"The Battle of Peach Tree Creek." Topic

Hood's First Sortie, July 20, 1864.

"Some excellent general treatments small and large (most particularly, Albert Castel's unsurpassed Decision in the West) and a fine map study exist in book form for the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, but it bears repeating just how few first-class histories of the individual battles fought along the road from North Georgia to Atlanta and around the city itself have been produced. Even with its flaws, Robert Jenkins's The Battle of Peach Tree Creek: Hood's First Sortie, July 20, 1864* easily provides the best modern interpretation and most complete description of the battle to date.

Jenkins's study is an extraordinarily detailed military microhistory of the Battle of Peachtree Creek, its bibliography indicative of the type and amount of primary and secondary source research necessary for such a creation. The scale at which the action unfolds runs the entire gamut from army level command all the way down to individual companies on the firing line. In common with most battle books of this type, the main text consists of a narrative thread accompanied throughout by well selected excerpts and extensive block quotes from the official documents, letters, diaries, journals, and memoirs written by participants.

One cannot help but agree with the author that the Confederate Army of Tennessee commander, General John Bell Hood, devised a sound battle plan with reasonable expectations for success. While a single corps and the Confederate cavalry occupied the attention of the bulk of Sherman's massive army group off to the east, two corps (Stewart's and Hardee's) would exploit a carelessly created two mile wide gap in the Union center, hitting George Thomas's Army of the Cumberland in front and flank as the federals were in the process of crossing Peachtree Creek. Hardee's Corps, at four divisions the strongest of the two Confederate assault columns, would begin the attack by turning and crushing the vulnerable Union left (John Newton's division of O.O. Howard's IV Corps) while the rest of the army would advance en echelon from right to left, driving the federals back into rugged creek bottoms where they might be broken up in detail…"

Full review here.
link

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

The author's research was first rate, but the book needed much, much more editing. Both in layout, style, and content. I can't praise the author's research and attention to detail enough, but its a very , very tedious and disjointed read. It also has 87 pages listing every single casualty of the battle, but no Order of Battle.

I recommend it, just be prepared.

Many thanks for your recomendation my friend.

Amicalement
Armand