Battle of Peachtree Creek: Featherston's Mississippi brigade led the charge, suffered massive casualties as other units got lost or were delayed in the confusion

Gen. Featherston, park at center of fighting (Picket), brigade is fourth arrow from left (Georgia Battlefields Association)

Whether he was called “Old Sweat” because he was a seasoned veteran or for his tendency to perspire, Confederate Brig. Gen. Winfield S. Featherston was cool under fire.

From commanding the 17^th Mississippi Infantry to a brigade, Featherston performed ably at First and Second Manassas, Ball’s Bluff, Fredericksburg, Vicksburg and during the Atlanta Campaign.

“I know of no negative comments or vices or disputes concerning Featherston throughout his Confederate military service,” says Civil War historian Robert D. Jenkins, executive director of the Blue and Gray Education Society. He authored a book about the Battle of Peachtree Creek, where Featherston figured prominently.

Before Saturday, I had never heard of the general. I came across his name while reading markers at Tanyard Creek Park in Atlanta, the center of the failed Confederate attack at Peachtree Creek, which occurred on July 20, 1864. The Atlanta Beltline, a 22-mile loop of trails, goes through the leafy park, which is situated in an upscale neighborhood in the Buckhead community.

The venue is popular with dog walkers, bicyclists and joggers. A creek, Tanyard Branch, runs north-south in what was the center of the Confederate assault on Union divisions waiting for them just below the east-west Peachtree Creek.

The Battle of Peachtree Creek saw Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood’s ill-fated debut as the head of the South’s Army of Tennessee. Hood had hoped to isolate and destroy Maj. Gen. George Thomas’ command before two other Federal armies could come to his help.

The men in gray began the assault mid-afternoon on July 20, 1864, and things got tough quickly. The hilly terrain and ravines made communication and coordination difficult. Confusion and late troop arrivals reigned.

Featherston’s Mississippi brigade, part of Loring’s division, led the charge over what is now called Collier Road and toward Peachtree Creek.

His troops broke through the Federal line near Collier Mill (Picket photo, above) and they fought against three times their number in hand-to-hand combat for some 20 minutes before having to retire, but continued to fight to contest possession of the ridge top until dark, Jenkins says.

His men stubbornly pressed assault at Peachtree Creek

“Featherston carried 1,230 men into Battle at Peach Tree Creek, and fought toe-to-toe with approximately 5,500 Federal soldiers of Ward’s division,” Jenkins wrote on The Atlanta Campaign History Discussion Group on Facebook after I submitted a query..

Marker at Tanyard Creek Park prominently mentions Featherston's role (Picket photo)

“(Featherston) would remark bitterly about the failure of the Tennessee division to his right and of Hardee’s corps for not supporting his breakthrough during that battle,” Jenkins, who lives in northwest Georgia, added.

The 43-year-old general’s regiments suffered the highest casualties at the battle of Peachtree Creek, and were among the highest casualties at Franklin, Tenn., later in 1864.

Charlie Crawford, president emeritus of the Georgia Battlefields Association, is an expert on the fighting at Peachtree Creek and other Atlanta Campaign sites. (The battle used to be called Peach Tree, not Peachtree.)

The lack of coordination and prompt movement doomed the assault, the historian says.

One of many battle markers in the Collier Road area (Picket photo)

Hood and others didn’t get the three missing brigades from Stewart’s Corps (one each from French’s, Walthall’s, and Loring’s divisions) into position in time. 

“Likewise, Maney’s division didn’t fight well, Cleburne’s division was held back to exploit the hoped-for breakthrough, and Bate’s division got lost in the swampy ground around Clear Creek.” Crawford says.

“Consequently, the participating brigades form Walthall’s and Loring’s divisions and the entirety of Walker’s division did almost all the fighting. In that sense, the Confederates were outnumbered, but it wasn’t by design.”

Three large markers (in background) detail the fighting (PIcket photo)

The end of the day saw a Union victory, just two days before the Battle of Atlanta. Confederates suffered about 2,500 casualties in just a few hours.

Of Featherson, Crawford says: “At least his brigade followed through on the attack when several others never got there.”

