Iowa regiment witnessed carnage, showed bravery at the Battle of Shiloh

As I write this, park rangers at Shiloh National Military Park are escorting visitors across and around the fields, ponds and lanes of the battlefield, relating the story of the two-day Civil War clash that produced 23,746 casualties.

Today is significant, for April 6 and 7 mark the 149th anniversary of the Tennessee battle that sobered Americans to the reality of the cost and anticipated length of the Civil War. It lasted three more brutal years.

Spring was in full bloom in April 1862. Young soldiers were off on a big adventure, or so they thought.

At the end of the fighting at Shiloh, the Confederacy lost Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston and the battle to Union forces under Gens. Ulysses Grant and William Sherman, who came close to a disastrous loss the first day.

I last was at the battlefield more than 10 years ago, when my brother and I walked 7 or 8 miles, from Indian mounds, to the Peach Orchard, the Hornet’s Nest, Bloody Pond, Shiloh Church and back to the picturesque cemetery overlooking the Tennessee River.

The divisions of Gens. Benjamin Prentiss and W.H.L. Wallace held the center of the Federal line, withstanding a 50-piece artillery onslaught and at least seven or eight attacks before having to surrender late on the afternoon of April 6.

As Confederate forces chipped away at Grant’s flanks, especially on the west, thousands of Union troops repelled attacks at Duncan Field, next to the Hornet’s Nest.

The 7th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment was among several from the Hawkeye State deployed along the Sunken Road, slowing the Confederate advance and enabling Union forces to organize reinforcements for a successful counterattack the following day.

“[The 7th] held its position, repelling a number of attacks, until late in the afternoon, when the brigade was ordered to fall back,” the National Park Service battle summary says. “In the retreat the regiment was subjected to a severe fire from both sides. It reformed in a new line of battle along a road leading to the [Pittsburg] Landing, and held that position during the night.”

“It was withdrawn from a threatened position in time to escape,” says Shiloh park ranger Charlie Spearman, who said the Hornet’s Nest was quickly being cut off by Confederates.

Some 383 were present for duty, including officers, musicians and teamsters, The 7th’s loss: 1 officer and 9 men killed; 17 men wounded; and 7 men missing.

Not so fortunate was the nearby 12th Iowa, which was ordered to hold. Of its 489 men, only 10 were not killed, wounded or captured – a staggering casualty count. Many died in prison, the Park Service says.

Historians and scholars in recent years have debated how critical the Hornet's Nest was to the battle's outcome.

The service of the 7th Iowa is being remembered by a mural and upcoming Civil War exhibit at the Iowa Gold Star Military Museum at Camp Dodge, north of Des Moines.

Local artist John W. Neal spent 400 hours producing the 23-foot by 10-foot mural (click image to enlarge) showing the 7th in action on the Sunken Road.

The museum will be placing five or six uniformed figures in front of the mural to complete the image of the stand, said museum historian Michael Musel.

The museum is at the headquarters of the Iowa National Guard and recalls the military service of Iowans since the Mexican-American War. More than 76,000 Iowans fought for the Federal armies during the Civil War.

“We sent our share of troops,” Musel told the Picket.

The National Park Service is holding battle anniversary hikes at Shiloh through Friday, with a living history to follow Saturday and Sunday. The weekend events are expected to be held, even if the federal government shuts down because of a budget impasse.

The 7th Iowa was commanded by Lt. Col. James C. Parrott. His boss was Col. James M. Tuttle (right), who commanded the 1st Brigade under Wallace.

Two of Tuttle's four regiments were compelled to surrender on April 6.

"The officers and men under my command behaved nobly and gallantly during the whole time,” Tuttle wrote.

The 7th went on to fight at Corinth, Resaca, Kennesaw Mountain and Bentonville, and took part in Sherman’s March to the Sea.

