North Georgia Journal Winter 2000

Early in the summer of 1864, a contingency of Confederate troops proved their mettle after they soundly defeated a Federal force of superior numbers in a close-quarters battlefield engagement at Rome. The men in gray, however, were sorely needed elsewhere in an effort to defend Atlanta, and therefore were ultimately evacuated from Rome. As a result, the town, in large part was eventually reduced to ashes by the oncoming Federal troops.

Cannons on the Hills of Rome
Article by Daniel M. Roper

       The sun beat down on the weary, dust-covered soldiers as they marched into Rome, Georgia on the afternoon of May 17, 1864. The Tar Heels and Texans of General Matthew D. Ector’s brigade had just finished a 32-mile forced march from Blue Mountain, Alabama. They wore the homespun, butternut-colored uniforms of the western army and were on their way to reinforce Joseph E. Johnston’s beleaguered Army of Tennessee at nearby Adairsville.

       No civilians were on hand to welcome the tired Rebel soldiers to Rome. No children cheering and clapping. No young ladies waving flags and handkerchiefs. It was the fourth year of the terrible war and far too late for enthusiasm of that nature anymore. In fact, most of Rome’s citizens had long since evacuated to safer places, because Rome lay perilously near the path of the Federal troops advancing on Atlanta.

If possible, most of the citizenry had sold their land and whatever property they couldn’t carry with them. The little town now belonged to the Confederate army – at least for the moment.

It is not an exaggeration to say the fate of the Confederacy hung in the balance, for the South could not long survive if Atlanta Fell. Rome, with imposing hilltop forts and sprawling entrenchments, anchored the left flank of the Confederate line of defense.

The Gray General

An eerie silence enveloped Ector’s exhausted infantry men as they marched across the Etowah River Bridge and filed down Rome’s forlorn main street past abandoned and forsaken buildings. The Noble cannon factory, warehouses full of vital munitions and supplies, fine homes, and blood-soaked hospitals all stood in stark silence.

The Choice House Hotel – once Rome’s most affluent establishment where patriotic Southerners had toasted the Confederacy amidst luxurious accommodations – had been converted into a military hospital where disease, agony and death reigned supreme. In the midst of this hotel accommodations-gone-to-hell, a well dressed officer stroked his beard and contemplated the situation.

Our pickets report a Union infantry division and artillery two-and-one-half miles north of town, Major General Samuel G. French thought to himself. My orders are to report today to General Johnston in Adairsville. But with the fortifications on the hills surrounding this town, this place can be held. The warehouses are full of supplies, we are still evacuating the wounded, the bridges and munitions must be burned lest they fall into enemy hands, and if the Yankees take Rome, they’ll turn Johnston’s flank!

Turning to his courier, French barked an order: “Report to General Ector and tell him his men are not to board the Kingston train. They are to move north, across the river into the earthworks. They are all I have to stop the Yankees from taking this town.” ¹

The Blue General

The dour Union general with the unlikely name of Jefferson Davis stood atop a wooded hill and surveyed the terrain before him. Immediately in front, two hills rose abruptly from the farmland.

To the side of one hill flowed the swift, deep waters of the Oostanaula River. On the far side of the other coursed the even larger Coosa River. Just across both rivers lurked immense hilltop forts guarding the river roads and effectively barring passage by either flank.

The only way to Rome was the main road that snaked through a pass between the two hills in front of Davis, but the rebels had removed every tree and every bit of foliage from the hill slopes in order to create unobstructed fields of fire.

On the crest of both hills, towering over the road and fields, were the unmistakable signs of fortifications: bare, red, freshly-turned earth, log barriers, and the dark, silent muzzles of cannon.

“This,” judged Davis, “is the strongest fortified place that I have seen in Dixie.” ²

The Historian

“The Confederates built three main forts here,” observes Gilbert Smith, a white-bearded, white-maned historian who has devoted his retirement years to the study of the Civil War in Rome. “Each was named for a Rome soldier killed in battle: Fort Norton overlooking the Oostanaula River, Fort Attaway guarding the Summerville Road, and Fort Stovall beside the Coosa River on what is today known as Myrtle Hill.”

Near the crest of each hill, the Confederates dug step trenches – ditches eight feet deep and ten feet wide with a step at the bottom and a head log at the rim to provide maximum protection for the defender. It was a daunting task indeed for soldiers faced with the prospect of attaching an enemy ensconced in such protective enclosures. 

“While the attackers would be on open ground with no cover from enemy fire, the defenders were protected from head to toe by sold earth and wood,” Smith explained. “They (the defenders) had to expose only a fraction of their bodies for a scant moment as they stood, aimed their weapons between the trench and the head log, and fired.”

