"The Dead Angle": The Confederate Perspective

One of the best things about studying Civil War history is reading the words of the men who fought the war themselves. Among those works, Private Sam Watkins memoir, "Company Aytch", is one of the finest written by any participant of the war. Watkins has provided generations of historians and students of the war a first hand account of the fighting in the West.

On June 27, 1864, the fiercest fighting at Kennesaw Mountain was actually just south of the mountain itself, on a hill just off of the Dallas Road. Today, that hill is known as Cheatham Hill, after Confederate General Benjamin Cheatham. This was the bloodiest spot on the battlefield that day, and it is a haunting place to this day. The fighting was worst at a place where the Confederate lines formed a slight angle, known afterwards as "The Dead Angle." This is where Union Colonel Dan McCook led his brigade uphill against entrenched Confederates. Among those Confederates was Sam Watkins.

I would equate the feeling at Cheatham Hill with the same feeling I get every time I visit the Mule Shoe at Spottsylvania, the fields of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, the Hornet's Nest at Shiloh, the Deep Railroad Cut at Second Manassas, and the Cornfield at Antietam. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I keep telling myself, "Something terrible happened here." While that is certainly the case at every Civil War battlefield, some sites just seem more haunting because of the especially fierce brutality of what occured there. At Cheatham Hill, Union soldiers were pinned down by Confederate fire for days after their charge. Men died out in the Georgia sun. Fire broke out among the brush, burning men alive. It was a thoroughly brutal and unforgiving place.

The fight at Cheatham Hill is for me the most intruiging aspect of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. It is one of the things we will look at on this blog as I write my book. This post, using the words of Sam Watkins, serves as a way of looking at the fighting there from the Confederate perspective.

Looking up toward the Deal Angle. The Confederate works were built just behind the crest of the hill. On the crest itself sits the Illinois monument, dedicated on June 27, 1914.

"DEAD ANGLE"

The First and Twenty-seventh Tennessee Regiments will ever remember the

battle of "Dead Angle," which was fought June 27th, on the Kennesaw line,

near Marietta, Georgia. It was one of the hottest and longest days of

the year, and one of the most desperate and determinedly resisted battles

fought during the whole war. Our regiment was stationed on an angle,

a little spur of the mountain, or rather promontory of a range of hills,

extending far out beyond the main line of battle, and was subject to the

enfilading fire of forty pieces of artillery of the Federal batteries.

It seemed fun for the guns of the whole Yankee army to play upon this

point. We would work hard every night to strengthen our breastworks,

and the very next day they would be torn down smooth with the ground

by solid shots and shells from the guns of the enemy. Even the little

trees and bushes which had been left for shade, were cut down as so much

stubble. For more than a week this constant firing had been kept up

against this salient point. In the meantime, the skirmishing in the

valley below resembled the sounds made by ten thousand wood-choppers.

 

Well, on the fatal morning of June 27th, the sun rose clear and cloudless,

the heavens seemed made of brass, and the earth of iron, and as the sun

began to mount toward the zenith, everything became quiet, and no sound

was heard save a peckerwood on a neighboring tree, tapping on its old

trunk, trying to find a worm for his dinner. We all knew it was but the

dead calm that precedes the storm. On the distant hills we could plainly

see officers dashing about hither and thither, and the Stars and Stripes

moving to and fro, and we knew the Federals were making preparations for

the mighty contest. We could hear but the rumbling sound of heavy guns,

and the distant tread of a marching army, as a faint roar of the coming

storm, which was soon to break the ominous silence with the sound of

conflict, such as was scarcely ever before heard on this earth. It

seemed that the archangel of Death stood and looked on with outstretched

wings, while all the earth was silent, when all at once a hundred guns

from the Federal line opened upon us, and for more than an hour they

poured their solid and chain shot, grape and shrapnel right upon this

salient point, defended by our regiment alone, when, all of a sudden,

our pickets jumped into our works and reported the Yankees advancing,

and almost at the same time a solid line of blue coats came up the hill.

I discharged my gun, and happening to look up, there was the beautiful

flag of the Stars and Stripes flaunting right in my face, and I heard

John Branch, of the Rock City Guards, commanded by Captain W. D. Kelly,

who were next Company H, say, "Look at that Yankee flag; shoot that

fellow; snatch that flag out of his hand!" My pen is unable to describe

the scene of carnage and death that ensued in the next two hours.

Column after column of Federal soldiers were crowded upon that line,

and by referring to the history of the war you will find they were massed

in column forty columns deep; in fact, the whole force of the Yankee army

was hurled against this point, but no sooner would a regiment mount our

works than they were shot down or surrendered, and soon we had every

"gopher hole" full of Yankee prisoners. Yet still the Yankees came.