Why he was transferred to fight in Western Theater

Featherston, a native of Tennessee, saw military service early in life, fighting against Creek Indians. He moved to Mississippi, becoming a lawyer and served two terms in Congress before the Civil War.

After fighting well in Virginia and being wounded in combat, Featherston wrote a letter to Gen. Robert E. Lee in fall 1862 requesting that he and his brigade be reassigned to Mississippi for the defense of the Magnolia State, which was under pressure by Grant, says Jenkins.

1964 state of Georgia map put out to mark Civil War centennial (Picket photo)

“Lee responded by telling Featherston that he could transfer, but Lee could not afford the loss of his troops from his army,” he says.

“Some have mistakenly assumed that Lee was getting rid of Featherston, but in fact, Featherston simply wanted to go where he thought he could do the most good in the defense of his home state.

His brigade went onto additional fame in Virginia with another commander, but it was Featherston who started that brigade on its course of reliability and combat effectiveness, Jenkins argues.

George Barnard's photo of temporary graves at Peachtree Creek (Library of Congress)

Jenkins says Featherston was dubbed “Old Sweat“ because of his exposed forehead.

“He had an early receding hairline/baldness. His forehead would wrinkle, and he would sweat easily when under stress or in hot weather.”

(Some Featherston histories spell the moniker “Old Swet.”)

Featherston’s brigade was one of only seven that was in good enough fighting condition to be used as part of a rear-guard defense during their retreat following the Confederate disaster at Nashville, Jenkins says.

After the war, Featherston returned to Holly Springs, Ms., and resumed his law practice. He died in 1891 at age 70.

READ MORE ABOUT PEACHTREE CREEK:

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2021/07/three-men-clashed-at-peachtree-creek-on.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-atlanta-campaign-threw-thousands-of.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2014/05/peachtree-creek-2-charlie-crawfords.html

For whom the bell tolls: Pvt. John C. Pollitz lies beneath the Long Island church he dearly loved. His headstone and a bell he bought are reminders of sacrifice

Gravestone in crawlspace in 2018 (Trinity Episcopal Church); Pvt. John C. Pollitz after enlistment 

The memory of John Codman Pollitz -- a young private who died of disease in 1863 while serving with the 44th Massachusetts in North Carolina --  lives on at a Long Island, N.Y., church where his remains lie beneath the floor and his gravestone rests above.

For several years, the soldier’s headstone and a bell he purchased for Trinity Episcopal Church in Roslyn have greeted visitors entering the building.

Officials had hoped to place the stone in a cabinet or display on the wall, but its weight proved problematic..

“The headstone and bell are still in the same place and there are no plans to change this,” church property manager and Mike Callahan said this week when asked by the Picket for plans for a permanent location for the items.

I have been a bit fascinated with the story of Pollitz, the son of a German immigrant, since the first of three articles I wrote following the 2018 discovery of his headstone in the rear section of the elegant sanctuary.

New to me this week was discovery of a document indicating he applied to attend West Point before the war broke out and an 1862 photo of Pollitz, taken shortly after his enlistment. I credit ancestry.com and the American Civil War Research Database for the latter.

The church had long known Pollitz’s grave was incorporated within the current building during construction in 1906. There was no recorded specific location for the grave. That changed in summer 2018, when rotting wooden floor joists were removed and Pollitz’ headstone was exposed; it was lying flat in a crawlspace.

“My assumption was that the headstone was too high standing up for the crawlspace. I believe they simply laid it down on that same spot” during construction, Callahan said a few years ago.

While Pollitz -- who was a member of the church -- remains buried beneath the floor, the congregation had wanted his headstone to be displayed inside. The stone is propped in front of a bell, which likewise has a good story.

According to a 1914 New York Times article, a dying Pollitz asked comrades to ensure his body was sent to Roslyn, where it was to lie in the shadow of the belfry. “With his army pay he had bought a bell as a gift to the parish, and its arrival and his death were so close together that it was tolled for the first time at his funeral,” the article said.

The bell rests on a stand inside the church, an affixed plaque indicating the soldier’s grave lies beneath the church (Photo courtesy Trinity Episcopal Church). Another plaque on the floor calls Pollitz a "son and hero of this parish."