• Iowa Gold Star Museum | • Shiloh National Military Park
• Previous Picket post on the Hornet's Nest

Alabama's biggest re-enactment this weekend

The 17th annual reenactment of the Siege at Bridgeport will be held this weekend on the McCraw Farm. The event commemorates the historic struggle for the Alabama town that occurred in 1862 during the Civil War. • Article

Upcoming in Picket: Battle of Utoy Creek

You've probably read about the Atlanta, Peachtree Creek and Ezra Church battles. But how about Utoy Creek, which resulted from a Union grab for a railroad? Late next week, we'll explore the August 1864 battle and today's environs in Atlanta.

Momentum grows for park, re-enactment at site of Confederate cavalry win in Georgia

A rejuvenated group of citizens is helping a county southwest of Atlanta move ahead with plans for a historic site that will recognize a smashing Confederate cavalry victory during the Atlanta Campaign.

The Friends of Brown’s Mill Battlefield recently elected new officers and will aid work on the 105-acre site owned by Coweta County. It plans to continue mapping this northwest corner of the cavalry clash and begin clearing some areas for future trails and a meadow.

The county and the organization expect that phase 1 -- a trailhead, trails, interpretive signs, a small parking lot and a field -- will be ready for a re-enactment battle to mark July 30, 2014, the battle’s 150th anniversary.

“We need to take care of that battlefield,” said Carolyn Turner, president of the Friends of Brown’s Mill Battlefield, which is moving forward after relative inactivity in recent years.

Three camps of the Sons of Confederate Veterans are excited about the plans at Brown’s Mill Battlefield Historic Site and will assist, said Turner, a retired teacher.

The county eventually would like to build a visitors center and museum, when funding for those is available.

For now, it is working with a $300,000 federal grant administered by the Georgia Department of Transportation, said Coweta County comprehensive planner Sandra Parker. The county's match was $75,000.

The county wants to take advantage of the grant before it expires and recently authorized an 18-acre land swap with the Coweta County Water and Sewerage Authority, which may build a reservoir near the historic site.

In exchange for land for a reservoir spillway, the water authority will give the site land where a wartime cabin and federal artillery pieces likely stood, Parker said.

The Battle of Brown’s Mill on July 30, 1864, took place between Union cavalry under the command of Brig. Gen. Edward Moody McCook, and pursuing Confederate cavalry units under the command of Gen. Joseph Wheeler (top photo).

Union Gen. William Sherman had tasked McCook and Maj. Gen. Charles Stoneman with cutting vital railroads south of Atlanta so that he would not have to engage in a prolonged siege.

McCook failed to meet up with Stoneman and his 2,400 troopers left Lovejoy and headed north back toward the Chattahoochee River. Wheeler’s smaller force pursued him and ambushed the exhausted Union forces.

They clashed near Brown’s Mill, a few miles southwest of Newnan (photo below).

The county’s parcel is along Millard Farmer Road at the intersection of Old Corinth Road. It was the scene of much of the heaviest fighting.

The Confederates attacked south toward Union forces along Rickety Back Road (now Millard Farmer).

“Wheeler had his best day as a soldier,” says Charlie Crawford, president of the Georgia Battlefields Association. “This is where McCook lost control and was broken up.”

McCook’s forces fled and, eventually, more than 1,000 were taken prisoner. Wheeler freed about 500 Confederate prisoners and also seized supplies.

The fighting at Brown's Mill cost McCook about 100 killed and wounded, while Wheeler's casualties probably numbered less than 50, according to David Evans, author of “Sherman’s Horsemen.”

The Union cavalry failed to attain its goal, forcing Sherman to besiege Atlanta and use infantry at Jonesboro.

A passer-by would not know the battle occurred unless he or she spies a United Daughters of Confederacy marker placed on the northwest corner of the 105 acres more han a century ago. An auto salvage yard lies across Millard Farmer Road at the intersection with Old Corinth Road.

A 2004 master plan prepared for Coweta County said, “The Brown’s Mill Battlefield Historic Site will be the only Civil War park south of Atlanta as well as one of only two Civil War parks in the nation featuring a cavalry battle.”

A challenge, it said, would be attracting Civil War visitors south of Atlanta.

But the county believes it is on to something with its plans.

A master landscape plan includes trails, a memorial garden, a meadow for re-enactments and other activities, a pavilion, displays and extensive interpretive signs.

