Ozaukee County's
War History
by Daniel E. McGinley

as extracted from THE PORT WASHINGTON STAR
October 24, 1896



The Ozaukee Rifles
Chapter 17

Finding that he could not reach Hood's remaining railroad from the east, Gen. Sherman determined to make an attempt to do so from the west side of the city. On July 26th, the Army of the Tennessee received marching orders, which were gladly welcomed by the boys on Bald Hill, as under the hot July sun the blood saturated ground was giving forth a very offensive odor. After dark that night the movement began at the left of the 16th corps; regiment after regiment, brigade after brigade, and division after division peeled away from their works, leaving dismounted cavalry to ěkeep up appearances,î and marched off in the rear of the other troops towards the right of the army. Our corps, the 17th, followed the 16th; but it was late at night when our turn came to move, and marching steadily during the remainder of the night and next day, reached the right of the army in the middle of the afternoon.

Finding the 16th corps in line on the right of the Army of the Cumberland and crossing Procter's creek our corps swung into line of battle on the right of the 16th, our division forming in a large clearing just north of a small frame chapel called Ezra Church, our lines extending north and south and facing east, we being directly on the opposite side of Atlanta from Bald Hill. A skirmish line was thrown forward and as soon as its regiments were all in line, the division advanced in the customary two lines of battle, in our brigade the Thirtieth Illinois and our regiment forming the first line, and the Twelfth Wisconsin and the Thirty-first Illinois the second. The survivors of the Twentieth Illinois had been nearly all captured in the battle of Atlanta.

It was nearly sunset when our advance began and as soon as our skirmishers reached the timber half a mile ahead they found the enemy, and the music of the skirmish firing soon became general and hot all along our front, while away to our left the cannon of the 16th corps boomed and thundered. We pressed the enemy back steadily for about an hour when we entered dense timber and halting at the western foot of a large hill, we received orders to sleep there on our arms. The minies were coming down the hillside and through our lines with splendid zips that denoted the nearness of the foe and the order to halt for the night was a most welcome one, as we did not relish the prospect of a fight in the dense darkness of those unknown woods.

It so happened that when the line halted, the center companies of our regiment found themselves in a set boggy place and while feeling around for a dry place to bed down, I heard a minie ěspatî into the body of a soldier in the adjoining company, adding another name to our long list of badly wounded. Eating a cold supper we sought positions in the rear of trees, logs and hammocks and were lulled to sleep by the crack! crack! of the skirmishersí rifles and the music of the minies that flew over and around us.

The morning of the eventful 28th day of July dawned fair and warm, and as soon as it was day we were up and preparing for the fray. At 7 A.M. the order to fall in was given and as the minies were coming down through the timber quite thickly, we went to work to throw up breastworks for protection. But as on the morning of the battle of Bald Hill, we did not have our works half built when the orders came to drop our entrenching tools and get into line, and in a few minutes after we were marching up the hill in line of battle, struggling through the thick undergrowth, tearing our clothes and spoiling our tempers.

Our skirmishers met with a stout resistance but pressed forward steadily and by 9 o'clock we had reached the summit of the hill and were sweeping down its clear eastern slope. Just before reaching the eastern base of the hill we again reached the timber, and were there halted by the side of a road that ran parallel with our lines. As appearances in front denoted an early attack of the rebels in force, we were ordered to throw up works as quickly as possible and to hold them at all hazards. To veterans who knew the value of good breastworks, those orders were enough to set every man at work, and the way shovels, axes, picks and mattocks flew in the hands of our sturdy Western men was a sight to see. In a little over an hour's time we had a very good line of works all along our front, but the boys were bound to make them as perfect as possible, and to do so worked steadily, the perspiration pouring off of them, until the battle began in deadly earnest.

During the morning the 15th corps, under its great commander, Gen. Logan, had reached the field and began to form upon our right, and like us to throw up works. But Logan did not get his men all into position before he was attacked, and very few of them had time to throw up more than a hasty barricade of logs and rails before the enemy was upon them. Failing to heed the severe lesson taught him at Peach Tree Creek and in the battle of Atlanta, Gen. Hood again tried one of his unfortunate sorties. Learning by the evening of the 27th that Sherman was moving the Army of the Tennessee to the right, in an attempt to reach the railroad leading south from Atlanta, Hood hurried our old opponents of the 21st and 22nd of July, Cheatham's corps, with two divisions from another corps, all under command of Gen. S. D. Lee, out on the Lickskillet and neighboring roads, with orders to outflank the Union line and to attack it while in motion before it could fortify. But Logan's movements had been much more rapid than Hood had figured on, and when Lee's troops came down the Lickskillet road they ran into the Union line, instead of passing beyond it, and there was nothing left for Lee to do but to make the assault from the front. The country thereabouts had a very rough surface, and like the battle field on the other side of the city, was largely covered with timber. In such a region troops cannot move rapidly and it took Lee's men so long to form that Logan had time to form and partially protect his lines before the battle opened.