Fever stalked Federal troops in North Carolina

It’s believed that the young Pollitz was living in Boston and 18 when he joined up with the 44th Massachusetts, ostensibly in the summer or fall of 1862.

The regiment, which took part in skirmishes and sieges across North Carolina before it was mustered out in June 1863, was in New Bern for several months before transfer to Plymouth, N.C.

A history of the regiment detailed disease and illness that stalked the troops during campaigning and at their quarters. Pollitz, who served in Company F, died on Jan. 7, 1863, in New Bern. 

According to the “Record of the Service of the Fourth-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in North Carolina, August 1862 to May 1863,” Pollitz and 13 other soldiers in the regiment died from cerebrospinal meningitis. A pension record I found online this week (below) mentions malarial typhoid fever.

The volume provides the following information for late 1862 and the first days of 1863 in New Bern.

“December 25, the first case of a new and alarming disease occurred in our regiment, proving fatal in a few days. The epidemic, which followed and extended to other regiments, was entirely outside the experience of any of the surgeons in the department. The fever was at first regarded as a virulent type of malarial disease. The autopsy in the case of Henry G. Kimball, of Andover, Company G, who died Jan. 1, 1863, made by the assistant-surgeon, showed the presence of inflammation in the membranes of the brain and spinal cord. The disease was afterwards recognized as cerebro-spinal meningitis, which is identical with the disease once known as spotted fever, occurring as an epidemic in Massachusetts between the years 1807 and 1816. The next death was that of John C. Pollitz, Boston, Company F, on January 7. Having been previously well, he came in from guard in the morning, was sent to the hospital, and died the same afternoon. This sudden fatality naturally produced much consternation in the regiment. Quinine rations were issued as a prophylactic measure, and Surgeon Ware was untiring in his efforts to determine the cause of the epidemic.”

Pollitz’ remains were sent north to Long Island and to the church, where he had briefly been a Sunday school superintendent.

“It is my understanding that he requested to be buried in the shadow of the belfry of the original chapel. They built the new church alongside the original chapel so I assume that is why they built over it,” said Callahan.

The bell was used during the 1863 Pollitz funeral (Trinity Episcopal Church)

Shortly after his burial, February 1, 1863, the bell was taken down and another put in its place. “John Pollitz’s bell was inverted, filled with dirt and flowers, and stood by his grave for many years,” a church newsletter states.

In 1914, the bell was moved and restored after church officials discovered the grave under that floor while investigating a break in the foundation walls, according to The Times.

Descendants group honors Civil War troops

Pollitz’s father was a businessman; a history of Roslyn indicated he emigrated from Northern Ireland. But an online search of ancestry-related pages shows Otto W. Pollitz was from Hamburg, Germany, and John’s mother was from Massachusetts. The young soldier is believed to have been born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Church members are unaware of any living descendants, though Pollitz had siblings.

Members of the SUVCW lead 2019 ceremony near plaque (Trinity Episcopal Church)

A 2019 ceremony at the church rededicated the gravesite. Eight members of Moses A. Baldwin Camp #544, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, participated 

According to Dennis Duffy, secretary for the camp, the younger Pollitz attended Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (now part of NYU) and had moved on to college in Massachusetts, where he enlisted with the 44^th Massachusetts.

"John did not have to go to war. There was no draft at the time and when the draft would come six months after John's death, his family could have afforded to pay a substitute under the rules then in effect," Duffy wrote in 2019 to other members of the SUVCW camp.

Since 2019, the camp has obtained more than 100 headstones for veterans in previously unmarked graves, Duffy said this week. The post on Saturday will dedicate several VA headstones for Civil War soldier graves at Greenfield Cemetery in Uniondale, N.Y.

"I did mention his story in a presentation I made to the North Shore (Long Island) Civil War Roundtable, Huntington, N.Y., last week and must admit the telling brought a tear to my eye," Duffy added.