The friends group plans to do more extensive mapping of the county site, which has been heavily picked over by relic collectors.

Turner said individuals so far have raised about $3,000 to assist the effort. Another 60-acre site is available just northwest of the county’s park property, but it is too early to know whether the group can buy it.

The friends plan to launch a web page and expand its membership, Turner said.

“We want to do it right,” Turner said.

The battle covered a much larger area than the tract owned by the county.

The fighting comprised at least 1,000 acres, said Crawford, most of it east and south of the county site. There’s even more if you count the federal advance and retreat. The area is currently rural, with homes, a few businesses and timber forest.

Crawford is not thrilled with the water authority’s tentative plans to build a reservoir near the historic site.

Ellis Cadenhead, general manager of the Coweta County Water and Sewerage Authority, said he is not certain how much of the battlefield may lie under water if the reservoir, which will cover more than 300 acres, is built.

Plans call for it perhaps being built in 20-25 years, “if then,” he said.

There’s been no final decision and there are many required state and federal permits.

“To say the threat is imminent is not true,” said Crawford.

The authority bought the property in 2007 and 2010 and may build the reservoir for drought relief and flood runoff.

“We have excess water [now],” Cadenhead said. “You have to look after the next generation.”

The Atlanta Regional Commission recently released a new population estimate saying Coweta County’s population will double to 250,000 by 2040.

Crawford said at least part of the battlefield will lie under water.

But that may be better than residential development, he says.

“Once it is covered by houses you never get it back.”

Parker said the land swap, which requires state approval, will allow site visitors to see an area where George Cook’s home likely stood. Cook wrote a letter to a surgeon with the Federal army, asking for the return of his horses taken from his farm during the battle.

Soldier accounts indicate Union artillery was fired from that property, she said.

“The county and the [water authority] are willing to put together a win-win situation for the community by saving important (core) areas of the battlefield as well as prepare future water supply that the community will need,” she said.

In 2004, before the economy went south, the Georgia Battlefields Association nominated Brown’s Mill as an endangered site with the Civil War Trust because of development, which of course may return one day.

“You don’t want to be in the preservation business if you get depressed easily,” says Crawford (left).

The county purchased the 105 acres in 2001 for $450,000 under a state greenspace initiative, said Parker, a member of the friends group and a liaison between it and the county.

Most of the site will be south of a trail along Millard Farmer Road, she said.

The Georgia Battlefields Association is supporting the Friends of Brown’s Mill Battlefield and may provide donations for specific project.

“This is a positive step,” said Crawford. “Our goal is to help them exercise their potential.”

For more information on the Friends of Brown’s Mill Battlefield please call Carolyn Turner at 678-571-7718. Photo of the UDC monument courtesy of Charlie Crawford.

• See Battle of Brown's Mill on this page for study, landscape plan

Poppin' good time at Battle of Aiken

The Picket was unable to attend this year's Battle of Aiken re-enactment in South Carolina. But just for fun, here's a kettle corn video we shot in 2010. Enjoy!
• Article from the 2010 festivities
• And information if you are going this weekend

Here's one from the archives

I don't fancy myself as much of a photographer, but I do like this one from summer 2009 during the Battle of Atlanta at Nash Farm in Henry County, Ga. Tough these days to get to many such events, but I will try to get to at least one or two this year. To read more about the event, type in "Nash Farm" in the Search This Blog part of this page. Than return to top of the blog to find the articles, photos and videos. Enjoy!

Olustee kicks off Florida observances

The 35th re-enactment of the Battle Olustee, scheduled for Feb 18-20, headlines a full year of Sunshine State events to mark the Civil War sesquicentennial. • Article

Foundation objects to closing of exhibit

The National Park Service is reconsidering its plan to move a collection out of the Civil War Museum at Wilson's Creek National Battlefield in Missouri. • Article

Cannonballs found in Texas channel

Four cannonballs, possibly from the Civil War's Battle of Galveston, have been recovered from the muck during dredging of the Texas City Ship Channel in Galveston. • Article

There's an app for Battle of Franklin

Sam Billingsley has created the first free, downloadable app designed to give smart-phone users more information about the Battle of Franklin while they visit Tennessee city. • Article

