at least for the western armies. Although some units at Chickamauga and Chattanooga the previous fall had resorted to earthworks and log breastworks, not until the Atlanta campaign did both armies habitually entrench, and even then one side usually had to advance from its own lines to attack an enemy position. In the fighting around New Hope Church, however, both armies fought from behind breastworks in the near presence of the enemy and often under intense fire. According to Sherman, even the skirmishers “were in the habit of rolling logs together, or of making a lunette of rails, with dirt in front, to cover their bodies.” This was characteristic of a siege but a new experience for armies in the field.

At New Hope Church, Johnston either anticipated Sherman’s moves or reacted quickly enough to use the terrain and the defensive power of earthworks to offset Sherman’s advantage in numbers. He used the Confederate cavalry effectively not only to provide timely information but also as mobile firepower. Without CS General Wheeler’s dismounted troops to hold the right of the line at Pickett’s Mill, Sherman’s effort to turn Johnston’s right flank might well have succeeded. Eventually the fighting along the Dallas– New Hope Church–Pickett’s Mill line convinced Sherman that the best way out of the impasse was to discontinue his efforts to outflank Johnston. He decided instead to shift to the east around Johnston’s lines to the railroad, regain his line of communications, resupply his armies, and then advance upon Marietta and the Chattahoochee. The total losses for the three battles were Union, about 2,645, and Confederate, about 1,800–2,300.

Estimated casualties, New Hope Church: 665 US, 350 CS

Estimated casualties, Pickett’s Mill: 1,600 US, 450 CS

Estimated casualties, Dallas: 380 US, 1,000– 1,500 CS

Estimated casualties for New Hope Church, Pickett’s Mill, and Dallas: 2,645 US, 1,800– 2,300 CS