Upon returning from his Kentucky Heartland Campaign in October 1862, General Braxton Bragg reorganized the troops under his command into the Army of Tennessee. General Seth Barton of Virginia was given command of a new Georgia Brigade, made up of the 40th, 41st, 42nd, 43rd and 52nd Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiments. Composed of men from 39 counties in the Mountain and Piedmont Districts of Georgia, the brigade was assigned to Major General Stevenson’s division of the Army of Tennessee. These Georgians were familiar with one another, having trained together at Camp McDonald in March and April of 1862. The 42nd and 52nd Regiments went to serve together in the Cumberland Gap campaign. The 40th Georgia fought valiantly at Perryville, Kentucky, making it the only battle-tested regiment of the bunch. 

Barton’s brigade was sent to Vicksburg, Mississippi, in December 1862, and the Georgians fought with spirit and determination at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou. Things did not go nearly as well at the Battle of Champion Hill in May 1863. Here, they were whipped by the forces of Ulysses S. Grant, with Colonel Skidmore Harris of the 43rd mortally wounded leading his troops and Colonel Charles Phillips of the 52nd Georgia being captured. The Confederate forces under John C. Pemberton retreated to earthen defenses around Vicksburg. Grant’s siege lasted 47 days with the Rebel soldiers under constant bombardment and living on half-rations. The entire Confederate garrison of 32,000 men was formally surrendered on July 4, 1863. Disease had ripped through the Southern army and many of Barton’s men never returned to their Georgia homes.           

After being formally exchanged in September 1863, the reorganized brigade was put under the command of General Marcellus Stovall of Augusta, Georgia. The brigade fought well in the Atlanta Campaign, particularly at the Battles of Resaca and New Hope Church. General Joseph Johnston often depended on Stovall’s brigade to cover his retreats, and the Confederate commander referred to them in Napoleonic fashion as his “Old Guard.” In the Battle of Atlanta, fought on July 22, 1864, Stovall’s brigade, under the temporary command of Colonel Abda Johnson, made a heroic charge near the Troup Hurt House south of the tracks of the Georgia Railroad. They successfully drove the Federal troops from their trenches and seized two pieces of artillery. This pivotal moment is captured in the 1886 Cyclorama painting now at the Atlanta History Center. 

The five regiments in Stovall’s brigade were full participants in General John Bell Hood’s ill-fated Tennessee Campaign in the late fall of 1864. On the second day of the Battle of Nashville, the Georgians inflicted tremendous casualties on United States Colored Regiments attempting to storm Overton Hill. The Confederate line soon collapsed on the other side of Hood’s position, however, and it fell to Stovall’s men to cover the haphazard Rebel retreat southward in the wind, snow, and mud. After crossing the Tennessee River, the Georgians went into winter quarters near Tupelo, Mississippi, but, in a matter of weeks, they were put on trains and sent  back to Georgia. Their final orders were to help stop General William T. Sherman’s advance through the Carolinas. Stovall’s men fought at Orangeburg, South Carolina and then fell back to Charlotte, North Carolina. Their last major battle was at Bentonville, where they surprised one wing of Sherman’s army. The brigade was down to 400 men when they were formally surrendered outside of Greensboro, North Carolina.

Cliff Roberts