Kennesaw Mountain saw the third time during the American Civil War in which William T. Sherman employed a direct assault upon entrenched Confederate positions.  The attack failed as much as his previous two attempts.  All through the Atlanta campaign, Sherman had gotten around the Confederate positions set out by Joseph E. Johnston through flanking maneuvers.  Sherman wrote to Washington, “The whole country is one vast fort, and Johnston must have at least 50 miles (80 km) of connected trenches with abatis and finished batteries. We gain ground daily, fighting all the time. … Our lines are now in close contact and the fighting incessant, with a good deal of artillery. As fast as we gain one position the enemy has another all ready. … Kennesaw … is the key to the whole country.”  For the key, Sherman decided to open it with a direct frontal assault.

AFTERMATH

Writing his wife directly after the battle, “I begin to regard the death and mangling of couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash.”  Also writing after the fact, “I perceived that the enemy and our officers had settled down into a conviction that I would not assault fortified lines. All looked to me to outflank. An army to be efficient, must not settle down to a single mode of offence, but must be prepared to execute any plan which promises success. I wanted, therefore, for the moral effect, to make a successful assault against the enemy behind his breastworks, and resolved to attempt it at that point where success would give the largest fruits of victory.”

The cost for making his army more “efficient” was over 3,000 casualties including Colonel Daniel McCook, Colonel Oscar F. Harmon, nearly all the field officers of McCook’s brigade along with a third of the brigade’s soldiers.  Even though Sherman wrote it off in his note. It was the last time in the war he attacked frontally on this scale.

LEAD UP

Chickamauga was a traumatic experience for the Army of the Cumberland.  Before that, the summer campaign in central Tennessee had gone great.  Pushed out of Chattanooga, President Davis added reinforcements to the Army of Tennessee in the form of troops from Mississippi, Alabama plus a corps under James Longstreet from the Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.  These additions led to a Confederate victory at Chickamauga.  That victory quickly evaporated as Federal units came in to reinforce, eventually leading to the Federal victory at Missionary Ridge pushing Confederate forces out from Chattanooga for good.

Ulysses S. Grant had overall command at Chattanooga, but he was soon tabbed to take over active overall Union command in Washington.  The armies in Chattanooga were given to the command of William T. Sherman.

1864 campaign begins

To start the 1864 campaign, Sherman had the Army of the Cumberland – Major General George Thomas in command – reinforced by the 20^th Corps – made up of elements of both the former 11^th and 12^th Corps from the Army of the Potomac – under the command of Major General Joseph Hooker, plus a significant part of the Army of the Tennessee under the command of Major General James MacPherson and the smaller Army of the Ohio – more a corps-sized organization under command of Major General John M. Schofield.  Altogether, the Union forces comprise about 100,000 men, 254 cannons, and 35,000 horses.

Opposing them, the Army of Tennessee brought in a new commander, General Joseph E. Johnston, to replace the unpopular Braxton Bragg.  There were three infantry corps led by Willam Hardee, John Hood and Leonidas Polk – all lieutenant generals with a cavalry corps under Major General Joseph Wheeler.  Johnston had lost the corps of James Longstreet whose men had been loaned to Braxton Bragg before the battle of Chickamauga.  They returned to Lee’s army in Virginia over the winter.  There were 63,000 men and 187 cannons to defend against the invading Union forces. 

flanking and counterflanking

The campaign started 7 May developing into a refrain.  Federal forces would come up upon Confederate defensive lines.  Then after some probing attacks, the Federals would turn the Confederate flank forcing Johnston to retreat and form new lines.  This began at Dalton where Sherman tested the Confederate lines at Potato Hill, Rocky Face and Dug Gap before flanking the Confederates through Snake Gap leading to the battle of Resaca 14-15 May.

Flanking moves brought the next meeting further south near Cassville 18-19 May before Johnston moved further south to Allatoona Pass.  Leaving his rail supply line, Sherman tried to further flank Johnston resulting in battles at New Hope Church – 25 May, Pickett’s Mill 27 May and Dallas 28 May.  Heavy rains forced Sherman to return to his rail supply line.  Eventually, Johnston settled on a arc-shaped defensive line starting in the north on Big Kennesaw Mountain.

