Kennesaw Mountain game: Sherman goes straight at the works
The one time in the Atlanta Campaign that Sherman threw his army head-on at Johnston's entrenchments. Kennesaw Mountain is part of The Western Campaigns in Civy War.
One scenario, playable from either side. Every battle runs five minutes on the clock against a Green, Regular or Veteran enemy: the attacker has to break the line before nightfall, the defender has to hold.
Kennesaw Mountain
The Western Campaigns
June 27, 1864 · 8 a.m.
As the Union, break the Kennesaw line at Pigeon Hill or the Dead Angle. Logan's XV Corps, Giles A. Smith's, Lightburn's and Walcutt's brigades, goes up Pigeon Hill on the left; on the right Newton's division, Harker's, Wagner's and Kimball's brigades, and Davis's, with Dan McCook's and Mitchell's, go in against the salient on Cheatham Hill. Find the weak place, and do not feed the whole army into one ravine.
As the Confederacy, hold the line and let them come up the hill. French's division, Cockrell's Missourians, Sears's Mississippians and Ector's brigade, holds Little Kennesaw and Pigeon Hill, with guns on the mountain. Down the line, Cheatham's Tennesseans and Cleburne's men hold the angle. Keep your guns firing down the slopes.
The battle
Through May and June 1864 William T. Sherman pushed toward Atlanta, and Joseph E. Johnston slipped away from every flanking march. In late June Johnston was dug in along Kennesaw Mountain and the ridges south of it, and the rain had turned the roads to soup. Sherman decided the line must be thin somewhere.
The assault failed everywhere. On Pigeon Hill, Logan's men carried the rifle pits but could not climb the rocks into the main works. At Cheatham Hill, Newton's and Davis's columns reached the parapet of the Dead Angle and were cut down there; Brigadier General Charles Harker was mortally wounded and Colonel Dan McCook fell on the works. Davis's survivors dug in barely thirty yards from the Confederate line and held on for days. George H. Thomas warned Sherman that one or two more such assaults would use up the army.
Union losses were about 3,000, Confederate about 1,000. On July 2 Sherman went back to flanking, and Johnston abandoned the mountain that night. Atlanta fell in September.
Free or paid
Paid: part of The Western Campaigns, a one-time purchase that unlocks Chickamauga, Olustee, Kennesaw Mountain and Atlanta (Perryville, the first, is free). The map is G. H. Blakeslee's 1864 survey of the country around Kennesaw, Pine and Lost Mountains, from the Library of Congress.
Thirteen battles, the Drill Field and the Field Manual are free. The Historical Campaigns, Grant's Campaigns and The Western Campaigns are optional one-time purchases that restore on every device signed in to the same Apple ID.