Peachtree Creek

On July 20, 1864, Confederate and Union forces clashed in Georgia at Peachtree Creek, an engagement that formed part of the broader Atlanta campaign during the Civil War. This confrontation marked the opening major offensive undertaken by Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood after he assumed leadership of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Hood directed his assault at the Union forces under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, who by that point stood poised at the edge of Atlanta. The bulk of the fighting fell to the Union Army of the Cumberland, led by Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas, pitted against two corps drawn from the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

Background

In early May, Sherman set his grand offensive against the Army of Tennessee into motion. Over the course of more than two months, his combined forces, made up of the Army of the Cumberland, the Army of the Tennessee, and the Army of the Ohio, clashed repeatedly with the Confederate Army of Tennessee, commanded at that time by General Joseph E. Johnston. The Confederates managed tactical victories at the Battle of New Hope Church, the Battle of Pickett's Mill, and the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, yet none of these successes could offset the sheer weight of Sherman's numbers. Bit by bit, the Union troops maneuvered around the Confederate flanks, forcing them to abandon every position they tried to defend. By July 8, Union soldiers had crossed the Chattahoochee River, removing the final significant natural obstacle standing between Sherman and Atlanta.

As Sherman's armies pressed forward, Johnston pulled his forces back over Peachtree Creek, situated just to the north of Atlanta, where he began devising plans to strike at a portion of the Army of the Cumberland during its crossing. Those plans never came to fruition, however, because on July 17 a telegram arrived from Confederate President Jefferson Davis stripping him of command. Dissatisfaction among Confederate leadership over what they saw as Johnston's excessive caution led to his removal in favor of Hood. Where Johnston had favored careful tactics aimed at preserving his troops, Hood was known instead for aggressive maneuvers and a willingness to expose himself to danger in combat, having already suffered two crippling wounds in the preceding year while leading assaults in person. Taking official command on July 18, Hood moved quickly to mount a counter-offensive.

Only on July 19 did Hood become aware that Sherman had divided his armies to press a rapid, multi-pronged assault. While Thomas directed the Army of the Cumberland straight toward Atlanta, Schofield's Army of the Ohio and McPherson's Army of the Tennessee, under Major General John M. Schofield and Major General James B. McPherson respectively, pushed several miles in the direction of Decatur to approach from the northeast. This maneuver hinted at Sherman's broader plan of severing Confederate supply routes through the destruction of rail lines to the east. Because Thomas needed to ford Peachtree Creek in several places, his men would be exposed both during the crossing itself and in the period right afterward, before defensive works could be built.

Hood's aim was to strike Thomas's forces while they remained caught in the act of crossing Peachtree Creek. At the same time, he dispatched the corps of Alexander P. Stewart and William J. Hardee to confront Schofield and McPherson. Through this arrangement, the Confederates could engage on something close to equal terms while catching their opponents off guard. Hood's broader intention was to push Thomas westward, widening the gap between his forces and those of Schofield and McPherson, a move that would have compelled Sherman to pull troops away from his advance on Atlanta.

Battle

On the morning of July 20, Union soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland pushed across Peachtree Creek and set about arranging themselves for defense. Major General John M. Palmer's XIV Corps anchored the right, while the center fell to Major General Joseph Hooker's XX Corps; Hooker had once led the Army of the Potomac before his defeat at Chancellorsville. On the far left stood only one division, that of John Newton, drawn from the IV Corps, since the remainder of that corps had marched off to bolster Schofield and McPherson east of Atlanta. Federal troops set to work digging in, but darkness and time ran short, leaving their earthworks unfinished when the Confederates struck.

This gap, the interval before Union fortifications were complete, gave Hood's army a narrow window to strike. He threw two of his three corps into the assault: Hardee's men would press the Union right, Stewart's corps would hit the left, and Cheatham's corps would hold watch over Union forces stationed east of Atlanta.

Hood had envisioned launching the assault at one o'clock, yet muddled orders and poor coordination with Hardee delayed things considerably. Hood wanted Hardee's right to stay linked with Cheatham, but Cheatham drifted eastward, prompting Hardee to shift in the same direction to keep the connection intact. Stewart, in turn, edged eastward to stay tied to Hardee. Only around three o'clock did this chain of lateral movement finally stop.

