Utoy Creek was a Civil War engagement fought in Georgia, 1864. The outcome was inconclusive.
After failing to envelop Hood's left flank at Ezra Church, Sherman still wanted to extend his right flank to hit the railroad between East Point and Atlanta. He transferred John M. Schofield' s Army of the Ohio from his left to his right flank and sent him to the north bank of Utoy Creek. Although Schofield's troops were at Utoy Creek on August 2, they, along with the XIV Corps, Army of the Cumberland, did not cross until the 4th. Schofield's force began its movement to exploit this situation on the morning of the 5th, which was initially successful. Schofield then had to regroup his forces, which took the rest of the day. The delay allowed the Rebels to strengthen their defenses with abatis, which slowed the Union attack when it restarted on the morning of the 6th. The Federals were repulsed with heavy losses by Bate's Division and failed in an attempt to break the railroad. On the 7th, the Union troops moved toward the Confederate main line and entrenched. Here they remained until late August.
Fighting near Utoy Creek broke out on August 5, 1864, and continued for three days, ending August 7, as part of the larger Atlanta campaign of the Civil War. By this stage, Union forces under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman had managed to surround Atlanta, Georgia only partially, while General John Bell Hood's Confederate troops held the city against them. Sherman's plan by now centered on striking the railroads feeding into Atlanta, an effort meant to sever the supply lines sustaining his opponents. The clash at Utoy Creek marked the third occasion on which Confederate lines came under direct assault in the course of the campaign.
Sherman's attempt to swing around Hood's left had come up short at Ezra Church, yet he remained determined to push his right flank far enough to strike the rail line linking East Point with Atlanta. To accomplish this, he pulled Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield's XXIII Corps out of the Army of the Ohio's position on the left and shifted these troops over to the right, directing them toward the northern bank of Utoy Creek.
Schofield's men reached the creek on August 2, but neither his corps nor the accompanying XIV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland actually made the crossing until two days later. Once across, the Regular Brigade tried striking J. Patton Anderson's division, part of Stephen Dill Lee's Confederate corps, but the assault gained nothing. Confederate forces also pulled Armstrong's cavalry brigade off their horses and positioned them ahead of the Union line as part of a ruse, staging a false attack that managed to stall the combined progress of both federal corps.
Seeking to capitalize on this development, Schofield launched another push on the morning of August 5. Early gains forced him to pause and reorganize his troops, a process that consumed the remainder of that day. This pause gave Confederate defenders precious time to reinforce their position with an abatis, and the obstacle proved effective in blunting the renewed Union assault once it resumed on August 6.
That assault ended badly for the Federals, who suffered severe casualties at the hands of William B. Bate's division and could not punch through the main Confederate works to reach the railroad. The following day, Union forces advanced toward the Confederate main line while skirmishing continued, stretched their position further right, and dug in. Fighting flared again at Sandtown Road, near Campbellton by Adams Park, on August 10, and once more at East Point on August 18. Federal troops held their ground here, with their southernmost position reaching as far as Atlanta Christian College, until late August of 1864, when Sherman concluded that Schofield's offensive had stalled and turned his attention instead toward severing the Confederate supply and communication lines.
Two soldiers from the Union side earned recognition for their conduct that day. Samuel Grimshaw, a private serving with the XIV Army Corps, received the Congressional Medal of Honor for engaging a Confederate artillery battery positioned along the Sandtown, also called Cascade Road, during the assault launched on 6 August 1864. Another private, Benjamin Van Raalte, was put forward for the same honor after he retrieved the colors belonging to the 25th Michigan Infantry, part of Hascall's Division within the XXIII Army Corps. Those colors had fallen into Confederate hands when Armstrong's Cavalry Brigade, fighting on foot as infantry that day, managed to seize them.
On the Confederate side, Lieutenant General Steven D. Lee, commanding the corps, singled out Bate's Division for praise, with particular emphasis on the performance of Tyler's and Lewis's Brigades. These units had turned back a Union force that outnumbered them, and in doing so they took 200 prisoners along with three enemy battle flags.
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