Resaca 15 May 1864

On the second day at Resaca, a further feinting attack was ordered, while more Union troops traversed the Oostanaula downstream. The battle revolved around the Confederate ‘Cherokee’ Battery of four cannon, which had been positioned to fire on the Union lines. While other Union attacks were repulsed General Hooker’s men managed to storm the battery, before being forced back by heavy fire. The battery remained stranded in no man’s land until after the battle, and nightfall, when a Union sortie succeeded in dragging the guns back to their lines. By then, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston had learned of the Union river crossings and, in danger of being outflanked, ordered withdrawal. After the war, the landowners of the battlefield, the Green family, returned to find their land strewn with the makeshift graves of dead soldiers. Their daughter Mary Green organized their collection and interment to create the first formal Confederate cemetery on the site.