Dallas

On May 28, 1864, Union and Confederate forces clashed at Dallas, Georgia, in one chapter of the larger Atlanta campaign fought during the Civil War. Sherman's Union army and Johnston's Confederate forces had been locked in combat since May 25 across a front running northeast from Dallas toward Acworth, and their struggle would continue until June 3. What began as a reconnaissance by the Confederate divisions of Bate and Jackson unexpectedly escalated into a full-blown assault on the fortified position held by Logan's XV Corps. Confederate troops suffered heavy casualties before being repulsed. Historians sometimes group this fight together with the earlier Union setbacks at New Hope Church and Pickett's Mill, treating all three as facets of a single battle.

The chain of events started on May 23, when Sherman abandoned his rail supply line to attempt a broad sweeping maneuver meant to outflank Johnston's left. Johnston responded skillfully, repositioning his forces toward Dallas to counter the threat. Ten days of grueling, close-range combat followed, leaving the Union side with greater losses than the Confederates. Once the fighting around Dallas subsided, Sherman redirected his army toward the northeast in search of an opening around the right side of Johnston's dug-in lines. By June 1, Union forces had seized Allatoona Pass along the Western and Atlantic Railroad, a gain that allowed repair crews to extend the rail line to that point and raised hopes of resupplying Sherman's men by train. Two days later, on June 3, Union soldiers reached a position threatening Johnston's flank, prompting him to pull back from his defenses and establish a new line protecting Marietta.

Background

Grant, serving as general-in-chief of the Union Army, directed Sherman to push against Johnston's forces, dismantle them, and drive as deeply into enemy territory as possible while destroying their capacity to wage war. Under Sherman's overall command were pieces of three separate armies. Thomas headed the Army of the Cumberland, which contained Howard's IV Corps, Palmer's XIV Corps, Hooker's XX Corps, and cavalry divisions under McCook, Garrard, and Kilpatrick. McPherson's Army of the Tennessee brought together Logan's XV Corps and Dodge's Left Wing of the XVI Corps, though Blair's XVII Corps would not link up until June 8. Schofield led the Army of the Ohio, made up of his own XXIII Corps alongside Stoneman's cavalry division. In terms of manpower, the XIV Corps counted 22,000 troops, both the IV and XX Corps stood at 20,000 each, the XV Corps held 11,500, and the XVI and XVII Corps each had roughly 10,000.

On the Confederate side, Johnston's Army of Tennessee fielded two infantry corps under Hardee and Hood plus Wheeler's cavalry corps. Reinforcements soon arrived from the Army of Mississippi in the form of Polk's corps and Jackson's cavalry division. Within Hardee's corps served the divisions of Bate, Cheatham, Cleburne, and Walker. Hood's corps held the divisions of Hindman, Stevenson, and Stewart, while Polk commanded the divisions of Cantey, French, and Loring.

The campaign opened on May 7, 1864, when fighting broke out at Rocky Face Ridge; there, McPherson swung around Johnston's western flank while Thomas and Schofield pressed him from the front. Johnston pulled back, leading to combat at Resaca from May 13 through 16, right as Polk's corps started arriving on the field. A second flanking maneuver on the west forced yet another Confederate withdrawal. Near Adairsville, Johnston hoped to strike back at Sherman's scattered forces, but the plan collapsed when Union horsemen appeared from a direction nobody had anticipated. By May 19, Polk and Hood had convinced Johnston to fall back toward Allatoona Pass, and this retreat across the Etowah River was executed with considerable skill. When Schofield's corps moved through Cartersville and reached the river, they discovered only burned bridges and an absent enemy. At Allatoona Pass, where the Western and Atlantic Railroad cut through a narrow gorge, Johnston positioned his men in a formidable defensive line.

Sherman's goal now was to push Johnston's forces back across the Chattahoochee River, and his strategy involved swinging around the western flank through Dallas toward Marietta. He set May 23 as the date his troops needed to be ready for movement. Because this meant abandoning the rail line temporarily, the men loaded wagons with twenty days' worth of supplies and shipped their wounded and unfit soldiers rearward. McPherson's two corps, forming the right wing, received orders to march south from Kingston to Van Wert before turning east toward Dallas. Davis's division of the XIV Corps, already stationed near Rome, Georgia, joined this movement with McPherson. Meanwhile Thomas's three corps were told to head south via Euharlee and Stilesboro on their way to Dallas. Garrard's cavalry rode ahead scouting for McPherson, and McCook's troopers performed the same role for Thomas's center column. On the left, Schofield's wing marched from Cartersville toward the Etowah with Stoneman's cavalry leading the way, while Kilpatrick's horsemen remained north of the river to protect the rail line.