Gradually the fire warmed up and a few minutes after 11 A.M., the rebel batteries opened with a storm of shot and shell, warning us of what was coming and doing but little damage. At about 11:30 Lee's splendid veterans advanced to the attack, and presently heavy volleys of musketry on our right made us drop our tools and seize our arms. The volleys were quickly answered by the genuine, well-known rebel yell, and soon the din thickened into a continuous roar of artillery and small arms and the butchery had commenced. The brave rebels advanced to the attack with their accustomed gallantry, their assault extending all along the front of the 15th corps and a part of ours, our boys meeting them everywhere without flinching or giving an inch, although greatly outnumbered.

The line of the 15th corps was crescent shaped, beginning at our right, which faced east, and extending around back to Ezra Church were the line faced south. We were not aware of this fact, and when we heard the firing extend so far to our rear, we thought the rebs had gotten around our flank and were attacking us from the rear as well as the front. The heart of many a boy was in his mouth for a few minutes, but when our division commander rode along the line and told us that we must hold it at any cost, there was a revulsion of feeling at once. The assaults extended just to the right of our brigade, but the thick woods hid everything from view that far away, and we saw nothing of the fight but the dense clouds of smoke that rolled away through the timber. But the roar of the conflict was tremendous; the earth trembled beneath us, and ever and anon the rebel yell was answered by ringing Union cheers, while we stood with loaded guns and fixed bayonets expecting every moment to see the grey lines burst out of the undergrowth in our front. The first assault was quickly repulsed, but the rebels immediately reformed and returned to the attack again and again, only to be driven back with terrible slaughter.

But this heavy continuous pounding was too much for a part of Logan's weak line, where it had not been given time to protect itself with works, and it was crumbling away before the heavy blows, when several regiments from the reserve line of our corps, among them was the Twelfth Wisconsin, were doublequicked to its assistance. The reinforcements were just in the nick of time, and the Twelfth rushed into the fight at once, taking the place of a regiment that had nearly faded away before the merciless fire, and fighting with such gallantry as to win the admiration of its commanders.

Six successive assaults were made by Lee's heroic veterans that afternoon; six times they were repulsed with great slaughter, and by 4 P.M., the battle had ended, the disheartened rebel troops refusing to return to the attack the seventh time. Lee then withdrew his bleeding divisions into the defenses of the city, and the battle of Ezra Church had been fought and won by the Army of the Tennessee, principally by the 15th corps. It was another in the string of victories won by the peerless volunteer general, ěBlack Jackî Logan.

The battle of Ezra Church was remarkable in more ways than one. In it the rebel army had suffered a loss of 6,000 men while the loss of the Union troops was but 600! A loss of six to one was enough to leave a depressing effect upon any troops, and it was no wonder that in view of the three crushing defeats met with in rapid succession, at the battles of Peach Tree Creek, of Atlanta and Ezra Church, that Cheatham's corps was greatly disheartened. A few days after the butchery of Ezra Church, a member of that corps was asked how many Johnies were left in Atlanta, and mournfully answered: ěOh, about enough for another killing!î

After the battle, the 15th corps swung around its right until like ours, its line faced east, and after extending our lines further to the right or south, by adding the reserve or supporting line to the first line, we pressed steadily forward a few yards at a time; and there was steady fighting, day and night, during the last days of July and the whole of August. When an advance was to be made, a strong force was sent out at night and built a new line of works just in the rear of the picket posts or rifle-pits, the pickets crawled forward and dug a new line of rifle-pits, and when daylight disclosed the movement we were strongly entrenched and the rebels were forced after stubbornly fighting, to take positions further to the rear.

On the night of the 2d of August the Army of the Ohio left its position on the left of Shermanís line, on the north side of the city, and passing our rear swung into line on the right of the Army of the Tennessee, the 14th Corps of the Army of the Cumberland was also shifted to our right, and our line was thus extended many miles south of Atlanta. The object was to get possession of the railroad leading to East Point, Ga., and there branching to the southeast and southwest, and which was Hood's only remaining channel for supplies, but Hood had men enough to extend his line southward as rapidly as Sherman did his, and was thus able to prevent a lodgment by our army on the railroad. But these movements brought on and kept up a constant struggle between the contending armies and the daily loss by either side was quite heavy. Our regiment lost on an average of one to two men a day, killed or wounded during August, but none of the Ozaukee Rifles were hit, although they fought as diligently and as bravely as any of their comrades. Some of the bouts with the enemy in our vicinity were quite exciting. One morning the rebels assaulted the rifle-pits in front of our regiment, in an attempt to force us back. The pit most exposed to the attack contained six men under Lieut. McCauley of our company, among whom were D. Mangin and ěStubî Watkins of the Rifles. The struggle was a desperate one, the lieutenant and two of the men in the pit being wounded, but they held it in spite of all the enemy could do.