Kennesaw Mt., June 27, 1864
Louis Prang's painting of Union troops assaulting Kennesaw Mt.
“The Soldier of Indiana In The War For The Union Vol. 2″; Author Catharine Merrill; Published Merrill and Company 1889.
page 719, account from unknown diary
June 27 - Newton’s and Davis’ divisions, and a brigade from each of Logan’s divisions, made an assault at two points south of Kennesaw. Logan’s troops scattered the Rebel skirmishers on Little Kennesaw, gained the first line of intrenchments, and captured some of the retreating Rebels as they endeavored to gain the gorge between the two peaks, but were stopped by shot and stones from a perpendicular cliff thirty feet high, and after a short and severe struggle, were compelled to hasten back. Newton and Davis charges up the mountain in the face of a powerfull battery, struggling through entanglements almost to the breastworks. Kimball’s brigade even gained the parapets, Kimball, with that cheerful courage which never deserted him, leading it to almost certain death, over troops already defeated and discouraged. All were cast back with terrible destruction. Sherman had hoped to force a way to the railroad below Marietta, and thus cut off the Rebel retreat. But the only result of the assault was the slaughter of a thousand brave men and the wounding of two thousand. Our Fortieth, which, under Colonel Blake, was at the head of Wagner’s Brigade, lost in thirty minutes, one hundred and six out of three hundred men. The loss of officers in Kimball’s command was in remarkable disproportion to that of enlisted men, being one to six. The dead were buried, the wounded were cared for, and no more assaults were made from our side.