That morning, Ross, commanding one of Jackson's cavalry brigades, sent word that substantial Union columns were fording the Etowah at Milam's and Gillem's bridges. Johnston responded by leaving Hood's corps at Allatoona Pass while rushing Hardee and Polk southwest toward Dallas. Confederate troops marched throughout the day and well into the night, pausing only briefly before resuming their trek in darkness. By May 24, McPherson's forces had advanced to a spot roughly 8 miles (13 km) west of Dallas. Garrard's cav

Late May fighting

By dawn on May 25, Hardee's corps had settled into defensive ground east of Dallas, with Polk's corps taking up position along its right side. Some distance to the northeast, Hood's corps reached New Hope Church, where the men set to work digging rifle pits and raising breastworks. Hood arranged his forces with Stevenson's division on the right, Stewart's division holding the center and bolstered by a brigade borrowed from Stevenson, and Hindman's division anchoring the left. From their vantage point on Elsberry Mountain, Confederate lookouts spotted clouds of dust rising from the north. Meanwhile Hooker's XX Corps departed Burnt Hickory, pushing back Confederates who tried to torch a bridge over Pumpkinvine Creek before crossing it themselves. The column split at a fork, with Geary's division veering left and the divisions under Alpheus S. Williams and Daniel Butterfield heading right. Once Geary's men realized Hood's corps stood before them, the other two divisions were quickly summoned back to rejoin the left-hand route.

Convinced that only a small Confederate detachment blocked the XX Corps, Sherman called for an assault. By five in the afternoon Hooker had gathered all three divisions and set them marching forward, Williams on the right, Butterfield trailing somewhat on the left, and Geary held in reserve. Each division formed a column of brigades, stacking three brigades one behind another. After pushing a mile through thick woods and tangled brush, the 16,000 Union men collided with a ferocious wall of rifle fire from Stewart's 4,000 defenders, along with sixteen cannon adding their fire to the mix. Federal soldiers still standing dropped to the ground and returned fire where they lay. As Williams' lead brigade exhausted its ammunition, a second brigade stepped up to take its place at the front. When someone asked Stewart whether he required reinforcement, he answered simply that his own men would hold their ground. The fighting at New Hope Church stretched across three hours, and in the last of these a thunderstorm rolled in, its rain and thunder mingling with the sounds of combat. Hooker's losses came to 1,665 killed and wounded, and his soldiers took to calling the site the "Hell Hole." As darkness fell, Hooker's troops pulled back out of range. Stewart's casualties, by contrast, totaled only 300 to 400.

The following morning, May 26, Thomas moved Howard's IV Corps into position on Hooker's left flank. Davis' division advanced on the left side of McPherson's pair of corps. Among Palmer's remaining XIV Corps divisions, Absalom Baird's stayed behind at Burnt Hickory to protect Thomas' supply train, while Richard W. Johnson's was held back as a reserve force. That same morning McPherson took Dallas and pushed his men forward two miles until they made contact with Hardee's corps, positioning Davis on his left, Dodge's XVI Corps at the center, and Logan's XV Corps on the right. Garrard's cavalry kept watch over the surrounding country to the right, trading skirmishes with Jackson's horsemen. Schofield's XXIII Corps moved up behind the corps of Hooker and Howard, with the exception of Alvin Peterson Hovey's division, which stayed to guard the wagon trains. Sherman directed Schofield's corps toward Brown's saw mill on Little Pumpkinvine Creek, near Howard's left flank. After a march northeast through heavy timber to reach that flank, both the XXIII Corps and IV Corps wheeled to the right so as to face the Confederate lines directly. Throughout May 26 both armies dug in, and skirmishing continued without pause along the entire front.

Having failed to turn Johnston's left, Sherman now set his sights on the Confederate right, hoping also to stretch his own left until it linked back up with the railroad near Allatoona Pass. Aware that his numbers gave him room to maneuver, he knew he could hold his trenches with part of his army while sending another portion around the flank. On May 27 he directed Thomas to detach Thomas J. Wood's division from Howard's corps for this purpose, with support coming from Johnson's division of the XIV Corps and Nathaniel McLean's brigade from the XXIII Corps. Over on Sherman's left, McCook's cavalry tangled with Wheeler's horsem

Battlefield

Today the ground where the fighting took place is occupied by Paulding County High School. Along the campus's southern edge, the old Confederate trench lines can still be traced, a location noted by a Civil War Marker sign posted along Highway 61. As of mid-2023, 64 acres of this battlefield have been preserved through acquisition efforts led by the American Battlefield Trust together with its partners.

Aftermath

After the clash near Dallas on May 28, McPherson urged Sherman to hold off on the intended movement toward the left, and Sherman agreed, leaving May 29 given over to skirmishing across roughly ten miles of front. Sherman tried again to set the shift in motion that same night, but confusion gripped McPherson's men, who believed themselves under assault, and both armies spent the dark hours firing at enemies that existed only in their imaginations. Faced with this, Sherman pushed the movement back once more, this time to the night of May 31. In the meantime, Garrard's division traveled from the far right of the Union position to the far left, linking up with Stoneman's cavalry under orders to press toward Allatoona Pass. When the moment finally came, McPherson quietly withdrew his men from the Dallas vicinity and marched north to take up new Union positions there. By the morning of June 1 this relocation was well underway, and the Confederates facing his old lines never