Today marks the 148th anniversary of the sanguinary Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Part of the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, the fight at Kennesaw Mountain was forced on US Major General William T. Sherman as he continually pushed the Confederate Army of Tennessee back towards Atlanta. While Sherman’s constant strategy of flanking had caused the Confederate field commander, General Joseph E. Johnston, to regularly pull back towards the Georgia capital, Sherman was to learn, at Kennesaw Mountain, that Johnston, and the Army of Tennessee, had plenty of fight left in it. Situated northwest of Atlanta, Kennesaw Mountain is one of the highest mountains in northern Georgia. Determined to take the fight to Johnston, Sherman attacked his well entrenched troops on June 27. The heights proved too much for the Federal armies and the Confederate line would hold. Total casualties for the battle would be nearly 4,000 killed, wounded and missing – 3/4 of which were sustained by Sherman’s troops.After the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Johnston would continue his retreat – to the very gates of Atlanta. He would be relieved from command on July 17 – not even three weeks after his victory at Kennesaw Mountain. The troops of the Army of Tennessee would be in for many more weeks of hard fighting, under acting full general, John Bell Hood.
This tragic battle occurred just north of the town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee when the Confederate Army of Tennessee, commanded by General Braxton Bragg, attacked the Federal Army of the Cumberland, commanded by Major General William S. Rosecrans. The battle would rage for three days, with the heaviest fighting taking place on December 31 and January 1. Bragg would eventually retreat south after receiving word that Rosecrans army had been reinforced on January 3. All told, nearly 25,000 combined casualties were reported at Stones River, making it the eighth most costly battle of the Civil War.
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