Impassable roads due to wet weather stalled Sherman’s forces a mere 15 miles northwest of Atlanta.  “The whole country is one vast fort, and Johnston muct have at least 50 miles of connected trenches with abatis and finished batteries.  We gain ground daily, fighting all the time … Our lines are now in close contact and the fighting incessant, with a good deal of artillery.  As fast as we gain one position the enemy has another all ready. … Kennesaw … is the key to the whole country.”  With that, Sherman decided it was time for a frontal assault instead of another flanking maneuver.

KENNESAW LINE

Sherman hoped to overextend the Confederate line by pushing Scholfield to the south while McPherson feinted at the far left while his main attack pushed at the south end of Little Kennesaw Mountain in an area known as Pigeon Hill.  The main assault fell to Thomas’ army as they took on the center of the Confederate lines on Cheatham Hill.

BATTLE BEGINS

Federal guns – over 200 – opened at 0800 27 June on the Confederate positions.  Johnston’s troops quickly discovered much of the Federal advance over an eight-mile front was for show, a demonstration and not an actual assault.  The first assault came at 0830 with the division of Brigadier General Morgan L. Smith’s three brigades from the Army of the Tennessee attacking the south end of Little Kennesaw and Pigeon Hill near the parking lot off Burnt Hickory Road.  Difficult terrain and lack of knowledge of the terrain made the Union advance difficult. 

Swamps slowed the attack on the right and the log breastworks on Pigeon Hill enfiladed the Federal lines that emerged.  Only the rifle pits at the bottom of the hill were overrun while the main Confederate line remained inviolate.  On the left, steep cliffs formed a considerable barrier in addition. McPherson’s attack only lasted 45 minutes in which time Union casualties mounted to 850 as opposed to Confederate losses of less than 300.

“Dead Angle”

Two miles south began the main attack at 0900.  With 9,000 men, the divisions of Brigadier General John Newton and Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis attacked in column formations.   Column attacks were mean to mass men at small targets in order to punch through.  Columns were used successfully by Napoleon but the newer rifles of the Civil War with their extended range made these attacks riskier. 

Another major problem was the masses of men were more vulnerable to both artillery fire and flanking fire.  Colonel Daniel McCook’s brigade charged across a wheat field climbing up Cheatham Hill to within a few yards of the Confederate breastworks and parapets.  The brigade lost both McCook and his replacement, Colonel Oscar F. Harmon, along with most of the rest of the field officers and a third of the men.  Colonel John G, Mitchell’s brigade to the right suffered similarly.  Unable to breakthrough, the Federals dug in only a few yards away from their counterparts – the hill becoming known afterwards as the “Dead Angle”.  They held the position for the next five days.

UP THE DEAD ANGLE WITH THE 125TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT

Of McCook’s brigade, the 125^th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment was one of three regiments from the Prairie State.  Two other regiments filled out the brigade – 22^nd Indiana and 52^nd Ohio.  The 125^th was organized at Danville, Illinois in the late summer of 1862.  They were led by Colonel Oscar F. Harmon who continued to lead the regiment until here at Kennesaw Mountain.  One of the company captains was William W. Fellows who earlier served in the three-month service 12^th Illinois, going into that regiment as a private and coming out as a first sergeant.

The regiment fought the war under both Harmon within Daniel McCook’s brigade from almost the moment they arrived with the Army of the Ohio – soon to be re-named the Army of the Cumberland.  They took part in the Battle of Perryville as a part of William Sherman’s division.  They acted as part of the rail guard units in Nashville when the Cumberlanders took part in the Battle of Stones River at the end of 1862. 

RESERVE CORPS

For the 1863 summer campaign – Tullahoma – the regiment became part of the Reserve Corps under Major General Gordon Granger.  An incident where soldiers of the 125^th were noticed by Granger after they had “liberated” meat from a farm outraged the general.  He had forbidden foraging, an order ignored by McCook and others.  Granger ordered his provost guard to start arresting all foragers they could find and string the offenders up by their thumbs.  McCook and one of Granger’s commanders, James B. Steedman, were able with difficulty to convince Granger to let the men go, but by that time, Granger’s reputation among his men became one of loathing.

CHICKAMAUGA

At Chickamauga, the brigade was involved on 19 September in the burning of Reed’s Bridge.  With orders to retreat, McCook was convinced there was a Confederate brigade isolated by the bridge burning.  He took his belief to General George Thomas who ordered men from his own corps to investigate, a process which began the major actions of the battle.

Meanwhile, the 125^th – along with the rest of McCook’s brigade – had retreated.  The next day, they were among the rest of Granger’s three brigades.  Granger followed the sound of the guns going to Thomas’ assistance on Horseshoe Ridge with two of his brigades, leaving McCook’s men behind to secure the road to Chattanooga.