Battle of Goldsborough Bridge this weekend

On December 17, 1862, Union troops reached the railroad near Everettsville, N.C., and began destroying the tracks toward Goldsborough Bridge. Clingman’s Confederate brigade delayed the advance but was unable to prevent the destruction of the bridge. The weekend event includes two re-enacted battles. • Details

Family donates bullet that killed soldier

The bullet that killed Theodrick "Tod" Carter at the Battle of Franklin (Tenn.) was handed down from one generation to the next like a family heirloom. That ended Thursday — the anniversary of Carter's death on Dec. 2, 1864 — after family members and supporters of the Carter House unveiled what they believe is the bullet that killed Carter. • Article

Update: Monteith Swamp battlefield survey

Monteith Swamp was a small but important engagement during the Union conquest of Savannah, Ga. The Picket wrote in August about a non-profit archaeological group winning a federal grant to document the forgotten battlefield, which mostly sits on private land.

Daniel Elliott of the LAMAR Institute was on site in November and has provided updates on his personal blog.

Using ground-penetrating radar and other technologies, LAMAR has located two portions of the December 1864 battlefield along the Chatham and Effingham county lines.

“One is in the northwest corner of Harrison’s Field and the other is further north in the swamp margin. Finds include grapeshot, bullets, a scabbard tip. Other finds may be related to the Civil War period, including cut lead, cut brass, many 19th century buttons, and various iron and brass hardware,” writes Elliott (above).

The search has also yielded a "fine specimen" of an earlier Union uniform button and fired brass percussion caps “that clued us into the battlefield landscape.”

“Since then we have been plugging along unearthing and mapping an assortment of battle and post-battle objects in Harrison’s Field,” writes Elliott.

Harrison's Field photo courtesy of Cindy Wallace

Grant will help preserve portion of Franklin

A state grant of $960,000 was awarded to help preserve part of the Franklin, Tenn., battleground upon which a strip mall currently exists. The money will help purchase the property so that preservationists can install a park. • Article

The non-violent Dunkers of Antietam

The Battle of Antietam brought the horrors war to Americans in a new, compelling way. The business of photography was still relatively young and the process of making images was, to say the least, laborious.

Still, a few enterprising souls accompanied the Union army in the East. A day or two after America's bloodiest day, Sept. 17, 1862, lensmen made the familiar photos that made civilians gasp. Among them are photos of bloated bodies of young men along Hagerstown Pike and other locations on the Maryland battlefield.

Arguably, the most recognized photo focuses on a pile of corpses near a little white church.

According to the National Park Service, "This historic structure began as a humble country house of worship constructed by local Dunker farmers in 1852. It was Mr. Samuel Mumma, owner of the nearby farm that bears his name, that donated land in 1851 for the Dunkers to build their church. During its early history the congregation consisted of about half a dozen-farm families from the local area."

During the Battle of Antietam, Dunker Church was the focal point of a number of Union attacks against the Confederate left flank. The heavily damaged church was repaired after the battle and saw service for many more decades, until a storm flattened it in 1921. A home was later built on the site, but it, too, eventually was gone, replaced by the restored church in the early 1960s. It incorporated materials from the church that existed at the time of the battle.

I sauntered into the plain building during a recent tour of Antietam. Dunker Church is about 150 yards from the vistors center.

The serenity matched the rest of the park, which sits on farm land that witnessed 23,000 casualties.

The Church of the Brethren's website provides details about the pious, anti-slavery and pacifist congregation at Sharpsburg.

"Typical of the derisive labeling experience of many religious groups, they were called Dunkers by outsiders because they fully immersed or “dunked” their baptismal candidates in nearby streams," according to the website. The faith has origins in Germany.

"The church was small and plain, just like the plain Dunker people who built it. No steeple adorned its entrance because the Dunkers considered them immodest or worldly," the Brethren say. "Services of worship convened each Sunday morning with men entering the door facing toward the Hagerstown Pike with women and children entering through another door in the south wall. This was in keeping with the trend of Brethren congregations whose meeting houses were usually segregated by gender."

