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28 Two.Kolb’sFarm The morning of June 22 dawned clear, bringing in the first dry weather in many days. Sherman’s plan for the day involved firming up his extreme right wing and advancing it closer to Marietta. Hooker’s role in the operation involved extending the Twentieth Corps line southward to the Powder Springs and Marietta Road as Schofield moved the Twenty-Third Corps forward south of that road. The two commanders would link up somewhere near a farmhouse owned by Mrs. Kolb, about four miles from Marietta and almost due south of Hardee’s line. Sherman insisted that Schofield maintain control of the intersection of the Powder Springs Road and the road to Marietta at Cheney’s House, for he wanted to use the former to move farther south when Johnston abandoned the Kennesaw Mountain Line. Because of that directive, Schofield planned to advance only a portion of his command to the Kolb House while stringing the rest of it out diagonally to maintain connection between the forward unit and those holding the area around Cheney’s. Sherman planned to ride along the line to visit McPherson , Thomas, and Hooker that day to keep tabs on progress.1 Hooker’s scouts indicated that nothing more than Confederate skirmishers stood in the way along the Powder Springs and Marietta Road. His corps was arrayed with Major General Daniel Butterfield’s Third Division on the left, connecting to Howard’s Fourth Corps, then John W. Geary’s Second Division in the center, and Alpheus S.Williams’s First Division on the right. Butterfield and Williams had about 4,600 men each, while Geary’s strength amounted to about 3,700 men.2 For Butterfield and Geary, the day involved limited movement. Geary’s skirmishers had taken a small hill that seemed to command the area at 3:00 a.m., so he moved his main line about one mile to the spot at dawn on June 22. Hooker arrived to look the ground over and told Geary to hold the height at all costs. Later that morning, Butterfield moved up to align to Geary’s left, and Williams moved up to align to his right. A “deep ravine and low ground” separated Geary’s right flank from Williams’s left, but other- KolB’S farm : 29 wise the corps seemed to be in a good position. Geary extended his Second Brigade, commanded by Colonel Patrick H. Jones, toward the ravine to lessen the gap between his right flank and Williams’s left. Jones placed the Thirteenth New York Battery on “a small knoll” between the hill and the ravine. Geary’s men began to construct breastworks of rails and anything else they could find.3 Williams advanced his division to occupy two ridges south of Geary’s position, the one on the right about two hundred yards farther east than the one on the left. He placed Brigadier General Thomas H. Ruger’s Second Brigade on the right and Brigadier General Joseph F. Knipe’s First Brigade in the center, both of them atop the forward ridge, while Colonel James S. Robinson’s Third Brigade held the left atop the other height. Open ground stretching anywhere from 500 to 1,500 yards east lay before Knipe and Robinson, and before at least two of Ruger’s regiments. A deep gully fronted Ruger’s and Knipe’s position, with ground rising from there eastward toward a belt of trees occupied by the Confederate skirmishers. But the Powder Springs and Marietta Road still lay “several hundred yards” to Williams’s right flank. Williams placed Lieutenant Charles E. Winegar’s Battery I, First New York Light Artillery, armed with three-inch rifles, on Robinson’s brigade line. He also put Captain John D. Woodbury’s Battery M, First New York Light Artillery, armed with twelve-pounder Napoleons , on Knipe’s brigade line. Both batteries could sweep the open ground to the east with their fire. Hooker’s careful advance had taken the Twentieth Corps line to near Kolb’s farmhouse by about 2:00 p.m.4 Hooker’s line was located about four miles southwest of downtown Marietta on farmland belonging to the Kolb family. The cleared area before the Twentieth Corps line extended about 1,000 yards east to west, and a couple of miles north to south. All of it lay north of the Powder Springs and Marietta Road. A small church, a schoolhouse, and some negro huts, “all...

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