At Chattanooga, the regiment helped open and organize the Cracker Line which ameliorated the Federal supply problems in the partially besieged town.  The regiment did not take part in the battle on Missionary Ridge part of a large reserve which Sherman failed to use at Tunnel Hill on the north end.  They were included in the 84-mile march of Sherman’s force sent northeast to help relieve the Siege of Knoxville.  During the early parts of the Atlanta Campaign, they also stayed busy, now as a part of the division of Jefferson C. Davis.

AT THE DEAD ANGLE

The frontal assault ordered by Sherman on 27 June 1864 was given to Davis’s men since they had not yet been tested severely by battle in the campaign.  Davis assigned the brigades of McCook and John G. Mitchell to front the attack.  Seeing what was asked for, the men were quiet before the attack.  Following one hour’s worth of artillery fire, the attack columns charged up the hill at 0900.  Many reached grounds where the Confederate fire could not reach them just in front of the hill.  Only a few – McCook among them – climbed onto the Rebel parapets but were shot down, including McCook who fell mortally wounded.

Brigade command fell to Colonel Harmon who also toppled shot through the heart.  Next in line was Colonel Caleb Dilworth of the 85^th Illinois who ordered a retreat.  Many of those surviving scrambled back with some having to wait until nightfall.  Others were pinned down with as many as 200 of McCook’s and Mitchell’s men surrendering.  The 125^th Illinois lost 47 dead, 52 wounded and 5 missing.  Davis’s division suffered 824 casualties.

One of the dead from the 125^th was Captain William Fellows, who also served as the brigade’s inspector general.  A small stone near the Illinois Monument notes the site where Fellows fell.  The stone is a cenotaph.  Fellows lies buried at the McFarland Cemetery in Muncie, Illinois.

Other stones from the brigade

There is another individual stone marking the site where First Sergeant Copernicus H. Coffey of the 22^nd Indiana was mortally wounded.  He died two days after the battle, initially buried on Kennesaw Mountain.  His grave today sits in the nearby Marietta National Cemetery.

salathiel Neighbour and his sword

A last stone marks the spot where Captain Salathiel M. Neighbour was shot through the right lung leading his men of Company D of the 52^nd Ohio against the Dead Angle.  His brother, David, also served with the 52^nd Ohio as a second lieutenant.  He became disabled during his service though he survived the war dying in 1896.

During the assault on the Dead Angle, when Salathiel fell wounded, he took off his sword and belt to make it easier to retreat for care.  Colonel Charles Clancy, the regimental commander, got tangled up in Neighbour’s belt as he made his way to the rear.  Discovering the belt to be Neighbour’s after reaching safety, he returned it to its owner.  Neighbour went to a hospital in Chattanooga where he died 7 July with his wife and brother at his side.  Men of the 52^nd Ohio placed this stone in memory of their captain who is buried back in the East State Street Cemetery in Newcomerstown, Ohio.  His sword is on display at the Kennesaw Mountain Visitor Center. 

Individual markers are not common to find at National Battlefields. These markers predated the turnover of the ground here on Cheatham Hill to the Federal government, thus grandfathered into the scene.

DEFENDING THE DEAD ANGLE

The main defenders came from the Tennessee brigade of Brigadier General Alfred J. Vaughn.  Vaugh had gained his star on the field at Chickamauga replacing Preston Smith in command of the brigade.  Vaughn’s war would end soon after the fight here on 4 July when leading his men, he lost a leg to an artillery shell.  On the left of Vaughn’s men were the Tennesseans of Brigadier George E. Maney’s brigade.  He suffered a severe wound in the arm during the battle of Missionary Ridge.  He would be captured as a division commander in August after Kennesaw near Atlanta.  His successor, Colonel Francis M. Walker died a month later during the 22 July Battle of Atlanta, a day after receiving an appointment as brigadier general.

Wagner, the Texans and Harker

To the left of the Angle, the brigades of Brigadier General George D. Wagner and Brigadier General Charles G. Harker tried their luck.  They also could not penetrate the Confederate line.  Harker suffered a mortal wound during a second attack.  A monument stands near where Texan defenders helped thwart men of Wagner’s brigade.  Texans of Brigadier General Hiram B. Granbury’s brigade fought here while other Texans of Brigadier Matthew D. Ector’s brigade figured in the fighting on Little Kennesaw and Pigeon Hill further north.  Ector was wounded in the fighting closer to Atlanta 27 July with his left leg amputated at the knee.