It seemed impossible to check the onslaught, but every man was true

to his trust, and seemed to think that at that moment the whole

responsibility of the Confederate government was rested upon his

shoulders. Talk about other battles, victories, shouts, cheers, and

triumphs, but in comparison with this day's fight, all others dwarf

into insignificance. The sun beaming down on our uncovered heads, the

thermometer being one hundred and ten degrees in the shade, and a solid

line of blazing fire right from the muzzles of the Yankee guns being

poured right into our very faces, singeing our hair and clothes, the hot

blood of our dead and wounded spurting on us, the blinding smoke and

stifling atmosphere filling our eyes and mouths, and the awful concussion

causing the blood to gush out of our noses and ears, and above all,

the roar of battle, made it a perfect pandemonium. Afterward I heard a

soldier express himself by saying that he thought "Hell had broke loose

in Georgia, sure enough."

Remnants of earthworks built by Union soldiers who came close to the Dead Angle and stayed there because they were pinned down by Confederate guns

I have heard men say that if they ever killed a Yankee during the war

they were not aware of it. I am satisfied that on this memorable day,

every man in our regiment killed from one score to four score, yea,

five score men. I mean from twenty to one hundred each. All that was

necessary was to load and shoot. In fact, I will ever think that the

reason they did not capture our works was the impossibility of their

living men passing over the bodies of their dead. The ground was piled

up with one solid mass of dead and wounded Yankees. I learned afterwards

from the burying squad that in some places they were piled up like cord

wood, twelve deep.

The Illinois Monument

 

After they were time and time again beaten back, they at last were

enabled to fortify a line under the crest of the hill, only thirty yards

from us, and they immediately commenced to excavate the earth with the

purpose of blowing up our line.

The trenches where Watkins and his fellow Confederates fought

We remained here three days after the battle. In the meantime the woods

had taken fire, and during the nights and days of all that time continued

to burn, and at all times, every hour of day and night, you could hear

the shrieks and screams of the poor fellows who were left on the field,

and a stench, so sickening as to nauseate the whole of both armies,

arose from the decaying bodies of the dead left lying on the field.

We remained here three days after the battle. In the meantime the woods

had taken fire, and during the nights and days of all that time continued

to burn, and at all times, every hour of day and night, you could hear

the shrieks and screams of the poor fellows who were left on the field,

and a stench, so sickening as to nauseate the whole of both armies,

arose from the decaying bodies of the dead left lying on the field.

Looking from the point of view of the Confederates toward the field through which Federals had to advance

We remained here three days after the battle. In the meantime the woods

had taken fire, and during the nights and days of all that time continued

to burn, and at all times, every hour of day and night, you could hear

the shrieks and screams of the poor fellows who were left on the field,

and a stench, so sickening as to nauseate the whole of both armies,

arose from the decaying bodies of the dead left lying on the field.

Every member of the First and Twenty-seventh Tennessee Regiments deserves

a wreath of imperishable fame, and a warm place in the hearts of their

countrymen, for their gallant and heroic valor at the battle of Dead

Angle. No man distinguished himself above another. All did their duty,

and the glory of one is but the glory and just tribute of the others.

Confederate trenches

 

After we had abandoned the line, and on coming to a little stream of

water, I undressed for the purpose of bathing, and after undressing

found my arm all battered and bruised and bloodshot from my wrist to my

shoulder, and as sore as a blister. I had shot one hundred and twenty

times that day. My gun became so hot that frequently the powder would

flash before I could ram home the ball, and I had frequently to exchange

my gun for that of a dead comrade.

Colonel H. R. Field was loading and shooting the same as any private in

the ranks when he fell off the skid from which he was shooting right

over my shoulder, shot through the head. I laid him down in the trench,

and he said, "Well, they have got me at last, but I have killed fifteen

of them; time about is fair play, I reckon." But Colonel Field was

not killed--only wounded, and one side paralyzed. Captain Joe P. Lee,

Captain Mack Campbell, Lieutenant T. H. Maney, and other officers of the

regiment, threw rocks and beat them in their faces with sticks. The

Yankees did the same. The rocks came in upon us like a perfect hail

storm, and the Yankees seemed very obstinate, and in no hurry to get away

from our front, and we had to keep up the firing and shooting them down

in self-defense. They seemed to walk up and take death as coolly as if

they were automatic or wooden men, and our boys did not shoot for the fun

of the thing. It was, verily, a life and death grapple, and the least

flicker on our part, would have been sure death to all. We could not be

reinforced on account of our position, and we had to stand up to the rack,

fodder or no fodder. When the Yankees fell back, and the firing ceased,

I never saw so many broken down and exhausted men in my life. I was as

sick as a horse, and as wet with blood and sweat as I could be, and many

of our men were vomiting with excessive fatigue, over-exhaustion, and

sunstroke; our tongues were parched and cracked for water, and our faces

blackened with powder and smoke, and our dead and wounded were piled

indiscriminately in the trenches. There was not a single man in the

company who was not wounded, or had holes shot through his hat and

clothing. Captain Beasley was killed, and nearly all his company killed

and wounded. The Rock City Guards were almost piled in heaps and so was

our company. Captain Joe P. Lee was badly wounded. Poor Walter Hood and

Jim Brandon were lying there among us, while their spirits were in heaven;

