Ezra Church: The Third Blow in Five Days

On July twenty-eighth, eighteen sixty-four, Confederate General John Bell Hood sent his army out from the fortifications around Atlanta for the third major offensive attack in five days. The result was the Battle of Ezra Church, fought on what is now the west side of Atlanta near the intersection of Gordon Street and Mozley Drive.

Hood had taken command of the Army of Tennessee just two weeks earlier, replacing Joseph Johnston, who had conducted a fighting retreat from Chattanooga to the outskirts of Atlanta without risking a decisive engagement. Confederate President Jefferson Davis wanted aggression. Hood gave it to him. On July twentieth he attacked at Peachtree Creek. On July twenty-second he struck the Army of the Tennessee in the Battle of Atlanta, killing Union General James McPherson. Both attacks failed to break the Union siege.

For the third attack, Hood targeted the Army of the Tennessee again, now under General Oliver Howard, as it swung around Atlanta's west side to cut the Lick Skillet Road and eventually the railroads feeding the city. Hood dispatched two corps under Stephen Lee and Alexander Stewart to intercept Howard before he could consolidate his position.

The Union army beat them to the high ground. Howard's men had just enough time to pile fence rails and logs into breastworks before the Confederate assault came. The Confederates attacked across open fields into prepared positions, again and again, in the July heat. They were repulsed each time.

Union losses were around seven hundred. Confederate casualties were estimated at three thousand to five thousand, a ratio the Confederate army could not sustain. Hood had spent roughly thirteen thousand men in five days of offensive action without breaking the siege or stopping Sherman's methodical encirclement of Atlanta. The city would fall six weeks later.