Even more disheartening and dangerous to the Union soldiers were the cannon that were placed within protected earthworks known as embrasures. “In addition to the field artillery,” Smith continued, “the Confederates brought in five 64-pounder rifled cannon from Savannah or Mobile. Those were monster guns – sea coastal guns.”

The only question in this whole defensive scenario was whether or not there would actually be Confederate soldiers occupying those trenches and manning the cannons when the Yankee troops arrived en mass.

The Crisis

For more than a year, the people of Rome had feared and dreaded this day. “It is now known that Rome is seriously threatened by invasion,” warned the The Tri-Weekly Courier newspaper in May of 1863 after legendary Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest thwarted a Federal cavalry raid bent on Rome’s destruction. “The citizens of Floyd and our surrounding counties should form a military organization for repelling the thieving, house-burning and vandal foe that may venture upon our soil.”

The groundwork for the local defense had first been laid a year before when a committee of Romans appointed three men in each militia district to recruit a home defense unit. The results were laudable. By mid-1863, nits like the Floyd Legion, Fort Infantry, and Rome Works Artillery boasted more than 400 volunteers even though most able-bodied men of suitable age had gone off to ware several years earlier.

Rome’s newspapers also proposed fortifications for the city. “The abolitionists could never drag their heavy long-range guns this far into the country,” The Tri-Weekly Courier asserted, “but we could bring guns here by rail which would command every pass within three miles of town, and hold them at bay.”

Shortly thereafter, the Confederate government authorized the work and the newspaper rejoiced. “Our beautiful city is to be fortified at once. An experienced and skillful engineer is on the spot ready to direct the good work [and he] calls on the citizens to furnish hands to accomplish the task.”

These preparations inspired confidence that Rome was ready for the enemy. “The Dutch Doodles may expect a warm reception should they conclude to visit us,” proclaimed The Weekly Courier. Though doom was on the horizon, those residents remaining in the city felt there was a chance it might be saved.

The Town

Before the war, Rome had been a prosperous town regarded as “the capitol of Cherokee Georgia” (a reference to its central location in the region from which the Cherokee Indians were removed in 1838). After the outbreak of hostilities between North and South in 1861, the town’s importance increased, but in ways the people could not have imagined.

“Rome was a very lively place, and soldiers were seen on the streets day and night,” observed H. H. Wimpee, a thirteen-year-old newspaper vendor at the time. “After the battle of Manassas was fought Rome went wild with excitement. The companies from Rome lost heavily in that engagement, both killed and wounded. Then the hospitals were established and the sick and wounded soldiers were brought here from other places.” ³ 

Given its Western & Atlantic Railroad branch line and numerous large buildings, it was perhaps inevitable that Rome would become an important Confederate medical outpost. But this distinction did not meet with universal approbation. “It is to be deeply regretted that the Government deemed it to its interest to occupy almost the entire city as a Hosptial,” The Weekly Courier lamented in February of 1863. “Nine-tenths of the important business houses are now occupied, and laid off into four distinct hospital [that are] all crowded to overflowing with inmates.”

If the citizenry did not whole-heartedly welcome the military presence in Rome, neither did the soldiers find the town entirely satisfactory. “I shall never take a fancy to Georgia,” griped Texan B.F. Batchelor. “She has the hottest days, the reddest hills and the most flies of any state under the sun.”

What irritated Batchelor even more than the climate however, were the exorbitant prices on the local population charged for food. “The prices charged [are] almost enough to make one’s hair stand on end,” the bitter Texan complained to his wife in August of 1863. “Georgia…is the wooden nut-meg land of the South is people with genuine Money loving Yankees. The key to their good will is money, and with it you can almost their hopes of Heaven.” ⁴ 

Ironically, Batchelor never returned to his native Texas and loving wife. He was killed in battle just ten miles west of Rome in October of 1864, and was buried there to spend eternity in the spot he so adamantly disliked.

This local population of Rome – and indeed the entire South by this time – fully shared in their despair of the economy and hugely-inflated prices of which Batchelor complained. Everything was in short supply or totally unavailable.

“The prices for food and clothing began to go up skywards,” H.H. Wimpee recalled. “Every thing was hard to get even if you had the money to pay for it. Times were so hard that the county and town had to establish a commissary for the soldiers’ wives and children, who had nothing to eat.”

The hard times were not alleviated by the onset of spring in 1864, either, but war news overshadowed everything else. All eyes were on the front lines just 50 miles north of Rome.

