SavingTara

Tonight, August 31, 1864 the Confederate Army in Jonesboro under General Hardee is frantically digging entrenchments and positioning their lines to hold out against the mass of blue that will surely attack the next day. Make no mistake both sides know how many troops the other side has on the field.

General Sherman, headquartered at Renfroe plantation at 138 and 85 Hwy has heard from his scouts that prisoners report no more than 25,000 in Gray while captured Federals tell their Confederate captors that three corps numbering 60,000+ are converging on Jonesboros center. The only folks that are clueless as to the situation is Confederate Commanding General John Bell Hood in Atlanta and Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond Va. Believing the Federals are trying to slip into Atlanta from the south Hood orders half of the southern army in Jonesboro to march north up the rail line toward Atlanta. Now, Hardee’s Army in Jonesboro numbers less than 15,000.

It is said that as SD Lees men prepared to march north they each slipped out of line and left their extra ammunition behind with those filling the thin line that hoped to halt the coming assault.

On September 1,1864 Northern General Sherman orders Stanleys XIV Corp to move south down Jonesboro Road, Logan’s XV Corp to move east to assault the curved line around the Warren House and Blair’s XVII Corp to move east thru the area in a line stretching from the old Lee Street Elementary, south to College Street.

When the attack started at 4:00 PM, Confederate rifle and cannon fire cut down whole companies of men. But they continued to charge forward in a mass that a Texas soldier said was like a cattle stampede. The overwhelming numbers of Federals charging with bayonets allowed them to over run the yard around the Warren House and creating a hand to hand fight that one officer described as “dreadful”. As Absalom Baird led his men into the yard they were met with Confederate bayonets and one of his men yelled out, “surrender you damn Rebels” and the response was, “to hell you say”. Baird said men in blue and gray “squared off” using the bayonet drill they had both learned (from a book written before the war).

In the yard of the Warren House Kentucky citizens in Yankee blue met Kentucky citizens in Gray and they killed one another with anything they could find. Confederate General Govan was captured along with 600 of his men ONLY after the northern troops grabbed him and held him down. Nearby a Confederate officer was heard to scream, “never give up, never give up” as his Yankee counter part yelled, “follow me lads, Michigan forever”!

General Sherman, watching the battle from the west began, “dancing a jig” and shouting, “by God we’re rolling them up like a sheet of paper”.
But as the Union broke thru in the Warren House Yard, Carters southern troops were hurried from the far left of the line and they, “came running” to fill the gap. Meanwhile Cleburnes troops commanded by Hiram Granbury and General Lewis, “refused the line” swinging like a set of doors and firing into the path that the Yankees were charging thru. This re-established the line and the fight was halted by the darkness.

Haddees command withdrew south at night fall linking up with Hood at Lovejoy. The next morning September 2, 1864 the mayor and city council will surrender Atlanta to Sherman’s scouts.

Four more Medals of Honor will be awarded to Union soldiers in the fight around the Warren House (making a total of six). Hood will blame the loss of Atlanta on General Hardee and the (according to Hood) lack of fight in the Confederates at Jonesboro.

I’ll see y’all on the off ramp.

On this day, August 31, 1864, the citizens of Jonesboro (no more than 500) awoke to find 25,000 Union soldiers eating breakfast entrenched along a battle line west of Jonesboro on the high ground.

A mile to the east, in the town itself, 25,000 Confederates under General Hardee were preparing their attack. The plan was for Confederate General Cleburnes command on the left to attack the Federal right near the Flint River Road and turn their flank, while the Confederates under S. D. Lee attacked due west across what is now Hwy 19-41. Standing at the intersection of old Hwy 138 and 19-41 looking west,… Confederate Generals under S. D. Lee were Stevenson on the left of 138, Clayton on the far right near Valley Hill and Patton Anderson in the middle leading their men due west in a long line of death with fixed bayonets.

General Patton Anderson rode ahead of his men into the face of the Federal XV Corp under General John A. (Black Jack) Logan. Logan said he could hear Gen Anderson encouraging his men over the sound of the guns, adding…. “it was a shame he was my enemy, I was so proud of him”.
Anderson was shot in the face but survived to return to his command at the end of the war the following April.

The Federals under Kilpatrick were able to foil the attack by Cleburne and turn their cannons on the Confederate left and break their, “grand assault”…. But not before stubborn Confederates planted their battle flags in the 15th corps earthworks. Soldiers in gray, dying in the hot afternoon sun sought shade under the little cabin that stood across from what is now the Tara Garden Chapel. Many of them carved their names in the sill where they lay as a makeshift headstone.

To the south, Colonel Allen Candler,
former history teacher in Jonesboro lay wounded and waiting for help from the women (his former students) of the Camp plantation to come to his aid. Col Candler would lose his eye and his classroom to become Governor of Ga. in 1898. Hs said he considered himself lucky at the end of war to have, “one wife, one baby, one eye and one silver dollar”!

Nearby Candler lay the Catholic Chaplin, Father Bleimel, of the 10th Tenn. He was killed giving, “Last Rights” to Col Grace of Alabama. They were removed from the field that night and buried in what is now the old Jonesboro Courthouse front lawn. At that time it was the home of Catholic and Confederate Robert Kennedy Holiday, cousin to Margaret Mitchell.
Years later Father Bleimel and Col. Grace will be reinterred in the Confederate Cemetery and later moved to Alabama.

The Confederates, unable to drive the Federals out of Jonesboro retreated into town, placing themselves between the northern troops and the last remaining rail line into Atlanta. Their lines extending only as far south as North Avenue (old 138) and north to the Guy Warren House where the line turns right and crosses the track just below the present city police department headquarters.

The next day, September 1, 1864, Federal troops with a combined force of 75,000 will move west to east in a “grand assault” on the Confederate lines now drawn up in a fishhook. Union Gen Stanley’s IV Corp is moving south down Jonesboro road to meet the Confederates facing north. General Logan’s IV Corp will move due east in a frontal assault on the Confederates facing east while Blair’s XVII Corps cuts the rail lines from the College Street Crossing south. General Sherman will watch the battle from the high ground west of the town.

At the end of the days battle, September 1, 1864 the Union Army had lost less than 200 men while the Confederates had lost close to 4,000. Two Union soldiers were awarded Medals of Honor for their valor on the first day and four more will be awarded to soldiers in blue fighting in the Warren House yard on September 2, 1864.

Near the large center stone in the present day Patrick Cleburne Confederate Cemetery stands a small marker with the name Robert Henry Lindsey of the 4th Kentucky Infantry of the Confederate States. Lindsey was 22 years old when he was killed carrying the colors as part of Cleburnes assault on the Federal flank. He had been sited for his bravery carrying the colors at the battle of Chickamauga and now his bravery was once again on display at the front of the line, resulting in his untimely end.

The Kentucky soldiers in Cleburnes command referred to themselves as, “the Orphans” because their state remained in the Union (although there is a star for Kentucky in the Confederate flag) and so they were without a home,… unable to return to see family and friends while serving in the southern army. Statistically the Orphan Brigade had more casualties than men because they could not go home to recuperate and thus stayed to fight.

One the back side of Lindsey’s stone, the side facing the battle field the last line of text reads, “An orphan still”.

I’ll see y’all on the off ramp!

One Man’s Quest to Rebuild Tara, the Plantation from Gone with the Wind Historian Peter Bonner is rebuilding the sprawling movie set, which has been abandoned for 75 years. Let’s hope his vintage Confederate uniform doesn’t get dirty.