On a rainy autumn day, I felt calm as I spent a few moments alone in the church. I thought about a question someone asked at the visitors center: How could Americans come to kill each other?

Georgia city plans to open Civil War site

A North Georgia city, the scene of a Confederate attack that tried to blunt the Union move on Atlanta, is purchasing battlefield land in the hopes of building a Civil War heritage and nature trail.

The City Council of Dallas, in Paulding County, last month approved the $900,000 purchase of 75 acres from a family. It is attempting to buy another 75 acres and merge this with 20 acres owned by the county to make a 170-acre visitors destination, particularly for those interested in the famous Orphan Brigade. (Click map to enlarge)

Mayor Boyd Austin said he would like the site to open by 2014, the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Dallas.

In May 1864, Union Gen. William T. Sherman moved on Dallas so that he could control routes to Marietta and Atlanta. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s attempt to stop these moves resulted in three major battles in Paulding County – New Hope Church (The Hell Hole), Pickett’s Mill and Dallas.

Students of history know that Sherman and Johnston jousted in northwest Georgia during the Atlanta Campaign.

On May 28, Lt. Gen William J. Hardee’s corps probed the Union defenses at Dallas, with fighting in two points.

The First Kentucky “Orphan Brigade”, in conjunction with Florida troops, attacked.

“They were decimated,” said Austin, citing casualties of around 50 percent.

“Confused by gunfire from a related cavalry action near the Villa Rica Road, a Kentucky unit on the Marietta Road prematurely launched a full-scale assault,” the late historian Philip Secrist wrote. “This unit, the famed Kentucky Orphan Brigade was so badly mauled by being caught in a crossfire that it was subsequently disbanded. Bates’ division became entangled with the enemy and had difficulty disengaging, requiring Hardee to commit additional units from his command to the rescue. The battle continued for the better part of the day along the entire Dallas line. Confederate casualties on May 28 are estimated to have exceeded 1,000 men. “

A road sign says the assault is a notable example of “heroism and disaster.”

After the battle, Sherman moved toward Allatoona, with Johnston following.

Austin would like to see entrenchments on the properties restored and protected. Interpretive signs would help tell the story of the battle and a nature trail would wend through the property.

The tract just purchased by the city connects with Sara Babb Park, which includes recreational facilities.

According to the Georgia Battlefields Association, about 50 yards of trenches are on the Paulding property (right). The purchased 75 acres “has the beginnings of trenches that extend onto Ray Mountain,” says association president Charlie Crawford.

The additional acreage Austin wants to buy has trenches the Union 9th Kentucky held, Crawford said.

“We have a lot of people coming to look for the Orphan Brigade,” says Austin.

Money from the city’s renewed special option local sales tax could go toward the creation of the historic site, the mayor said.

The city also is developing a Civil War Memorial Trailhead to connect downtown to the Silver Comet Trail, popular with bicyclists. A Sons of Confederate Veterans camp is planning to erect a statue at the small park.

Map and Paulding photo courtesy of Georgia Battlefields Association

Antietam, usually on my insufficient terms

America's bloodiest single day was on this day so many years ago. Sept. 17, 1862.

What was called a tactical draw turned out to be a significant strategic loss for the Confederacy at the Battle of Antietam.

I'm sure you've read 23,000 Americans were killed, wounded, captured or missing that day. It's the kind of trivia we throw around.

When I think of Antietam, I think of the beauty of the Maryland fields, the leaves turning color in autumn. The quaint Burnside Bridge. A nice walk along Sunken Road. The bucolic Dunker Church.

I haven't been to the site for years, and I'm always wistful when reading about it.

What I don't usually think about is the horror of that day. The mangled and missing limbs. The chaos and terror that filled the breasts of so many young soldiers. Opportunities lost. Lives snuffed out.

On this clear morning, I'm taking a moment to remember them.

Today in history: Battle of Cheat Mountain

Here's one I didn't know about. On Sept. 12, 1861, Robert E. Lee began his first offensive operations of the war, in western Virginia.

