The Battle of Cassville (May 19, 1864) was a clash between the Union Army under Major General William T. Sherman and the Confederate Army of Tennessee led by General Joseph E. Johnston during the Atlanta campaign of the American Civil War. Johnston attempted to strike a fraction of Sherman's forces with two of his three infantry corps, but the plan miscarried when a Union force appeared from an unexpected direction. Later in the day, Johnston withdrew to a line of field works on a ridge to await attack. However, two of his corps commanders reported that their defenses were enfiladed by Federal artillery fire and that the position could not be held. That night, Johnston decided to withdraw his army south of the Etowah River to a new defense line.
After the Atlanta campaign began in early May, Sherman maneuvered Johnston out of the Dalton position in the Battle of Rocky Face Ridge. Johnston withdrew farther south after the Battle of Resaca and there was a clash at the Battle of Adairsville on May 17. Noting that Sherman allowed his forces to become spread out, Johnston concentrated the bulk of his army at Cassville. He successfully led Sherman to believe that the main Confederate forces were retreating to Kingston. May 19 found most of Johnston's army at Cassville, confronting only two of Sherman's six infantry corps. Johnston planned to hit the Federals from two sides, but two divisions of Union cavalry suddenly emerged in the rear of one Confederate corps, causing Johnston to fall back to a new position. When his new defenses proved untenable, Johnston abandoned the Cassville position.
At the start of May 1864, Sherman, the commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, assembled an army numbering 110,000 soldiers of which 99,000 were available for the campaign. The Union army's 254 field artillery pieces were either 12-pounder Napoleons, 10-pounder Parrott rifles, 20-pounder Parrott rifles, or 3-inch Ordnance rifles. The 25,000 non-combatants accompanying the army included railroad employees and repair crews, teamsters, medical staff, and Black camp servants. Sherman directed elements of three armies. The Army of the Cumberland directed by Major General George H. Thomas numbered 60,000 troops and 130 guns, the Army of the Tennessee led by Major General James B. McPherson mustered 25,000 soldiers and 96 guns, and the Army of the Ohio under Major General John Schofield numbered 14,000 men and 28 guns, according to Brigadier General Jacob Dolson Cox, one of Schofield's division commanders. Historian Mark M. Boatner III credited Thomas' army with 63,000, McPherson's army with 24,000, and Schofield's army with 13,500. According to Battles and Leaders, Sherman had 88,188 infantry, 4,460 artillery, and 6,149 cavalry, or an effective strength of 98,797 men on May 1.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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