also, William A. Hughes, my old mess-mate and friend, who had clerked

with me for S. F. & J. M. Mayes, and who had slept with me for lo! these

many years, and a boy who loved me more than any other person on earth

has ever done. I had just discharged the contents of my gun into the

bosoms of two men, one right behind the other, killing them both, and was

re-loading, when a Yankee rushed upon me, having me at a disadvantage,

and said, "You have killed my two brothers, and now I've got you."

Everything I had ever done rushed through my mind. I heard the roar,

and felt the flash of fire, and saw my more than friend, William

A. Hughes, grab the muzzle of the gun, receiving the whole contents in

his hand and arm, and mortally wounding him. Reader, he died for me.

In saving my life, he lost his own. When the infirmary corps carried him

off, all mutilated and bleeding he told them to give me "Florence Fleming"

(that was the name of his gun, which he had put on it in silver letters),

and to give me his blanket and clothing. He gave his life for me,

and everything that he had. It was the last time that I ever saw him,

but I know that away up yonder, beyond the clouds, blackness, tempest

and night, and away above the blue vault of heaven, where the stars keep

their ceaseless vigils, away up yonder in the golden city of the New

Jerusalem, where God and Jesus Christ, our Savior, ever reign, we will

sometime meet at the marriage supper of the Son of God, who gave His life

for the redemption of the whole world.

Grave of an uknown Union soldier near the Dead Angle, believed to be 21 year old Mark Carr, 34th Illinois

 

For several nights they made attacks upon our lines, but in every attempt,

they were driven back with great slaughter. They would ignite the tape

of bomb shells, and throw them over in our lines, but, if the shell did

not immediately explode, they were thrown back. They had a little shell

called _hand grenade_, but they would either stop short of us, or go

over our heads, and were harmless. General Joseph E. Johnston sent us a

couple of _chevaux-de-frise_. When they came, a detail of three men had

to roll them over the works. Those three men were heroes. Their names

were Edmund Brandon, T. C. Dornin, and Arnold Zellner. Although it was

a solemn occasion, every one of us was convulsed with laughter at the

ridiculous appearance and actions of the detail. Every one of them made

their wills and said their prayers truthfully and honestly, before they

undertook the task. I laugh now every time I think of the ridiculous

appearance of the detail, but to them it was no laughing matter. I

will say that they were men who feared not, nor faltered in their duty.

They were men, and today deserve the thanks of the people of the South.

That night about midnight, an alarm was given that the Yankees were

advancing. They would only have to run about twenty yards before they

would be in our works. We were ordered to "shoot." Every man was

hallooing at the top of his voice, "Shoot, shoot, tee, shoot, shootee."

On the alarm, both the Confederate and Federal lines opened, with both

small arms and artillery, and it seemed that the very heavens and earth

were in a grand conflagration, as they will be at the final judgment,

after the resurrection. I have since learned that this was a false alarm,

and that no attack had been meditated.

Previous to the day of attack, the soldiers had cut down all the trees in

our immediate front, throwing the tops down hill and sharpening the limbs

of the same, thus making, as we thought, an impenetrable abattis of vines

and limbs locked together; but nothing stopped or could stop the advance

of the Yankee line, but the hot shot and cold steel that we poured into

their faces from under our head-logs.

