South of Atlanta, Federal troops crack Hardee's line at Jonesborough
Sherman needed one more railroad cut to force Atlanta's evacuation, the Macon and Western, and Jonesborough sat astride it. On August 31, 1864, Confederate troops under William J. Hardee attacked converging Union forces south of the city and were thrown back with heavy losses; though the full weight of five Union corps did not converge on Jonesborough until the second day, September 1. That evening Hood, still convinced Atlanta needed defending, ordered half of Hardee's force back north, leaving roughly 20,000 Confederates to hold a line facing nearly 20,000 Federals with more in reserve. It was the last major fight of the campaign for Atlanta.
Atlanta's fall two days later gave Lincoln the battlefield win his 1864 reelection campaign badly needed, reversing Northern war weariness that had Democrats openly courting a negotiated peace. Jonesborough rarely appears alongside Gettysburg or Vicksburg in popular memory, even though it opened the door to Atlanta's fall.
QWhy did a Confederate general's own soldiers go slack-faced when told to fix bayonets at Jonesborough?
Brigade commander Arthur Middleton Manigault noted that when his men were informed they would be attacking with bayonets fixed, as Hardee had specifically instructed his generals to remind them, the troops reacted with visible apathy rather than the fighting spirit officers expected. Weeks of marching, entrenching, and repeated bloody assaults during the Atlanta Campaign had worn the army down long before August 31 arrived. Manigault's observation stands out because it came from inside the ranks moments before the attack, not from a later report explaining failure. His men still went forward, but the exhaustion showing on their faces before a single shot was fired signaled the exhaustion that would cost Lee's corps dearly that day.
QHow did a premature order from General Lee turn part of the Confederate line into a one-sided slaughter?
Stephen D. Lee mistook the sound of Patrick Cleburne's skirmishers, who had gone into action roughly ten minutes after Hardee's artillery opened fire at 3 pm, for the actual signal to launch his corps' main assault. Acting on that mistaken cue, Lee sent his troops forward well ahead of schedule, and his first line crashed into Hazen's division after overrunning the Union picket lines, only to be stopped cold by concentrated rifle and artillery fire. The second line advanced right behind it and met the identical fate. Zachariah Deas' brigade broke and fled the field outright, a collapse rarely seen even in a campaign as grinding as this one.
QWhat did Confederate cavalry manage to seize from Kilpatrick's troopers before losing it right back?
During Mark Lowrey's division's running fight against Judson Kilpatrick's dismounted cavalry, the Confederates captured two Union guns and forced Kilpatrick's men to retreat across Anthony's Bridge, a rare tactical win in an otherwise disastrous day for Hardee's attackers. The advantage didn't last. Lowrey pressed the pursuit across the Flint River, but Giles A. Smith's division of the XVII Corps met the advance on the far bank, halted it, and recaptured both guns. The two artillery pieces changed hands twice within the span of a single running engagement along the riverbank.
