HistoricSiteMarkers
Civil War

Benton's & Coltart's Brigades

Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia

Marker Inscription

Benton's & Coltart's Brigades. July 22, 1864. When Brown's (formerly Hindman's) div., Cheatham's A.C. [Confed.] attacked the Fed. line E. of here, Benton's Mississippi & Coltart's Alabama brigades struck Harrow's div. of the 15th A.C. [Union], dislodging Williams' & Oliver's brigades. Simultaneously, Manigault seized Martin's & Lightburn's line astride the Ga. R.R. northward - a combined action that displaced four Federal brigades on a half-mile front which they later recovered by reinforced counter-assaults. Col. Samuel Benton, wounded in the battle, was carried to the rear and later removed to a hospital at Griffin, Ga., where he died. 060-103 GEORGIA HISTORIC MARKER 1984

Erected by Georgia Historical Commission

The Story

On July 22, 1864, during the Battle of Atlanta, Benton's Mississippi and Coltart's Alabama brigades of Cheatham's corps struck the Federal line east of here, dislodging Union brigades and briefly seizing ground astride the Georgia Railroad before reinforced counterattacks recovered it. Colonel Samuel Benton was mortally wounded in the fighting and died days later at a hospital in Griffin.

Why it matters

This action was one thread in the ferocious Battle of Atlanta, the pivotal engagement whose outcome sealed the city's fate and reverberated through the 1864 presidential election and the course of the war.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

By the summer of 1864, the Civil War had reached one of its decisive theaters: the ring of hills and rail lines around Atlanta. The city was a Confederate arsenal and railroad hub, and a Union army under William T. Sherman had fought its way across north Georgia to take it. The Confederate command, now under a general known for the offensive, chose to strike rather than simply defend.

This marker fixes a single afternoon in that struggle — July 22, 1864, the day of the great engagement that history calls the Battle of Atlanta. It was fought east of the city in brutal, close-quarters attacks, brigade against brigade, over ground crossed by the Georgia Railroad.

The text here reads almost like a staff officer's report because that is the nature of a battlefield marker: it records exact units, exact directions, exact ground gained and lost. Behind that spare military language was chaos, heat, smoke, and enormous cost.

People & events

The action described is a coordinated Confederate assault. Benton's Mississippi brigade and Coltart's Alabama brigade, part of Cheatham's corps, drove into the Union line and dislodged the Federal brigades holding it, while a neighboring Confederate command seized the enemy's position astride the Georgia Railroad.

For a moment the attackers displaced four Federal brigades along a half-mile front — a real, if fleeting, success. Then the marker delivers the hard truth of Civil War tactics: the Union troops, reinforced, counterattacked and recovered the ground they had lost. Gains measured in yards were paid for in lives and then handed back before the day was out.

The marker singles out one man, Colonel Samuel Benton, wounded in the fighting. He was carried to the rear and moved to a hospital at Griffin, Georgia, where he died. In that single sentence is the fate of countless officers and soldiers in this campaign — struck down in an assault whose ground did not stay won, dying not on the field but days later, miles away, in a crowded wartime hospital.

Its place in the American story

The Battle of Atlanta was one of the pivotal engagements of the entire war, and this small brigade-level marker is a thread in that larger fabric. When the fighting around the city finally ended in the Confederate loss of Atlanta, the consequences reached far beyond Georgia.

The fall of the city landed in the middle of a presidential election year in the North. A war that had seemed to drag on without end suddenly showed a decisive Union victory, and that shift in public confidence helped shape the political fortunes of the wartime government and, with it, the country's resolve to see the conflict through to its conclusion.

That is why a half-mile of contested ground east of Atlanta matters nationally. The desperate attacks and counterattacks recorded here were part of the pressure that took the city — and taking the city changed the course of the war and the nation's future.

If you visit

This is a battlefield marker in what is now a busy modern city, and that contrast is part of its power. The fighting it describes happened on ground that today carries streets, buildings, and traffic; the marker asks you to lay a vanished landscape over the one in front of you.

Use the text as a compass. It tells you the attack came against a line east of this point and that the struggle centered on the Georgia Railroad corridor — so orient yourself, look along that axis, and imagine a half-mile front of men surging forward and being driven back. Reading the directions on the marker while standing where it stands is the whole experience.

Atlanta is dotted with markers from this campaign, so this makes one stop on a driving tour that can trace the battle across the modern map. Go slowly and read carefully; a line like Colonel Benton's wounding and death at Griffin rewards a pause, turning a bronze summary back into the human loss it records.

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

  • · Col. Samuel Benton

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  • · Battle of Atlanta

Themes & tags

Civil WarBattlefield

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