(At right, the Rev. Margaret Peckham Clark with the Pollitz gravestone in the church crawlspace in 2018)

READ MORE ABOUT POLLITZ:

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2022/05/headstone-of-union-soldier-buried.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2019/06/in-silent-camping-ground-of-dead-sons.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-civil-war-soldier-and-his-headstone.html

10-MUST SEES: Atlanta History Center senior military historian and curator Gordon Jones says these artifacts in new 'More Perfect Union' exhibit will speak to you

John Brown pike and captured rifle, Frederick Douglass and AHC brochure (Civil War Picket)

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when experiencing “More Perfect Union” -- the Atlanta History Center’s new Civil War exhibit -- for the first time. And I do mean experience: Video panels, sound effects, a massive film, recorded voices and, of course, hundreds and hundreds of artifacts.

I might recommend a repeat visit, as I did this week just ahead of Friday’s formal opening.

If you are pressed for time, or want to get the AHC’s take on stars of the show, I suggest seeing the following "Top 10." Five of these are mentioned in a printed brochure, “Curator Highlights,” while the other five artifacts were gleaned from an interview with Gordon Jones, senior military historian and curator, and a tour he gave to the media on Wednesday

It is remarkable Jones, now in his mid-60s, was leading the effort at the AHC when it opened its signature Civil War exhibit, “Turning Point,” in 1996. Over the past couple years, Jones has shepherded a new exhibition for the DuBose Gallery space. It is much larger in the topics it tackles.

“The new exhibition moves beyond traditional military history to explore the full scope of the era. It challenges us to ask,” the AHC says. “Who was included in the promise of American democracy? Who was excluded? And what does the legacy of that struggle mean today?”

Curator Gordon Jones during a media preview of the exhibit on July 8 (Civil War Picket)

Of course, the fulcrum of this is slavery and what it meant then and its legacy today. Many of the items in this Top 10 are related to that topic. All the items were procured since “Turning Point” opened and they largely show an evolution in interpretation of the Civil War.

While "More Perfection Union" is primarily focused on context about the war, the AHC in about six months will open a companion gallery, "The Hard Hand of War," focused primarily on weapons, gear and uniforms.

Without further ado, 10 must-sees at “More Perfect Union: The American Civil War Era.” These are in sequence as you walk through the space. (All photos by the Civil War Picket except as noted)

Dutch map of African coast, navigational chart for the Transatlantic slave trade, circa 1680

(Courtesy Atlanta History Center)

Frederik de Wit’s map/chart was a vital tool for European merchants in the slave trade, according to the AHC. The map identifies coastal landmarks, rivers, settlements and more.

Millions of enslaved people were transported from the Western and Central African coasts to the Western Hemisphere; many died during the horrific journeys.

“This is one of several items in the exhibition that demonstrates the deep roots of chattel slavery in the New World, and how the long tail of slavery led directly to the American Civil War,” the AHC brochure says.

British blunderbuss musket often used in slave trade

This circa 1750s short-barreled firearm, or blunderbuss, was made by the John Whately family in England. The European slave cartel traded guns for enslaved persons along the West African coast. It was typical for the buyers to supply weapons, iron bars, printed cloth and other metals as part of the barter.

"This one is extremely lightweight, cheaply made, and incredibly rare to find in this condition," said Jones, who believes this one may have been a sample weapon or used for another purpose.

'What to the American Slave is Your Fourth of July?'

First printing of abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ speech, “What to the American Slave is your Fourth of July?” The abolitionist gave his 1852 talk in Rochester, N.Y.

The address “confronted  the contradictions in the American promise of freedom and equality with its central question” about the holiday’s meaning to those in bondage, according to the AHC. It is considered to be a defining moment in U.S. history.

"There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the every day practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival," Douglass told the audience.

The presentation at the AHC includes audio of an actor reading Douglass' remarks.

John Brown letter, pikes, rifle and figurine

The story goes that a young John Brown witnessed an enslaved boy being beaten with a shovel. From then on, Brown was determined to put an end to the system of bondage.

Years later and while in his 50s, Brown and his family moved to “Bleeding Kansas," where they became engaged in the struggle over slavery. After an attack on abolitionists in Lawrence, Brown led an 1856 raid that left five men and boys believed to be slavery proponents dead.

