The Dead-Line

Granbury's Texas Brigade at Pickett's Mill 

Though it was formed late during the Civil War, Brigadier General Hiram Granbury’s Texas Brigade would establish a legendary reputation for bravery and ferocity in the Western Theater.  The brigade was formed in November, 1863 at Chattanooga before the Battle of Missionary Ridge.  Eight Texas regiments, including Granbury’s 7^th Texas, were consolidated into a single brigade under the command of General James Argyle Smith.  A lawyer before the war, Granbury had commanded the 7th Texas from the Fort Donelson Campaign until the Battle of Chickamauga.   The new brigade was attached to the Confederate division commanded by Arkansas Irishman, Major General Patrick Cleburne. Smith was wounded during the Battle of Missionary Ridge and replaced with Granbury.  During the Confederate retreat from Chattanooga, Granbury assisted Cleburne in performing a remarkable rearguard action at Ringold Gap, saving the Confederate Army of Tennessee from annihilation. The Texans waited until the Yankees came within fifty yards then unleashed a wave of gunfire that decimated General Ulysses S. Grant’s XV corps. After a five hour stand, Cleburne withdrew into Georgia and received the official gratitude of the Confederate Congress.    The following spring, Union forces, under General William Tecumseh Sherman, advanced into Georgia.  General Joseph Johnston tried to hold off Sherman by forming a series of defensive lines which Sherman skillfully bypassed, forcing Johnston to retreat.  Sherman’s objective was Atlanta, not a single decisive battle.  On May 22, 1864, Johnston again established a defensive line, this time, thirty miles east of Atlanta at New Hope Church.  General Thomas Hooker, the former Commander of the Army of the Potomac, struck the entrenched Confederate division of General Alexander P. Stewart.  Hooker was repulsed with heavy casualties, but the worst was yet to come.  Further to the right on Johnston’s line, near an abandoned grist mill owned by the Pickett family, Patrick Cleburne was waiting.

Though repulsed at New Hope Church, Sherman decided to try flanking the Confederate right.  He dispatched General Oliver Howard’s Corps for the attempt.  The one-armed Howard was known as “Old Prayer Book” by his men for his fervent Christian beliefs.  The rocky ravines and jungle-like growth made marching difficult.  Companies became lost in the vines and could only find their way through bugle calls to and from the companies marching in front.  The Confederates heard the bugles as well and positioned themselves accordingly.  Cleburne’s men had the advantage of height above a vine-chocked ravine.  On May 27, the brigade of General William Hazen moved up ravine toward Granbury’s Texans.  Cleburne’s artillery opened fire, cutting down trees and men alike.  Hazen’s tough Ohioans continued their advance to within thirty yards of the Texans.  Like Rngold Gap, a brutal standup fight ensued along Granbury’s line.

 Future author, Lieutenant Ambrose Bierce witnessed the battle firsthand and later penned an account entitled “The Crime at Pickett’s Mill.”  Bierce later wrote, “With its well-defined edge of corpses-those of the bravest, where both lines are fighting without cover-as in a charge met by a counter-charge-each has its deadline and between the two is a clear spot-neutral ground, devoid of dead, for the living cannot reach it to fall there.”  Confederate Sergeant A.G. Anderson also left an account of the deadline.  “They seemed to be drunk, and line after line would charge us and be cut down,” he wrote, “They came so close to us that they endeavored to plant their colors (flags) right in our lines, and when the flag would go down another man would raise it again.  Many of their men rushed into our lines and were clubbed and bayoneted to death.”  An exception to the many was noted by Private William Oliphant.  Dropping his musket, one young Union soldier grabbed one of the implanted flags, waved it in the Texans faces, and then retreated down the ravine.  “One of the Texans,” recalled Oliphant, “shouted out don’t shoot him, he’s too brave.”  A cheer went up as the young bluecoat retreated down the ravine with the flag.

By 6:00 PM, Sherman decided to call off the attack.  Union casualties were 1,600 killed and wounded.  Cleburne suffered 600.  In General Cleburne's official report on Pickett’s Mill, Cleburne wrote, "The piles of dead on this front was but a silent eulogy upon Granbury and his noble Texans."  Faced with further losses and tired of the rugged, wooded terrain, Sherman decided to pull his army from their trenches and head northeast toward the railhead at Allatoona Pass.  Johnston could only follow.  Blankets of dead horses and humans filled the ravines from New Hope Church to Pickett’s Mill.  Union troops gave the ravines an appropriate moniker - “The Hell Hole.”  Impatient with his retreats and lack of success, Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaced Johnston the following July with General John Bell Hood.