“Battle after battle was fought,” observed Wimpee, “and then began the retreat of the Army of Tennessee under Gen. Joe Johnston. Sherman’s army swung around towards Rome; our cavalry held them in check out at Dry Creek and skirmished with them until night. The people that could get away left Rome; others that had no conveyances had to stay and take the consequences.”

For two years, Rome had prepared for this day and the Yankee invaders had finally arrived. The city was about to taste devastation.

The Peril

Jefferson Davis had gone out on a limb and knew it full well. The orders given to him by William Sherman the day before required Davis to cross the Oostanaula River above Rome at the mouth of Armuchee Creek. His mission was to place his 2^nd Infantry Division between Rome and the main body of the Confederate Army at Adairsville. But despite the fact there was no bridge and the water was too deep to ford, Davis declined to give up. Instead, he impulsively pushed on toward Rome, hoping that he might surprise the garrison and capture the town’s bridges intact.

Now, Davis had his division in a very delicate situation. In front loomed Rome’s fortified heights manned by a force of undetermined strength. To the left lay the Oostanaula River separating Davis from any support or reinforcements from Sherman in the event of crisis, and to the right lay….well, nothing. Davis was on the right.

The Attack

For most of the morning, Davis’ 2^nd division had moved steadily south towards Rome, his skirmishers pushing back a thin screen of Confederate pickets.

For some reason, news of this Federal advance did not reach Sam French, the ranking Confederate officer in Rome, until mid-day. French who was imply trying to get his division to General Johnston in Adairsville as quickly as possible, made a snap decision to defend Rome, and sent Ector’s brigade to Fort Attaway.

Thanks to French’s quick thinking, 2,000 infantrymen occupied the earthworks when Davis and his Union army troops arrived, instead of the skeleton force of 150 calvalry that had been there just a short time earlier. Then, in the time it took Davis to deploy his brigade for battle, several thousand reinforcements – mostly battle-hardened Texas and Alabama cavalrymen – arrived on the scene.

Noting that the Union army advancing on them was somewhat disorganized and lacking in visible artillery support, the Confederates launched a bold and unexpected attack. General Lawrence S. Ross’ dismounted Texans charged, driving back the Federal center nearly a mile.

Eventually, Ross concluded that he could go no further. “Finding the enemy’s force so far superior to my own in numbers, band being almost enveloped by the wings of his line, which had not fallen back as the center was driven,” Ross reported, “I deemed it prudent to withdraw my command from its advance position.” ⁵

Upon their return, the cavalrymen received a surprising welcome. Ector’s infantrymen, who were impressed by the horse soldiers’ pluck, applauded the Texans. “[We moved] back to the breastworks in perfect order amid the most extravagant plaudits of the infantry who being witnesses said they did not believe cavalry could fight like [we did],” a trooper proudly recalled. ⁶

Surprising Slaughter

Alarmed by the Confederate onslaught which struck his 2^nd Brigade, Jefferson Davis ordered forward is 3^rd Brigade in support. These men, under the command of Colonel Dan McCook, promptly moved to a ridge east of the Summerville Road (Possible Oak Hill). Not content to stop there, the foot soldiers continued forward, advancing up yet another hill. Near the top of this ridge they found the Southerners waiting. The blue and gray riflemen opened fire on each other, laying down a hail of lead in a bloody pitched battle for control of the high ground.

From Fort Attaway Texan Martin King had a birds-eye view of the Yankee advance. “The valley was in farms on either side of the road and timber and low flat land where we could not see them [the Yankees]. The battle line came sweeping up from this place through the hills and formed a sold column right across the valley.”

The desperate struggle for the possession of the heights ensued “The Yankees were determined to break through our line,” King grimly noted. “On they came with a shout and fixed bayonets, but the boys poured such volleys into their line that it wavered, reeled and fled back to the woods.”

Still the Federal soldiers would not give up. “Here,” King noted with a hint of admiration, “they reformed and returned with determination to sweep the valley but she would not be swept. Their line forces itself within 20 feet of ours, and it seemed they would mix it with hand-to-hand fight, but at this juncture, our boys drew their six-shooters and then the Yankees began to tumble into piles. Their line came to a dead halt and stood still for at least ten seconds when it reeled and fled in great confusion.” ⁷

Having suffered some 400 casualties and with reports of a Confederate force of undetermined strength threatening to his right, Davis decided to call it a day. Despite his losses, he felt good about his day’s work.