It was closer to four in the afternoon before the Confederate lines actually surged forward. Hardee's troops, attacking on the right, met stubborn resistance and gained little ground, absorbing heavy casualties in the process. Poor execution and a failure to scout the terrain beforehand doomed much of this effort.

Stewart's assault on the left fared better. He pushed back two Union brigades, and Confederate soldiers overran most of the 33rd New Jersey Infantry Regiment, seizing its flag along with a four-gun Union battery. Federal troops rallied, however, and after fierce fighting managed to halt the Confederate push. Artillery fire proved decisive in stopping the assault against Thomas's left flank.

As the fighting wore on, Hardee readied his reserve division, led by General Patrick Cleburne, hoping fresh troops could reignite the stalled attack and crack the Union defenses. But a pressing order from Hood intervened, calling off this plan and sending Cleburne instead to aid Cheatham, whose position was under Union pressure and required support.

Despite the pounding, Union lines held, bending but never giving way, and Confederate forces failed to achieve a breakthrough anywhere that day. The next day, July 21, Hood pulled his army back within Atlanta's fortifications. In total, the battle cost roughly 4,250 casualties, with about 1,750 falling on the Union side and no fewer than 2,500 among the Confederates.

Appraisal

A great many historians have taken the Confederacy to task over how this battle was planned and carried out, with Hood and Hardee drawing much of the blame. Johnston, despite conducting a defensive campaign up to that point, had already resolved to strike back at Peachtree Creek, and some credit him with devising the very strategy of hitting the Army of the Cumberland while it was still crossing the creek. His prolonged withdrawal following the fighting at Kennesaw Mountain makes sense in context, given that Sherman kept exploiting his larger numbers through repeated wide flanking maneuvers. Johnston had given up a great deal of territory, yet in doing so he managed to narrow Sherman's numerical edge from two to one down to eight to five.

The choice to replace him with the impetuous Hood, coming almost right before the engagement, is widely seen as a blunder. Hood himself, joined by several fellow generals, wired Davis asking that the order be withdrawn, warning him that swapping out the army's commander at such a moment would be "dangerous." Hood's overall concept had merit, considering that the opposing forces were split, but a combination of factors doomed the effort: his units failed to get into formation and position before the Union troops finished crossing the river, Hardee held back from committing his men completely, and Hood pressed on with the assault even after realizing his edge was gone, all of which led to a defeat that was both severe and, in hindsight, foreseeable.

Medals of Honor

Two officers and one enlisted man received the nation's highest military decoration for their conduct that day along Peach Tree Creek.

Douglas Hapeman, a lieutenant colonel serving with the 104th Illinois Infantry, earned his Medal of Honor for what officials described as extraordinary heroism on July 20, 1864. Facing a fierce assault, he kept his composure and steadied his troops, pulling together ranks that had broken apart and driving the attackers back.

Frank D. Baldwin, a first lieutenant commanding Company D of the 19th Michigan Infantry, distinguished himself that same day at Peachtree Creek. Braving heavy fire, he pushed forward past his own soldiers and alone crossed into enemy territory. There he seized two fully armed commissioned officers and hauled them back to Union lines, along with a captured guidon belonging to a Georgia regiment.

Denis Buckley, a private in Company G of the 136th New York Infantry, also received the honor for extraordinary heroism displayed on July 20, 1864. His citation credited him with capturing the flag of the 31st Mississippi, a Confederate unit, during the fighting at Peach Tree Creek.

Legacy

Modern development has swallowed up most of the original battlefield ground. Near what once served as the fighting's midpoint, Tanyard Creek Park now stands, holding a handful of memorial markers within its grounds. The name Peachtree Battle Avenue also serves as a nod to the engagement. These sites all sit in the western portion of Buckhead, a northern part of the city brought into its limits through annexation in 1952. A comedic play titled Peachtree Battle takes the affluent neighborhood's way of life as its subject.