One of the most shameful and cowardly acts of Yankee treachery was

committed there that I ever remember to have seen. A wounded Yankee was

lying right outside of our works, and begging most piteously for water,

when a member of the railroad company (his name was Hog Johnson, and

the very man who stood videt with Theodore Sloan and I at the battle of

Missionary Ridge, and who killed the three Yankees, one night, from Fort

Horsley), got a canteen of water, and gave the dying Yankee a drink,

and as he started back, he was killed dead in his tracks by a treacherous

Yankee hid behind a tree. It matters not, for somewhere in God's Holy

Word, which cannot lie, He says that "He that giveth a cup of cold water

in my name, shall not lose his reward." And I have no doubt, reader,

in my own mind, that the poor fellow is reaping his reward in Emanuel's

land with the good and just. In every instance where we tried to assist

their wounded, our men were killed or wounded. A poor wounded and dying

boy, not more than sixteen years of age, asked permission to crawl over

our works, and when he had crawled to the top, and just as Blair Webster

and I reached up to help the poor fellow, he, the Yankee, was killed by

his own men. In fact, I have ever thought that is why the slaughter was

so great in our front, that nearly, if not as many, Yankees were killed

by their own men as by us. The brave ones, who tried to storm and carry

our works, were simply between two fires. It is a singular fanaticism,

and curious fact, that enters the mind of a soldier, that it is a grand

and glorious death to die on a victorious battlefield. One morning the

Sixth and Ninth Regiments came to our assistance--not to relieve us--

but only to assist us, and every member of our regiment--First and

Twenty-seventh--got as mad as a "wet hen." They felt almost insulted,

and I believe we would soon have been in a free fight, had they not been

ordered back. As soon as they came up every one of us began to say,

"Go back! go back! we can hold this place, and by the eternal God we

are not going to leave it." General Johnston came there to look at the

position, and told us that a transverse line was about one hundred yards

in our rear, and should they come on us too heavy to fall back to that

line, when almost every one of us said, "You go back and look at other

lines, this place is safe, and can never be taken." And then when they

had dug a tunnel under us to blow us up, we laughed, yea, even rejoiced,

at the fact of soon being blown sky high. Yet, not a single man was

willing to leave his post. When old Joe sent us the two chevaux-de-

frise, and kept on sending us water, and rations, and whisky, and

tobacco, and word to hold our line, we would invariably send word back to

rest easy, and that all is well at Dead Angle. I have ever thought that

is one reason why General Johnston fell back from this Kennesaw line,

and I will say today, in 1882, that while we appreciated his sympathies

and kindness toward us, yet we did not think hard of old Joe for having

so little confidence in us at that time. A perfect hail of minnie

balls was being continually poured into our head-logs the whole time we

remained here. The Yankees would hold up small looking-glasses, so that

our strength and breastworks could be seen in the reflection in the glass;

and they also had small mirrors on the butts of their guns, so arranged

that they could hight up the barrels of their guns by looking through

these glasses, while they themselves would not be exposed to our fire,

and they kept up this continual firing day and night, whether they could

see us or not. Sometimes a glancing shot from our head-logs would wound

some one.

But I cannot describe it as I would wish. I would be pleased to mention

the name of every soldier, not only of Company H alone, but every man in

the First and Twenty-seventh Tennessee Consolidated Regiments on this

occasion, but I cannot now remember their names, and will not mention

any one in particular, fearing to do injustice to some whom I might

inadvertently omit. Every man and every company did their duty. Company

G, commanded by Captain Mack Campbell, stood side by side with us on this

occasion, as they ever had during the whole war. But soldiers of the

First and Twenty-seventh Regiments, it is with a feeling of pride and

satisfaction to me, today, that I was associated with so many noble and

brave men, and who were subsequently complimented by Jeff Davis, then

President of the Confederate States of America, in person, who said,

"That every member of our regiment was fit to be a captain"--his very

words. I mention Captain W. C. Flournoy, of Company K, the Martin Guards;

Captain Ledbetter, of the Rutherford Rifles; Captains Kelly and Steele,

of the Rock City Guards, and Captain Adkisson, of the Williamson Grays,

and Captain Fulcher, and other names of brave and heroic men, some of

whom live today, but many have crossed the dark river and are "resting

under the shade of the trees" on the other shore, waiting and watching

for us, who are left to do justice to their memory and our cause, and

when we old Rebels have accomplished God's purpose on earth, we, too,

will be called to give an account of our battles, struggles, and triumphs.

Reader mine, I fear that I have wearied you with too long a description

of the battle of "Dead Angle," if so, please pardon me, as this is

but a sample of the others which will now follow each other in rapid

succession. And, furthermore, in stating the above facts, the half has

not been told, but it will give you a faint idea of the hard battles and

privations and hardships of the soldiers in that stormy epoch--who died,

grandly, gloriously, nobly; dyeing the soil of old mother earth, and

enriching the same with their crimson life's blood, while doing what?

Only trying to protect their homes and families, their property, their

constitution and their laws, that had been guaranteed to them as a

heritage forever by their forefathers. They died for the faith that

each state was a separate sovereign government, as laid down by the

Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of our fathers.*
 

*It should be noted that Sam Watkins's memoir portrays the war in the traditional Confederate interpretation of events, as seen in this final sentence. Namely, it was about states' rights, not slavery. I of course disagree with this, and just wanted to add this note to that effect.

 

 

Sam Watkins, "Company Aytch": A Confederate Memoir of the Civil War (1882, reprint, New York: Touchstone, 2003), 142-150.