The 2^nd Division had marched 18 miles, engaged in battle, and now occupied a strong defensive position within a short distance Fort Attaway and Rome. “My lines as now established,” Davis boasted to Sherman, “completely invested the enemy’s works on the west bank of the river; my left being so near the Oostanaula and my right so near the Coosa, as to prevent my flank from being turned from either direction.” ⁸

The Withdrawal

During the night of the 17^th, Davis’ men feverishly built breastworks in expectation that the battle would resume the following morning. By this point, however, events elsewhere had taken control of the situation and sealed Rome’s fate in the process.

Having with drawn his army to Cassville, General Joseph E. Johnston realized that Rome could no longer be held. Orders were issued and, at midnight, Sam French quietly withdrew Ector’s and Ross’ brigades from Fort Attaway and evacuated Rome. Only a small force of skirmishers remained behind to guard the town.

The sudden evacuation took the people of Rome by surprise. “Going down town [I] found al the cavalry and artillery in the street and headed for the Etowah Bridge showing strong indications of an evacuation [and] which at 10 o’clock we find in full retreat,” Reuben Norton jotted in his diary. “It was very unexpected and unaccountable [given] the force and strong position we had.” ⁹

At 9:00 AM the following morning, in a dense fog, Davis’ skirmishers groped their way to De Soto Hill and, to their immense relief, found Fort Attaway unoccupied. Davis promptly placed two artillery batteries in the earthworks and ordered his skirmishers forward to measure the level of further Confederate resistance. Brisk artillery fire from Forts Norton and Stovall checked the Union advance and quickly convinced Davis that he needed to find an easier way into Rome.

Davis decided to send the 85^th Illinois Regiment across the Oostanaula River well above Fort Norton to threaten Rome from a different direction. The men of the 85^th got to work building rafts out of fence rails and railroad ties. Upon finishing, they stripped, loaded the rafts with their rifles, ammunition, and clothing, and swam across the Oostanaula pushing the rafts before them.

“Once on the other side,” recalled a bluecoat, “a skirmish line was quickly formed under the direction of Colonel Dilworth and other officers of the Eighty-fifth, which drove the enemy from the city and raised the banner of freedom over rebellious Rome.” ¹⁰

Powerless to stop the oncoming Federal regiment and realizing that “the jig was up,” the tiny Confederate garrison which had remained behind “defending” Rome withdrew, yielding the city to “the thieving, house-burning and vandal foe.”

The Desecration

For the rest of the day, Confederate artillery in Fort Stovall on Myrtle Hill continued to duel with Federal artillery near Fort Attaway. The exchange of fire reportedly resulted in a few casualties, and some of the Union shells fell on sacred ground.

“One thing I deplored,” wrote a Texan who witnessed the bombardment. “A grave yard lay right in front of us and their shots knocked the nice monuments into thousands of pieces.” ¹¹

Finally, even these last Confederate artillerymen with drew to the southeast. During the ensuing six months of Union occupation, Rome would become an important Federal supply and medical depot. Eventually, however, William Sherman decided to abandon the town in preparation for his “March To The Sea.” While carrying out Sherman’s orders, Union solders burned most of Rome on the night of November 10 1864.

ENDNOTES 

1/ Davis, Major George W., 1987. War of the Rebellion: Official Records The Union and Confederate Armies. (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.), Series I, Vol. 38, Part IV pp. 717-18

2/ Ibid at page 235

3/ Wimpee, H. H. “A Boy’s Recollections Of The Civil War At Rome, Georgia,” included in a notebook on file in the Special Collections Room, Sara Hightower Regional Library in Rome, Georgia entitled “Confederate Memories From The Files Of Rome, Georgia UDC Chapter.”

4/ Rugeley, H.J.H, annotated by, 1961. Batchelor-Turner Letters, 1861-1864: Written by Two Of Terry’s Texas Rangers. (Stick Company, Austin Texas).

5/ Ibid note 1, Series I, Vol. 38, Part III, p. 963

6/ Kerr, Homer L., ed., 1976 Fighting With Ross’ Texas Cavalry Brigade C.S.A.: The Diary of George L. Griscom, Adjutant, 9^th Texas Cavalry Regiment. (Hill Junior College Press, Hillsboro, TX, p. 187

7/Keen Newton A., 1986  Living And Fighting With The Texas 6^th Cavalry (Butternut Press, Inc., Gaithersburg, Maryland), p.55

8/ Ibid note 1, Series I, Vol. 38 Part I, p.629

9/ May 17, 1864 entry in the diary of Reuben S. Norton. A microfilmed copy of the Norton diary is on file in the Special Collections Room, Sara Hightower Regional Library, Rome, Georgia.

10/ Aten, Henry J., 1901. History Of The Eighty-Fifth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry (Regimental Association, Hiawatha, Kansas), p.172

11/ Ibid note 7, pg. 56

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