The main defenders to the immediate north of Vaughn’s brigade belonged to the brigade of Lucius Polk.  Mostly Tennesseans like the brigades around the Dead Angle, Polk – nephew of Leonidas Polk, the former corps commander killed a few days before Kennesaw at Allatoona Pass – suffered his fourth wound of the war which ended his time in the war.  

Success on the far right

Schofield’s Army of the Ohio was given an assignment to demonstrate against the men of John Hood’s corps on the left end of the Confederate line.  Two brigades were able to cross Olley’s Creek to the south of the Confederate line putting the Federals only five miles from the last riverine defense before Atlanta.  By 4 July, Johnston withdrew from the Kennesaw line after Sherman sent McPherson and George Stoneman’s cavalry corps around the Confederate left to join Schofield’s men.  Johnston withdrew to new fortifications at Smyrna still on the north side of the Chattahoochee River.  Those defenses were outflanked on the right setting up the dismissal of Johnston and the climactic battles for Atlanta during July and August.

KOLB’S FARM

On the far south end of the park is Kolb’s Farm on Powder Springs Road.  Fighting here occurred almost a week earlier than the main fighting along the Kennesaw line – 22 June.  Joseph Johnston’s army set out a defensive line at the beginning of June 1864 known as the Lost Mountain Line – also known as the Brushy Mountain Line.  That line ran from the east at Brushy Mountain southeast of Big Shanty to Lost Mountain covering twelve miles.  At a meeting on Pine Mountain 14 June between Hardee, Leonidas Polk and Johnston, a stray shot from a Federal cannon a mile away killed Polk.

The Lost Mountain Line became the Mud Creek Line on 15 June as Hardee withdrew several miles to the east that evening.  This line became abandoned a couple days later as Johnston’s army drew up along the Kennesaws.  And on 22 June, Hood’s men attacked Hooker’s corps at Kolb Farmhouse.

the battle

Originally, Hood was simply supposed to move his men south from Brushy Mountain to mirror Sherman’s flanking movements.  Hood sent his divisions under Major General Thomas C. Hindman and Major General Carter L. Stevenson into Hooker’s men.  Outnumbered 14,000 to 11,000 and facing almost forty cannons, the men of Hindman got as close as five hundred yards – Stevenson’s men got to within two hundred yards – before massed artillery and musket fire tore them apart.  Hood lost 1500 casualties – two thirds from Stevenson’s division – opposed to only 250 on the Union side.

The battle was not well received by either Johnston or Sherman.  It temporarily checked Sherman’s movement to the south, giving him pause to attempt a more direct penetration of the Kennesaw Line.

The farm used to include over 600 acres though only 2.3 are preserved inside the park today.  In 1941, the house was purchased to become part of the National Battlefield.  Restored to its original exterior, the house is closed today.  And a small family cemetery sits next to the farmhouse.

Reputations further varnished – Hooker

Joseph Hooker and William T. Sherman were never strong friends, at West Point, in California and certainly not during the Atlanta Campaign.  Both featured intense personalities, Hooker much more outgoing and showier.  He had gone from out-of-the-army to earn the command position of the major Federal army, the Army of the Potomac.  Granted, he only served in that position for about six months with the one major battle he commanded in – Chancellorsville – ended in a tactical defeat – brought about in no large part by Hooker suffering a severe concussion at the height of the battle.  Hooker did have a powerful patron on his side, Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln had been impressed with Hooker from their first meeting.  Hooker’s main problem was he liked to broadcast his thoughts either among friends or colleagues or through a potent letter writing campaign to many very important politicians.  To get where he got, Hooker had no qualms giving his opinions regarding the abilities of others not apparently thinking his thoughts would not get back to those in question.

Hooker was removed from command of the Army of the Potomac only days before the climactic battle at Gettysburg.  His main nemesis in this case, Henry Halleck, the nominal Union commander-in-chief.  Hooker borrowed money from Halleck – Sherman, too – in California and never seemed to have paid off his debt.  Lincoln was able to get Hooker back in charge of troops after the Federal debacle at Chickamauga with the dispatch of troops from the 11^th and 12^th Corps from the Army of the Potomac to Chattanooga.

hooker in the west

At Chattanooga, Grant was in overall command.  Grant’s information about Hooker probably came mostly from Sherman.  Sherman claimed he was not pre-influence by his relations with Hooker from before the war, but that seems dubious.  For the Atlanta Campaign, Hooker’s semi-independence changed as the divisions from the two corps were amalgamated into the 20^th Corps and put under the wing of the Army of the Cumberland and George Thomas.  Hooker and Thomas seemed to get along well together – Hooker only had good things to say about the Rock of Chickamauga.  Sherman, however, did not like Hooker’s desire for independent action.

