HistoricSiteMarkers
Civil War

Battle of Kolb's Farm

Cobb County, Cobb County, Georgia

Marker Inscription

Battle of Kolb's Farm June 22, 1864. The 14th Kentucky (2d Division, 23d A.C.,) together with the 123d N. Y. (1st Division, 20th A.C.,) were posted as skirmishers East of the Kolb farmstead. The stubborn resistance by the 14th Ky., and the 123d N.Y., disrupted the concerted assault by Stevenson's Division, upon the main line astride the Powder Springs Road West of this point. This delaying action, together with Federal artillery fire halted Stevenson's attempt to win his objective. 033-12 GEORGIA HISTORICAL COMMISSION 1952

Erected by Georgia Historical Commission

The Story

On June 22, 1864, the 14th Kentucky and 123rd New York were posted as skirmishers east of the Kolb farmstead during the Battle of Kolb's Farm. Their stubborn resistance, together with Federal artillery fire, disrupted and delayed Stevenson's Confederate assault on the main Union line along the Powder Springs Road, helping to halt the attack short of its objective.

Why it matters

The determined stand of these skirmishers shows how small units could blunt a major assault, a recurring feature of the entrenched fighting that defined the Atlanta Campaign.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

In late June of 1864, the war in north Georgia had become a patient, wearing affair. For weeks the armies had maneuvered across ridges and farmland northwest of Atlanta, the Federals pressing forward and the Confederates falling back from one prepared line to the next. The countryside around the Kolb farmstead in Cobb County was ordinary working land — fields, woods, and roads — until the fighting gave it a name to remember.

Much of the real work of this campaign fell to small groups of soldiers doing unglamorous jobs. Chief among them were the skirmishers: men sent out ahead of the main battle lines in loose formation, tasked with screening the army, probing the enemy, and, above all, slowing an attack long enough for the main line to be ready. It was dangerous, lonely work, done in ones and twos among the trees.

The stakes of the broader campaign pressed down on even these forward outposts. Every hour a defending force could buy, every assault it could disrupt before it gathered full weight, fed into a much larger struggle over the approaches to Atlanta.

People & events

On June 22, 1864, two Federal regiments held that forward, exposed duty east of the Kolb farmstead: the 14th Kentucky, drawn from a division of the Twenty-third Corps, and the 123rd New York, from a division of the Twentieth Corps. Posted as skirmishers, they stood between the advancing Confederates and the main Union line waiting to the west, along the Powder Springs Road.

When Carter Stevenson's division came on, these skirmishers did what skirmishers are meant to do, only better than most. Their stubborn resistance broke up the timing and cohesion of the assault. An attack depends on hitting the main line all at once, with force concentrated; a determined skirmish line that refuses to fold can pull that punch apart before it lands.

Their stand did not fight the battle alone. Combined with Federal artillery fire directed against the advancing troops, the delay these regiments imposed helped halt Stevenson's effort short of its objective. What might have been a concerted blow against the main line arrived disordered and was stopped.

Its place in the American story

There is a lesson in this small action that runs through the entire campaign: modest numbers of resolute men, well placed, could shape the outcome of a much larger fight. The 14th Kentucky and 123rd New York were not the main line, yet by disrupting an assault's timing they helped decide how that assault ended.

This was the texture of the fighting on the road to Atlanta — entrenched positions, forward skirmish lines, and artillery working together, so that attacks had to survive a gauntlet before they ever reached the defenders' main strength. Again and again, that layered defense blunted Confederate counterthrusts and preserved the Federal advance.

And that advance, sustained through countless such small contests, was carrying the war toward a decisive result in Georgia — one that would reach far beyond any single field, shaping Northern confidence and the course of the war in a critical year. The steadiness of two skirmishing regiments belongs to that larger story.

If you visit

Stand east of where the farmstead once was and imagine the ground ahead of the main line, out where the skirmishers waited. This is a place to appreciate the soldiers who fought in the open, in loose order, without the protection of the fortified line behind them — and who, by holding on, changed the shape of a battle.

Let the marker orient you toward the Powder Springs Road to the west, where the main line stood, and the ground to the east, where the forward regiments made their stand. Picture an assault losing its cohesion against that stubborn screen, then breaking apart under artillery fire before it could strike home.

The site lies in Cobb County, within easy reach of Atlanta and a natural stop on a day tracing the 1864 campaign. Give this quiet spot a few minutes of attention; it honors the kind of small-unit courage that rarely makes headlines but often decides the day.

Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.

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Related people

  • · Carter Stevenson

Related events

  • · Battle of Kolb's Farm
  • · Atlanta Campaign

Themes & tags

Civil WarBattlefield

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