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96 Five.TheFourthCorpsAttack At about the same time that Logan’s Fifteenth Corps troops started their advance along Burnt Hickory Road, elements of Howard’s Fourth Corps also started their attack two miles to the south of Pigeon Hill. Howard’s men aimed at an obscure sector of the Confederate line, shielded by a shallow stream lined with heavy vegetation. The Rebel line ran along level ground, in contrast to the line Logan futilely assaulted that morning. But the Federals had secured a position on the ridge only four hundred yards from the Confederate line on June 23; that ridge seemed to offer a good place from which to start the Fourth Corps assault. John Newton and his Second Division were responsible for making the Fourth Corps attempt to break Johnston’s Kennesaw Line. He moved his men about one mile in the early morning hours of June 27 to the sector held by Stanley’s First Division, on the far right of the Fourth Corps line. Brigade commanders Harker and Kimball were at Newton’s headquarters when the order to form their commands was issued. Howard identified the point of attack and instructed the brigades to form in columns. According to Kimball’s postwar recollection, both he and Harker protested, believing that lines would be more appropriate, but Newton told them that the order had already been issued by corps headquarters and there was nothing to do but obey them. Howard, for his part, explained that he relied heavily on Newton’s advice to pinpoint the target and form the troops in columns. In light of the bloody affair to come, everyone seemed interested in shifting responsibility for the details of the Fourth Corps attack onto someone else.1 Newton had some difficulty finding places to assemble his three brigades for the attack. Initially, he wanted to form Wagner and Kimball in one long column of regiments, but Wagner was unable to obtain ground far enough forward because clusters of Federal “shelter-trenches” were in the way. Moreover, Kimball could not find room sufficiently in the rear “owing to the irregularity of the ground.” As a result, Newton placed Kimball en tHE fourtH corpS attacK : 97 echelon to the left and rear of Wagner, while Harker formed his brigade to the right of Wagner. Intervals of about one hundred yards existed between each of the three brigades to allow for the troops to deploy into lines, if necessary , before hitting the target.Within each brigade column, the individual regiments were already in battle lines, one behind the other. The distance between the regimental lines was closed en mass, as the terminology of the day put it. In short, the regimental lines were as close to each other as the distance between the two ranks of the regimental line itself.2 The division began forming in the space between the main Union line and the fortified skirmish position at 6:00 a.m. Brigade leaders assembled their regimental commanders and gave them instructions for what was to be done. The regimental leaders then assembled their company commanders to impart these instructions.3 Harker organized his brigade with the Fifty-First Illinois in the lead, then the Twenty-Seventh Illinois, followed by the Sixty-Fifth Ohio, and, bringing up the rear, the Sixty-Fourth Ohio. For some reason, Harker formed his command in a very narrow column with a front of only two companies . His formation was not only narrow but quite long as a result. John K. Shellenberger recalled that his regiment, the Sixty-Fourth Ohio, counted off to form eight companies of equal strength, and he assumed the other regiments in Harker’s brigade did the same thing. If so, that meant Harker’s column consisted of sixteen lines stacked one behind the other. There is no evidence that Wagner or Kimball did this; they opted instead for the traditional column of division as prescribed in the tactical manual—one regimental battle line behind the next, with a frontage of ten companies.4 Newton arranged for a heavy skirmish line to precede his troops and assigned Colonel Emerson Opdycke of the 125th Ohio to lead it. “‘You will have heavy work to do,’” Newton told Opdycke at 7:45 a.m. “‘I want you to clear the front of the attacking columns, go smack up to the rebel works and pass over them if possible, before the attacking column comes up; if not pass over with them, protect their...

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