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The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain was fought on June 27, 1864, during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War. It was the most significant frontal assault launched by Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman against the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, ending in a tactical defeat for the Union forces. Strategically, however, the battle failed to deliver the result that the Confederacy desperately needed--namely a halt to Sherman's advance on Atlanta. Sherman's 1864 campaign against Atlanta, Georgia, was initially characterized by a series of flanking maneuvers against Johnston, each of which compelled the Confederate army to withdraw from heavily fortified positions with minimal casualties on either side. After two months and of such maneuvering, Sherman's path was blocked by imposing fortifications on Kennesaw Mountain, near Marietta, Georgia, and the Union general chose to change his tactics and ordered a large-scale frontal assault on June 27, 1864. Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson feinted against the northern end of Kennesaw Mountain, while his corps under Maj. Gen. John A. Logan assaulted Pigeon Hill on its southwest corner. At the same time, Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas launched strong attacks against Cheatham Hill at the center of the Confederate line. Both attacks were repulsed with heavy losses, but a demonstration by Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield achieved a strategic success by threatening the Confederate army's left flank, prompting yet another Confederate withdrawal toward Atlanta and the removal of General Johnston from command of the army. ==Background== In March 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to lieutenant general and named general in chief of the Union Army. He devised a strategy of multiple, simultaneous offensives against the Confederacy, hoping to prevent any of the rebel armies from reinforcing the others over interior lines. The two most significant of these were by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's Army of the Potomac, accompanied by Grant himself, which would attack Robert E. Lee's army directly and advance toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia; and Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, replacing Grant in his role as commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, who would advance from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Atlanta.〔Eicher, p. 661; McPherson, p. 722.〕 Both Grant and Sherman initially had objectives to engage with and destroy the two principal armies of the Confederacy, relegating the capture of important enemy cities to a secondary, supporting role. This was a strategy that President Abraham Lincoln had emphasized throughout the war, but Grant was the first general who actively cooperated with it. As their campaigns progressed, however, the political importance of the cities of Richmond and Atlanta began to dominate their strategy. By 1864, Atlanta was a critical target. The city of 20,000 was founded at the intersection of four important railroad lines that supplied the Confederacy and was a military manufacturing arsenal in its own right. Atlanta's nickname of "Gate City of the South" was apt—its capture would open virtually the entire Deep South to Union conquest. Grant's orders to Sherman were to "move against Johnston's Army, to break it up and to get into the interior of the enemy's country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their War resources."〔Bailey, pp. 20–21; Eicher, pp. 696–97.〕 Sherman's force of about 100,000 men was composed of three subordinate armies: the Army of the Tennessee (Grant's and later Sherman's army of 1862–63) under Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson; the Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas; and the relatively small Army of the Ohio (composed of only the XXIII Corps) under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield. Their principal opponent was the Confederate Army of Tennessee, commanded by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, who had replaced the unpopular Braxton Bragg after his defeat in Chattanooga in November 1863. The 50,000-man army consisted of the infantry corps of Lt. Gens. William J. Hardee, John Bell Hood, and Leonidas Polk, and a cavalry corps under Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler.〔Eicher, pp. 696–97.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Kennesaw Mountain」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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