Brown traveled to his native New England in 1857 to raise money for the cause. He carried a captured Bowie knife and contracted with Connecticut blacksmith Charles Blair to make 950 pikes for $1 each. At some point, Brown decided to use them in the South, rather than Kansas. He hatched a scheme for the weapons to be given to freed and escaped blacks, who would use them on anyone who dared to stop their rebellion. That effort ended in failure at Harpers Ferry, West Va., in 1859. Brown's radical actions hastened the Civil War, historians say.

The AHC display includes Brown’s letter to the pike manufacturer, a figurine, token, a pike and detached pike head, along with a U.S. Model 1855 rifle-musket captured by Brown during the doomed raid on Harpers Ferry.

Film 'Battle Ground / Freedom Ground: What Happened in the Civil War?'

The centerpiece of the new Civil War exhibit is an 18-minute visual timeline presentation. It is quite compelling and is in a semicircular shape, with several viewing benches.

“The film surrounds the audience in the costs and consequences of the Civil War – real quotes help tell the story of the era in the words of those who lived through it, and the audience is flanked on their left by the military costs – changes in territory, successful battles waged – and on their rights by the human costs – the increasing casualties as the war enters history as the bloodiest in American history,” says the brochure.

Flag from freedmen’s refugee camp at Craney Island, Va.

Most of the American flag is long gone, save for the 34 stars and upper-left canton. It flew over a camp on Craney Island near Hampton Roads, Va., that protected about 1,800 escaped slaves, whom Jones said were active in their liberation.

The camp operated for just over a year before closing in September 1863; it was one of dozens of such camps in southeast Virginia.

“Here on small island near Fortress Monroe, formerly enslaved people married, found work, attended school, and built new lives. But freedom was not always what they had imagined. Federal authorities were unprepared for the massive influx of refugees," the museum says.

Jones marvels at the work of conservators. “I almost didn’t recognize it as an artifact (when donated), he said. “It came in a bag.” The DuBose family – central to Atlanta’s memory of the Civil War -- donated the precious artifact.

Flag of the 127^th U.S. Colored Troops

The impetus for the AHC’s investment in artifacts related to African-American soldiers came in 2019, when it bought a hand-painted flag made for the 127^th USCT infantry. The flag depicts a soldier waving farewell to Columbia, a symbol of the United States, with the words “We Will Prove Ourselves Men" at the top

“It’s an iconic knock-your-socks-off artifact,” Jones said at the time. Even an enlisted man’s USCT uniform wouldn’t be as historically significant as this flag.”

This is one of three surviving examples of at least 12 USCT flags painted by David Bustill Bowser.

The 127^th trained at Camp William Penn near Philadelphia in 1864. It took part in combat during the siege of Petersburg and the surrender at Appomattox. USCT units -- which helped turn the tide in several campaigns and battles -- were led by white officers and it took time for soldiers to receive pay equal to their white counterparts.

The flag captures the essence of why 180,000 African Americans volunteered in the Union army during the Civil War. These soldiers and refugees showed the world Blacks were ready and able to liberate themselves.

List of enslaved Africans landed in Cuba, 1863

Documents written on parchment in 1868 detail 120 enslaved persons – some only 10 or 11 years old -- brought to Cuba five years before despite a ban on such trade.

They were found abandoned after their illegal landing near San Juan de las Playas.

The galling ledger includes their age, physical condition and, most chillingly, the branding mark burned in their bodies. The latter were recorded under the heading “distinguishing marks.”

Many of the enslaved are described by their African and Christian names.

“Placed in the colonial emancipado indentured labor system, they were ‘free’ in name but bound to years of forced labor, often on sugar plantations, the exhibit says.

Check for New York Draft Riot damages

Many opposed to Northern military conscription in 1863 rioted in New York City, overwhelming police and leading to scores of deaths and widespread destruction.

Black residents were targeted out of fears of labor competition following emancipation. The home of Hiram Dalton, 61, was ransacked and most of the household possessions were lost. A city relief fund awarded $115 to Dalton for “Damage by rioters.”

The exhibit features a Broadway Bank check written out to Dalton.

“It brought tears to my eyes,” its very human connection shining brighter than the check’s bureaucratic ink, Jones told me.

