The Battle of Peach Tree Creek by Earl J. Hess

Author:Earl J. Hess
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2017-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

French versus Moore

French took the order to watch well to the left seriously. He felt more comfortable stopping Ector at this location behind Selden’s Battery and ordering Gates to move forward alone. As Gates advanced until he was stopped by a large mill pond about 300 yards from Moore’s brigade of Johnson’s division, French personally scouted the ground to the west. He found that a large open field was in the area and came to the conclusion that the Federals were making no moves to flank his division. French therefore ordered Ector to move toward Gates’s position through a skirt of trees to mask his movement from the enemy, and Ector did so, closing up with Gates and reinforcing the static position assumed by French’s two little brigades.74

French also joined the two brigades and, upon examining their position more closely, became worried. He noticed that a ridge to the left could command his position. By this time Stewart had ridden to the place occupied by Ector and Gates as well. When French told him of his worry, Stewart ordered French to place some artillery on that ridge and support it with Sears’s Brigade. French told Ector to take charge of Gates’s Brigade as well as his own and rode off to make these arrangements. Stewart remained with Ector and Gates to observe events, but it was already late in the day. French was able to do little more than select a position for the guns on the ridge. Soon after, the battle dwindled to a close. Darkness began to fall before the artillery or Sears could move toward the ridge.75

Meanwhile, Ector and Gates simply remained in place, sometimes showing their men at the edge of the timber fronting Moore’s brigade. The Confederates made no attempt to advance and challenge the Federals on this part of Johnson’s line. It was just as well. Lieut. Col. Daniel F. Griffin of the 38th Indiana thought Moore’s position was very strong and the Confederates “dared not try us.” Gates’s regiments endured pretty accurate Federal artillery fire for some time that afternoon. It “was heavy, and their guns well handled,” admitted Capt. Joseph Boyce of the 1st Missouri (CS). “They got our range in short order, but the shells burst just as they passed over our position, and as the fragments were blown forward, injured no one.” Nevertheless, French reported losses in his division of nineteen men, fifteen of them in Gates’s command and the rest in Ector’s Brigade.76

Johnson was fortunate; his division was pressed heavily only on the extreme left where Hapeman’s 104th Illinois saved the day. Along the rest of his line, Rebel artillery and skirmishers harassed but did not seriously threaten his position. Johnson’s division lost 125 men on July 20. McCook’s brigade accounted for 53.6 percent of the division casualties. Surg. Charles W. Jones, who served as Johnson’s chief medical officer, transported the wounded to Vining’s Station north of the Chattahoochee River for treatment.77

Palmer’s other two divisions were not attacked by

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