Kolb's Farm

On June 22, 1864, Confederate forces clashed with Union troops at Kolb's Farm, where Lieutenant General John B. Hood led a corps against portions of two Union corps commanded by Major Generals Joseph Hooker and John Schofield. The engagement formed part of the Atlanta campaign, a broader struggle of the American Civil War pitting the Confederate Army of Tennessee, under General Joseph E. Johnston, against Union forces led by Major General William Tecumseh Sherman. Convinced that a chance existed to deal a blow to the Union troops positioned before him, Hood gave the order to attack. Yet the men under Hooker and Schofield held strong ground, and they threw back the Confederate assault, inflicting heavy casualties in the process.

Trouble emerged after Hooker submitted his account of the fighting, sparking a quarrel with Sherman rooted in an inflated assertion from Hooker and what was likely a misreading on Sherman's end. The two commanders had already harbored suspicion toward one another, and this episode only deepened the friction between them. Although the Union side claimed a tactical win at Kolb's Farm, Sherman's broader effort to swing around the Confederate left seemed to have stalled. With his hopes of outmaneuvering Johnston's army thwarted, Sherman turned instead to a direct assault five days later.

Battlefield condition

The terrain where the fighting once took place has largely been broken up and reshaped over time. Certain key elements survive nonetheless, among them the Kolb farm house and its family cemetery, Ward Creek, and the high ground where Federal troops from the XX and XXIII Corps turned back the Confederate attack. Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park now safeguards these surviving pieces of the site. Beyond the park's edges, however, housing developments have crowded in and swallowed up much of what remains of the original landscape, including the elevated ground from which Confederate forces launched their advance.

Aftermath

Johnston conceded that his army lost 1,000 men during the engagement. Williams counted 130 casualties in his ranks, and Hascall suffered nearly the same number. Geary described his own losses as "trifling." According to historian Albert E. Castel, Hood's assault cost his corps roughly 1,500 men killed, wounded, or missing, with two-thirds of that toll falling on Stevenson's division. Castel put total Union casualties at 250, including 86 in Knipe's brigade and 72 in Strickland's brigade. Among individual regiments, the 123rd New York suffered 48 casualties, and the 14th Kentucky counted 12 dead and 48 wounded. Castel judged the fight "more a one-sided slaughter than a battle." A National Park Service piece by Scott Wilbur repeated these same figures and noted that the Union troops involved numbered 14,000 against Hood's 11,000.

Sherman had told Schofield he would likely join him that day near Mrs. Kolb's house, yet he instead spent his hours with the corps commanded by Howard and Palmer. Around 5:30 in the afternoon he sent word to Hooker asking how things stood and where he was positioned. Sherman had caught the sound of distant artillery but assumed nothing serious was underway. That evening he went back to his headquarters at Big Shanty. Hooker answered at once, but the reply was strangely slow in arriving, reaching Sherman only at 9:30 that night. It read that two major assaults had been turned back, that confidence remained high, but that the far right flank was a source of worry, since three full Confederate corps stood opposite them.

Sherman could not fathom Hooker's concern for his right, given that Schofield's corps was meant to be covering it, nor could he understand how two significant attacks had escaped his notice. He fired back a message at the same hour, pointing out that Schofield had been ordered that morning onto the Powder Springs and Marietta road specifically to support Hooker's right, and insisting that Johnston possessed only three corps total, the bulk of which Sherman had personally observed massed on the Confederate right and center throughout the day. He questioned how three corps could possibly be facing Hooker.

He also wired Thomas, asking him to confirm that Schofield indeed held the right of Hooker's line. Thomas answered twice, assuring him the flank was secure and speculating that only a token Confederate force could be opposing McPherson. Eventually a dispatch arrived from Schofield stating that Hood's corps had struck both his own men and Hooker's at Kolb's Farm, and had been beaten back.

Sherman's memoirs, penned a decade later, describe him riding out to the right flank the next morning, June 23, to confer with Schofield and Hooker. When shown Hooker's earlier message, Schofield reacted with anger, insisting his troops occupied exactly the position they were supposed to hold. Sherman recalled rebuking Hooker for his claim about facing three corps.

Castel argued that this version of events in the memoirs reflected both a faulty memory and lingering ill will toward Hooker. Schofield himself later denied ever showing anger toward Hooker, suggesting instead that Sherman had simply misread what Hooker meant. Notably, in his midnight dispatch to Thomas, Hooker had actually praised Hascall for help in repelling Hood's attack. Schofield further stated he had no memory of any morning meeting with Sherman at all, speculating that the commanding general might have conferred with Hascall instead. Though the notion of three corps opposing Hooker was far-fetched, it held a grain of truth: while Hood's corps indeed faced Hooker and Schofield, part of Hardee's corps was engaging Butterfield's division nearby, and one Confederate cavalry brigade in the vic