150 Years Ago Today - The Battle of Atlanta

In my recent posts I have focused on the soldiers' stories, and rightly so, they after all put it all on the line whether in combat in camp or on the march. But, I think it is also important not to forget that soldiers were not the only ones affected by the war's course.

Civilians, too, felt the hard hand of war, especially Southerners who lived in the army's paths and or had family members fighting as soldiers.

One such civilian caught up in the waves of war was Sarah Huff, a young girl, who had fled with her family from nearby Marietta. Sarah remembered:

"It was on July 22, the day after we left home because the fighting was so near, that my younger brother John's keen ears caught the sound of distant fighting.

Before that fiery July sun had set, thousands of as brave men as ever joined battle, were numbered among the dead. And I saw thousands more brought into the city in ominous black-covered ambulances which made their slow, pain-laden way up Decatur Street to several improvised hospitals where Dr. Noe D'Alvigny and Dr. Logan, as well as many of Atlanta's most prominent ladies, waited to try to ease their suffering.

As the battle, raging to the east and southeast of us, grew more fierce, the line of ambulances creeping up Decatur street increased. The dismal-looking vehicles had their side curtains lifted to let in the air, for the heat was intense.

We could see from our viewpoint, in front of the old-time residence of Charles Shearer, Sr., the blood trickling down from the wounds of the poor helpless victims of one of the war's most terrible battles.

Men were clinging to sides of the hospital vans trying to fan away the terrible swarms of flies which hovered over the wounded. My young brother John went into action, as he usually did when he saw a chance to be helpful. Noticing that a fly brush had just fallen from the hands of a man on one of the ambulances, and had been crushed the heavy wheels, he grabbed the slit-paper fly brush that mother handed him, and leaping to the side of the slow-moving ambulance, became one of the most efficient fly-fanners in the procession. He was less than 12 years old."

Hood's desperate attacks continued that July 22, 1864 day that Sarah Huff remembered. Like at Peachtree Creek two days before, the Battle of Atlanta cost the Confederates dearly and added to their already growing lists of killed, wounded, and captured since Hood had assumed command. On July 22, the determined Confederate attacks proved damaging to Sherman's troops (about 4,000), but hurt the Southerners more (about 5,000).  Unfortunately for all, more was to come.