According to the American Battlefield Protection Program:

Lee went against Brig. Gen. Joseph Reynolds’s entrenchments on the summit of Cheat Mountain and in the Tygart Valley. The Confederate attacks were uncoordinated, however, and the Federal defense was so stubborn that Col. Albert Rust (leading the attacks) was convinced that he confronted an overwhelming force. He actually faced only about 300 determined Federals. Lee called off the attack and withdrew to Valley Head on September 17. In October, Lee renewed operations against Laurel Mountain with the troops of Floyd and Loring, but the operation was called off because of poor communication and lack of supplies.

Learn about role of horses, mules

Horses and mules were "the other soldiers" of the Civil War and tendered invaluable service as cavalry steeds or artillery haulers.

The public has an opportunity Saturday (Aug. 21) to learn more about their service during a two-hour driving tour at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.

Park volunteer Richard Manion will lead the free car caravan, which begins at 10 a.m., to various sites and monuments at the 1863 battlefield. It begins at the visitor center. Visitors are encouraged to wear sturdy shoes and bring a bottle of water.

"At the Battle of Chickamauga Van Pelt’s Battery suffered significant animal loss, more than fifty horses, five guns and many soldiers. Only one horse survived from this battery," the NPS says.

For more information, contact the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center at (706) 866-9241, the Lookout Mountain Battlefield Visitor Center at (423) 821-7786 or visit the park’s website at www.nps.gov/chch.

Monteith Swamp: Trying to save what's left of an 1864 battlefield near Savannah

Jerry Dotson remembers the dirt fortifications he crawled on when he was a child.

Those redoubts built 100 years earlier at Monteith Swamp were an unwelcome sight for 12,000 Federal soldiers only days away from securing Savannah.

To win the city, men of the 20th and 14th corps and the rest of Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s 65,ooo-strong blue mass had to bust through a line of craftily-planned defenses erected by Confederate Gen. William “Old Reliable” Hardee (below) and a group of 10,000 defenders.

A contingent of 300 North Carolinians were among the scant 800 Rebel troops deployed along one stretch on the Chatham County and Effingham County line in December 1864. They employed four guns in the redoubts near modern-day Monteith Road.

“It was here that Confederate soldiers, weary and outnumbered, tried unsuccessfully to stave off the inevitable,” writes historian Barry Sheehy, who lives in nearby Rincon.

The title of Sheehy’s 2005 article in the Georgia Historical Quarterly refers to the minor engagements at Monteith Swamp (click photo above to enlarge) and nearby Shaw’s Bridge as “Forgotten.”

The battles slipped into history, a small footnote in the March to the Sea. A Google search on the Battle of Monteith Swamp doesn’t turn up much, either.

Fortunately, the battle is about to bubble back up from the quagmire of oblivion.

The LAMAR Institute, a non-profit archaeological group, recently received a $40,000 grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program of the National Park Service to “conduct archeology fieldwork to identify and document the battlefield as well as foster public outreach.”

The ABPP’s mission is to "safeguard and preserve significant American battlefield lands for present and future generations as symbols of individual sacrifice and national heritage."

Sheehy and the LAMAR Institute are concerned about urban sprawl in this semirural area two miles from I-95 and just west of Savannah.

“The ultimate goal is to keep these [lands] preserved in public domain,” says LAMAR director Daniel Elliott (left).

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The NPS lists the Battle of Monteith Swamp as a “devastating loss” for the Confederacy.

Sheehy, Elliott and Dotson, who owns 90 acres containing much of the battlefield, including Harrison's Field (photo below) disagree.

They believe it was a successful, if momentary, “holding action.”

“I look at it as a brief victory for the South,” says Dotson, 65, a semiretired corporate pilot who has a home not far from the mostly-gone entrenchments

Elliott is waiting for the weather to get a little cooler and less buggy before he does the bulk of the survey, which he expects to submit to the NPS in late 2011. He will study about 500 acres and learn about the regiments that fought there.

Knee boots are essential wear for a foray into Monteith Swamp. Although alligator sightings are rare, the land is home to all kinds of snakes.

