HistoricSiteMarkers
Civil War

Battle of Ruff's Mill

Mableton, Cobb County, Georgia

Marker Inscription

Battle of Ruff's Mill. July 4, 1864. Early a.m., Brig. Gen. John Fuller's brigade, 4th div., 16th A. C. [US] moved 1 mi. E. from the Nickajack Cr. Bridge, Concord Rd., to ascertain the strength of Hood's A. C. [CS]. Finding it strongly posted, Fuller returned to Ruff's Mill. Late p.m., Fuller's men again advanced, supported by Sweeney's 2nd div., and after a bitter struggle seized the first line of works on Hood's rt. near the present Gann Cemetery. This Federal assault on Johnston's left & the one at Smyrna, on his rt., were incidental to his retreat from Kennesaw to the river. Col. Edward Noyes, 39th O.V.V.I. (Governor of Ohio 1872-1874), lost a leg in this battle. 033-74 GEORGIA HISTORIC MARKER 1954

Erected by Georgia Historical Commission

The Story

On July 4, 1864, Union Brig. Gen. John Fuller's brigade probed east from Nickajack Creek to test the strength of the Confederate position near Ruff's Mill. Finding it strongly held, Fuller returned, then advanced again with support and after a bitter struggle seized the first line of Confederate works. The action, paired with fighting at Smyrna, was part of pressuring Johnston's retreat from Kennesaw toward the Chattahoochee.

Why it matters

Ruff's Mill was one of the sharp holding actions that accompanied the Confederate withdrawal to the river line, a step closer to Atlanta in Sherman's grinding advance.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

By the summer of 1864, the war in Georgia had become a slow, sweltering wrestling match across the country northwest of Atlanta. A great Union army was pressing south, and the Confederate forces in its path fought a campaign of prepared lines and grudging withdrawals — standing behind earthworks, forcing a fight, then slipping back to the next defensible position closer to the Chattahoochee River.

The ground around Ruff's Mill and Nickajack Creek in Cobb County was typical of the theater: creeks, mill roads, and wooded rises that a defending army could turn into a formidable line of works almost overnight. Control of the roads and crossings here shaped whether an army could hold or had to give way.

The fight recorded on this marker took place on July 4, 1864 — Independence Day — though for the soldiers in these fields the date meant only another hot, dangerous day of probing an entrenched enemy. It was one of several sharp actions tied to the larger movement of the Confederate army as it fell back from the Kennesaw Mountain line toward the river.

People & events

Early on the morning of July 4, 1864, Brigadier General John Fuller led his brigade of the 16th Army Corps roughly a mile east from the Nickajack Creek bridge along Concord Road. His job was reconnaissance — to find out how strong the Confederate position in his front really was. He found it strongly posted and prudently pulled his men back to Ruff's Mill rather than throw them against works he could not yet measure.

Late in the day Fuller advanced again, this time supported by Thomas Sweeney's division. After what the marker plainly calls a bitter struggle, the Federals seized the first line of Confederate works on the enemy's right, near the ground of the present Gann Cemetery. This assault on the Confederate left, paired with fighting at Smyrna on the other flank, was incidental to the larger fact shaping the whole area: the Confederate army under Joseph E. Johnston was in the middle of withdrawing from Kennesaw toward the river.

The day left its mark on individual men as much as on the map. Colonel Edward Noyes of the 39th Ohio lost a leg in this battle. He survived his wound and went on to a public life far from these fields, serving as governor of Ohio in the 1870s — a reminder that the soldiers here carried the day forward into lives and careers well beyond the war.

Its place in the American story

Ruff's Mill was not a battle that decided the campaign by itself, and it does not need to have been. Its importance lies in what it was part of: the steady, costly pressure that kept a retreating army from ever settling into a position it could hold for long.

Actions like this one and the fighting at Smyrna were the holding and prying actions that accompanied the Confederate withdrawal to the Chattahoochee line. Each of them nudged the front closer to Atlanta and forced defenders to spend men and time they could not spare, all as part of a relentless advance that would eventually take the city.

And the presence of a man like Edward Noyes here ties this local field to the broader American story in a personal way. The Civil War pulled ordinary citizens into extraordinary events and then returned the survivors, changed, to shape their communities and states for decades afterward. The story of Ruff's Mill is both a military footnote and a doorway into those individual lives.

If you visit

This is suburban Cobb County today, so part of the pleasure here is imagining the July heat, the creek, the mill road, and the woods where soldiers advanced, retreated, and advanced again. Look toward the ground near Gann Cemetery, mentioned on the marker as the site of the captured works, and let the modern landscape fall away for a moment.

Because so much of this action turned on terrain — the Nickajack Creek crossing, Concord Road, the rise where the Confederate line was posted — reading the inscription while facing the lay of the land brings the sequence to life: the morning probe, the withdrawal, the late-day assault. It rewards a slow, attentive stop rather than a quick glance.

Ruff's Mill fits naturally into a day spent tracing the Atlanta Campaign through Cobb County, where the Confederate retreat from Kennesaw to the Chattahoochee left a trail of markers and preserved ground. Pause long enough to remember that these quiet fields once turned an ordinary Fourth of July into a bitter fight.

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

  • · John Fuller
  • · Thomas Sweeney
  • · Edward Noyes
  • · Joseph E. Johnston

Related events

  • · Battle of Ruff's Mill
  • · Atlanta Campaign

Themes & tags

Civil WarBattlefield

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