At Kolb’s Farm, Hooker claimed in a dispatch to Sherman:  “We have repulsed two heavy attacks and feel confident, our only apprehension being our extreme right flank. Three entire corps are in front of us.”  In Sherman’s Memoirs written ten years after the fact, he said he rode to the right flank on the morning of June 23 to meet with Schofield and Hooker. When he presented Hooker’s message, Schofield became angry, saying his troops were in their proper position on the right. Sherman wrote that he chided Hooker for claiming three corps were in front of him. 

Historian Albert Castel writes Sherman was guilty of product of faulty memory and personal animosity toward Hooker. Schofield later denied being angry with Hooker.  He suggested Sherman must have misunderstood Hooker’s message. In any case, once the action began, Hooker performed superbly as a combat leader.  This would set up the future departure of Hooker when Sherman passed him over to take McPherson’s place as commander of the Army of the Tennessee after the Battle of Peachtree Creek in July.  Another time, another story, but completely related.

Reputations further varnished – Hood

John Bell Hood was a very aggressive commander.  Attack or Die by Grady McWhiney and Perry Jamieson describes a problem with Confederate commanders was they tended towards too aggressive.  Certainly, Hood fell in that category.  He always looked for opportunities to attack.  At Kolb’s Farm, he saw an opportunity to stop the Federal advance and turn Sherman’s flank, in turn.  Overaggressive, he attacked without even reconnoitering the ground and situation first.  As a result, he was outnumbered, and his men ran headlong into massed Union artillery.

Johnston had never been a favorite of President Jefferson Davis.  Davis was forced into putting him into place for the failed Braxton Bragg after Missionary Ridge.  Johnston knew the only way he could win the Atlanta campaign was through drawing out the war through attrition.  Keep Sherman from capturing Atlanta until after the US presidential election of 1864 and the South may have been facing a president of another shade in one George Brinton McClellan.  Johnston represented the antithesis of a John B. Hood.

Much like Hooker, Hood passed on information to his political chiefs about Johnston and his constant retreats.  Davis would finally replace Johnston with Hood and that would not go well at all.  At Kolb’s Farm, Hood was tasked with merely matching Federal flanking moves and not attacking.  He was not amused at Hood’s actions.  The infighting between Johnston and Hood simply mirrored life at the top of the Army of Tennessee, for better or worse.

BATTLEFIELD TODAY

Like other battlefields where the Army of the Cumberland fought, there are significant areas of the Atlanta campaign battlefields lying outside the National Military Park boundaries today – i.e. Stones River.  Kennesaw Mountain is the only area preserved by the Federal government from the Atlanta campaign.  There are some recent attempts on a state level – i.e. Resaca, but the battles around Atlanta remain lost to urbanity.  Remember, Atlanta was a town of only around 20,000 at the time of the war.  Today, over 6 million call the area home.  Lack of strong land use boundaries mean Atlanta has transformed into LA without the beaches.  Urban sprawl encompasses huge amounts of the region.

beginnings

There was thought to memorialize some of the battlefields around Atlanta to include a boulevard which would link them.  Developers won out, however, as they claimed such memorials would have suffocated the growth of the city.  Kennesaw Mountain was on the outskirts at the time becoming the focus for Atlanta remembrance.  Today, Kennesaw Mountain is not on the outskirts, but firmly surrounded by McMansions in the trees with megachurches and fast-moving trafficked boulevards.