The Union troops that fought in the area recall the inhospitable terrain as a “morass.” Dropping to their bellies in the swamp water, even if to escape enemy fire, wasn’t appealing.

Still, they could taste victory and just needed to push through this line and a few other positions before grabbing the vital railroad linking Savannah and Charleston, S.C.

“The dominoes were falling when they left Atlanta,” says Elliott.

**********

In his 2005 article, Sheehy lays out the circumstances and details of the Battle of Monteith Swamp.

“The advance of enemy soldiers across the state ignited a frenzy of defensive preparations along the coast,” he writes. “The idea that an enemy might approach from the landward side had been considered so outrageous that the Confederate authorities had largely ignored the possibility.”

Gen. Hardee built a strong set of defensive lines west of downtown Savannah. Part of that included flooded land, small lakes and more swamp land.

Sheehy, who is writing a four-volume series on Savannah, slavery and the war, says land behind the modern Savannah Christian Preparatory School several miles away has magnificent surviving earthworks.

Confederate Col. Charles C. Jones dug in to slow Sherman and protect railroad tracks near “Harrison’s Place,” a plantation field at Monteith Swamp that has been cultivated since before the Civil War and is currently leased by Dotson to a hay farmer.

The 14th and 20th corps with about 30,000 men advanced on three roads -- Monteith Road, Middle Ground Road and Old Augusta Road. (Photo above is a view from Meinhard and Monteith roads)

Jones’ detachment of 300 at Monteith Swamp strengthened its defensive works, felled trees and built an abatis and trench lines for its flanks. The Rebels used a long line of swamp to its advantage against an overwhelming force.

On Dec.9, 1864, the entire 20th Corps (12,000 regulars) under Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. Williams (below) advanced down Monteith Road from Zion Church. Around noon they hit Confederate positions.

“They had the Confederates on the redoubts, right in their face,” Dotson tells the Civil War Picket.

“The sounds of fighting could be heard for miles, as units of the Twentieth Corps began to stack up like an accordion along the narrow road,” Sheehy writes.

A flanking movement became bogged down in marsh and reinforcements flooded in to assist the 61st Ohio, the 31st Wisconsin and the 82nd Ohio. The going was slow.

Eventually, a flanking attack on the Rebel right bought some high ground and sent the Confederates out of their entrenchments, across Monteith Road and to Harrison’s Place, where they fought some more.

By late afternoon, the defenders were gone, leaving knapsacks and camp equipment but taking their colors and four guns with them. The Confederates had about 14 killed and four captured in the six-hour battle. Union losses were two dead and six wounded.

Union forces got to the railroad the next day and rolled up the Confederate defenses on the western line. The loss of Fort McAllister soon after spelled the end for Savannah. Sherman had ships to bring in supplies and a “biscuit line” to feed his massive army, Sheehy says.

Hardee skillfully escaped with the remnants of his army into South Carolina.

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Subdivisions have been built in recent years near the Monteith battlefield. But the area still maintains a somewhat rural feel, with nearby churches like White Oak Baptist (right).

“It’s all doomed,” Sheehy says of remaining open land. The Georgia Battlefields Association lists Monteith Swamp as an endangered battlefield.

Sheehy believes Chatham County should buy and preserve the site, especially Harrison’s Place.

Dotson takes part in Georgia’s Conservation Use Value Assessment (CUVA) program. Landowners who donate an easement automatically qualify for the lowest property tax assessment.

He has turned down development offers and would like some government or group to buy Harrison’s field. The land currently is worth between $30,000 and $40,000 an acre.

“I would just hate to see any of my children develop that place,” says Dotson, who can trace the land back to his great-grandfather, Zachary. “It’s one of the last battlefields still intact.”

Over the years, Dotson has unearthed some treasures. A metal detector yielded what probably is a soldier’s ring. He has found hundreds of bullets, dozens of buttons, a buckle and a couple of artillery shells, including a Hotchkiss.

His grandfather and father passed down remnants of two swords and two rare rifles.

He doesn’t know how much longer the area will stay as it is.

“You can see the builders are starting back,” Dotson says.

Photos of battlefield and church courtesy of Cindy Wallace.