Confederate battle flag of the 6^th/9^th Tennessee combined

Charles Turner Jr. of Atlanta in recent years donated this Georgia-made flag that flew at the “Dead Angle” at Kennesaw Mountain during the epic June 27, 1864, battle.

The 6^th and 9^th Tennessee regiments consolidated during the war and its soldiers took part in the Atlanta Campaign under the Army of Tennessee as its commanders defended against the approach of Union forces.

The 6^th-9^th were stationed at Cheatham Hill, the bloodiest part of the Kennesaw Mountain battlefield, also known as the Dead Angle.

As the AHC brochure points out, the subsequent capture of Atlanta secured President Abraham Lincoln’s re-election, “and with it, the preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery.”

MORE COVERAGE:

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2026/06/atlanta-history-center-hopes-to-make.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2026/04/compelling-civil-war-artifacts-are.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2025/05/first-on-picket-compelling-artifacts.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2026/07/old-number-9-confederate-capt-keys.html

Old number 9: Confederate Capt. Key's howitzer, which for years was on loan to the Pickett's Mill battlefield, debuts in Atlanta History Center's 'More Perfect Union'

Capt. Key howitzer this week at the Atlanta History Center (Civil War Picket photos; click to enlarge)

A 12-pounder howitzer that survived numerous battles, years of vandalism and theft from a city park is now on display at the Atlanta History Center as part of its ambitious  “More Perfect Union” Civil War exhibit

The so-called Capt. Key “No. 9”  howitzer is in the corner of a new gallery featuring fascinating artifacts from the Atlanta Campaign and the July 1864 battles in Atlanta.

It joins many military items in the new exhibit. But more than half of the artifacts in "More Perfect Union" -- especially those linked to the slave trade, African-American troops and repercussions of the conflict -- have been acquired in recent years.

The gun, manufactured in Boston in 1851 for the Arkansas Military Institute, had been on loan for nearly 10 years to Pickett’s Mill Battlefield State Historic Site northwest of Atlanta. It’s possible it was used to mow down Federal attackers there who futilely charged through a ravine toward Confederates waiting for them in strength.

“Captain Key's howitzer is one of the most important artifacts /stories we have going into the new exhibit,” Gordon Jones, senior military and historian at the AHC, told the Picket earlier this year about plans for the museum to bring the cannon back to Atlanta. “It'll be a cornerstone of the Atlanta Campaign area, right up there with the U.S. Army wagon, Confederate flag that flew over Atlanta, Cleburne sword, plus more new acquisitions.”

Jones was referring to Confederate Capt. Thomas Key, whose Arkansas artillery battery served in the division of legendary Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne.

The AHC in 2016 lent the gun to the state park as it prepared to move the “Battle of Atlanta” cyclorama painting from Grant Park to the center’s facilities in the Buckhead neighborhood

For the AHC and history aficionados, the audacious Key and his four-gun battery are remembered for being in the thick of things in numerous 1864 Atlanta Campaign battles – Dalton, Pickett’s Mill, Peachtree Creek and Jonesboro, among others.

Yet this bronze gun has a postwar history as interesting as its service during the war. It had several homes and was vandalized while displayed outside in Grant Park. Indignities included a broken cascabel, hacksaw marks and scores of indentations.

The howitzer was subsequently stolen, turning up in a county south of Atlanta. The AHC eventually gained custody of the weapon and had it refurbished and placed on a carriage that was built in 1936.

Thomas Bailey, who makes and restores carriages and other artillery components, recalls working on the Key howitzer, which has an artillery shell jammed into its 780-pound barrel.

“It always stood out to me how beat up it was,” said the owner of Historical Ordnance Works in Woodstock, Ga. “Somebody tried breaking it up for scrap. There were saw marks on the trunnion.” He estimates the barrel had about 60 marks from a sledgehammer.

The Key battery howitzer was one of two cast by Cyrus Alger & Co. for the Arkansas Military Institute. The number 9 is stamped on its muzzle face and the barrel is marked with an eagle atop a globe.