The park got its start after the war when a group of Illinois veterans bought 60 acres around Cheatham Hill.  Here, they erected the Illinois State Monument in honor of those Illinoisans who died here in the fighting around the Dead Angle.  The land was gifted to the federal government in 1916.  The War Department was responsible for the beginning development of the park, work continued by the National Park Service with the park transferred to NPS care 26 June 1935.  Today, the park encompasses 2,923 acres with four battlefield areas – Visitor Center, Burnt Hickory Road, Cheatham Hill-Dead Angle and Kolb Farm on the very south edge of the park.

visitor center

Most tourists head for the area around the Visitor Center and the two mountains on the north edge of the park – Big and Little Kennesaw Mountains.  On a nice day on a weekend in Fall or Spring, good luck finding a parking spot.  There is a road winding its way up the mountain sometimes open with a little parking lot on top.  The road is not open to cars on the weekends.  People can walk up the road or they have a choice of a couple trails leading up to the top of Big Kennesaw from which a trail continues over to the top of Little Kennesaw.  Trail networks lead a long way towards the other hills and main battle sites further to the south.

state monuments

Kennesaw Mountain is not the granite forest one sees at Chickamauga, Shiloh, Gettysburg or even atop Missionary Ridge. Four monuments remember the men of their respective states who fought and died here: Georgia, Texas, Illinois and a recent memorial to Federal Regular troops.

The Georgia Monument – 1963 – located near the Visitor Center is probably seen by the most visitors. It is a large, tall block standing at the base of Big Kennesaw Mountain a few steps away from the Visitor Center. Georgians figured in the battle mainly in the form of Hugh Mercer’s Georgia Brigade fighting against the men of Joseph Lightburn’s brigade at the foot of Pigeon Hill along Burnt Hickory Road. The monument all Georgians who served. An inscription on the obelisk reads: ‘We sleep here in obedience to law / When duty called, we came / When country called we died.’

Texas placed a monument of the road heading into Cheatham Hill and the Dead Angle south off the Dallas Highway – Georgia Route 120. The monument sits about where the Texans of Hiram B. Granville fought. The pink granite tablet is similar to other Texas monuments found on many other Civil War sites.

illinois

Illinois veterans purchased land on Cheatham Hill where the Dead Angle lay in 1900. From this 60-acre plot, today’s National Military Park developed. The monument dates to 1914, the 50th anniversary of the battle. Twenty-five feet high, made of white Georgia marble, the monument is topped by an American eagle. Two Grecian women flank a soldier standing at parade rest.

On the downhill slope, there is a little tunnel entrance which was to be used to plant a mine underneath the Confederate fortifications which stood just behind the monument on its east side – earthen bunkers are still visible. The Federal attack was unsuccessful in breaking the Confederate line though the fighting got to a point of hand-to-hand combat atop the Rebel earthworks. Instead of retreating back to their starting points, the Union soldiers dug in just below the Confederate works as close as ten yards apart. The lines stayed that way until the Army of Tennessee withdrew 2 July.

RESTORATION

On my first visit here, the monument was being restored – 2013-2014 – for the 150th anniversary of the battle. More recently, the monument was targeted by vandals. That damage has been repaired and the monument stands proudly today deep in the woods on Cheatham Hill.

Walk a short distance around the Dead Angle to the south and you find a grave of an unknown Union soldier. Lots of brigade markers dot the forests here at the scene of the main battle. A couple of personal monuments reflect on sites where individuals fell in battle. Cannons are set up where the Confederate defenders fired out from.

federal regular brigade memorial

A fairly recent small granite memorial stands in the fields just south of the parking lot off Burnt Hickory Road near the trail ascending Pigeon Hill. It remembers the efforts of the brigade of US troops who belonged to the Regular Army, as opposed to the vast majority of men who fought in Volunteer regiments raised in their respective home states. The Atlanta Campaign would be their last actions on the battlefield. “Shot down” over the course of many battles, the Regulars spent the end of the war stationed atop Lookout Mountain. There they would slowly regroup while they reorganized for postwar duties including the occupation of the South and return to frontier battles in the West.

trails into the woods

The trail system – 17.3 miles – demonstrates a secondary raison d’etre for the national park – recreation.  Hikers, joggers, would-be ultra marathoners along with the occasional history buffs can be found – along with horsemen and bikers on some trails – wandering about in the hardwood deciduous forests of the Kennesaw Ridge.  Walkers can cover over 15 miles using different trails to cover most of the park from the Visitor Center in the north down to Kolb Farm in the south.  For me, the best time of the year is spring or fall when the leaves are gone or just budding.  Summer is hot and humid.  The one late August day I did the trail left me wet from the inside out.

The walk to the top of Kennesaw is a bit brisk but easy.  The paths can be very busy with visitors – 1.4 miles on the road or 1/1 miles on the trail to the summit – 664 vertical feet gain.  On top, a couple cannons point off to where the Federal lines used to sit on to the north and west.  The mountain is a last outrider of the long Appalachian ridges which you can glimpse to the north.  To the south rise the skyscrapers of downtown Atlanta.