At Chickamauga, in September 1863, his superiors lauded Key for his gallantry and effectiveness, saying that in the fiercest part of the struggle he ran his battery by hand to within 60 yards of the enemy's lines.

Key and his cannons played a large part in the Confederate victory at Pickett’s Mill on May 27, 1864. Cleburne ordered Key to place two guns to the right oblique to enfilade the ravine. 

It’s uncertain whether number 9 was one of those two, but it certainly was among the four battery guns there.

Federal troops under Brig. Gen. William Hazen charged uphill in their attempt to take the top of a ridge. Key’s howitzers were ready for them. The battery fired about 182 rounds of spherical case and canister in two hours.

Key's battery howitzer at Pickett's Mill (Picket photo), number 9 on top of dented muzzle (Georgia State Parks), gun after it was recovered in Spalding County, Ga. in 2010, and artillery Capt. Thomas Key (Wikipedia); click to enlarge images

The Federal army suffered about 1,600 casualties at the battle, compared to 500 for the South.

On July 25, 1864, Key’s Battery was issued Napoleons captured from the Federals during the Battle of Atlanta and number 9 was sent to the Macon Arsenal. The Napoleons were considered a step up.

In his postwar book, Key wrote he regretted parting with number 9, which had been with his men at Perryville, Missionary Ridge, Resaca, New Hope Church,  Peachtree Creek and other battles.

“So it cannot be thought strange that I regret having separated from my command a gun that has been my companion under such trying and bloody circumstances.”

At national battlefields, you can be a finder, but not a keeper. Kennesaw Mountain staff educates public about importance of precious artifacts -- and potential hazards

Bullet found by James Pratt; Jake Boling with Napoleon shell, assorted artifacts, crowd at Gritters Library (Picket photos)

A couple weeks back, during a program at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, ranger James Pratt came across a spent bullet, its top smashed from an impact of some kind.

Those on the walk joked the artifact might have been planted, but the Minie ball find was a surprise, Pratt and fellow park ranger Jake Boling told three dozen people attending a presentation at Gritters Library in Cobb County, Ga.

The pair on Monday traveled about five miles from the park for a show-and-tell about artifacts related to the Civil War park northwest of Atlanta. “It’s being able to tell a story about them,” said Boling.

The education coordinator often gives talks about the battle, the land and its cultural resources, so this was a great opportunity to show off finds and explain what the park does with them.

It was also an opportunity to remind potential visitors that it is illegal to dig up and/or remove an artifact from federal property.

Boling told the audience, mostly made of children and young adults, that Kennesaw Mountain has two main collections. Items in the visitor museum or in storage are delicate, rare or have direct provenance – a chain of custody and record.

Those in the education collection are meant to demonstrate a type of clothing, ammunition or accoutrement. “Soldiers had to carry lots and lots of stuff,” said Boling

Library patrons were able to hold or look at three bullets, a knapsack hook, brass eagle buttons, a bayonet remnant, a horseshoe, shell fragment and boot heels, among other artifacts. “These soldiers marched an average of 15 miles a day,” said Boling.

Pratt said he believes the spent bullet likely was fired from a Springfield rifle used by Federal attackers on June 27, 1864. The 53^rd Indiana Infantry and other regiments created a diversionary attack on the far left against Confederate pickets, including the 1^st Alabama Infantry (see video at bottom of post).

The attack came from Memorial Field and toward Confederate rifle pits beyond the current visitor center. (At left, a replicate Hotchkiss shell and a fragment found at Kennesaw, Picket photo)

Boling told the crowd he was working in 2019 when a man told them he discovered a mud-covered item near a trail. It turned out to a shell from a 12-pounder Napoleon. Park officials say about 400 cannons were on and around the battlefield.

The visitor, in fact, had placed the shell in his vehicle, and had become concerned about it being potentially explosive. He subsequently brought it to the building and left, said Boling.

The local bomb squad drilled a hole in the solid shot to ensure it did not contain gunpowder.

The park now uses the artillery round as part of its education outreach.

Boling cautioned the audience to call police or tell rangers if they come across anything related to ammunition. “Don’t dig, because it’s illegal. Don’t dig, because it can be dangerous,” he said.

The bottom line: Don’t pick anything up.