“The Final Battles of the Atlanta Campaign”
On a quiet, county road seven miles southwest of McDonough, Georgia a fierce struggle between opposing armies took place between July 20th and September 5th 1864. Only one historical marker dots this site, and there are no massive battlefield maps or push-button audio tapes to guide the curious observer. The Nash Farm Battlefield, which ended the Atlanta Campaign boasts no cannons lining the road as does its northern neighbors at Kennesaw or Chickamauga National Military Parks; in fact, the countryside is so calm and pastoral that it's hard to believe the land has witnessed anything more than an occasional disagreement between neighbors.
Thousands of brave soldiers from Georgia, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio fought and died there in several feverish battles. Some of those soldiers were from Henry County, and some tendered the supreme sacrifice within miles of their own homes.
Describing the plight of our Nation's Civil War Battlefields is disheartening. Many of them are becoming lost because of negligence and disinterest by the public. Increased encroachment of building subdivisions and shopping strip malls spring up next to historic and sacred grounds creating a threat both real and aesthetic.
If
you connect all the dots on a map of the 33
battles that were fought in the Atlanta Campaign,
the last dot would end at the Nash Farm Battlefield
in Western Henry County, located near Lovejoy.
On any preservation map of the Atlanta Campaign,
the battlefield dots start in north Georgia
but mysteriously end at Kennesaw Mountain. Nothing
was ever set aside at Peachtree Creek, the International
city of Atlanta, Ezra Church, Utoy Creek or
Jonesboro, the home of “Gone With the
Wind.” These battlefield dots are all
missing. Battlefield preservation of these sites
are all lost. But at last, the Nash Farm Battlefield
has been awakened after being asleep for over
140 years.
These
204 acres of prime battlefield were the last
stopping point and the final acreage that could
have been saved from the Atlanta Campaign. My
expertise on this subject comes from 30 years
of heavy experience in the field of Civil War
Relic Hunting. This land is all that is left
from the Atlanta Campaign and what’s so
ironic is the fact that the Atlanta Campaign
“officially ended here.”
The surrounding battlefield areas near this property have all been covered up by urban development, so any future opportunity of battlefield preservation of the Atlanta Campaign from Kennesaw Mountain to this property, (which officially ended the campaign at the Nash Farm near Lovejoy), are bleak and inevitably all lost.
I
was very happy the morning it was announced
in the newspapers that the old Nash Farm Battlefield
in western Henry County had been purchased by
Henry County after many long months of negotiations
and court proceedings. This 204 acre battlefield
is located on the McDonough and Babb’s
Mill Road in western Henry County, 23 miles
south of Atlanta.
On
the day the great news was announced, I was
eating breakfast at Hardee’s in McDonough
and I decided to drive to the site and privately
celebrate this long awaited victory. As I was
driving to the battlefield site, it began to
drizzle. I was just happily driving along and
absorbing all that had transpired in the last
10 months. I was thinking to myself, "This
news is almost too good to be true!” After
fifteen minutes of driving in a heavy misting
rain, I arrived at the battlefield.
It
was foreboding that gray and overcast morning.
Thunder rolled in from an approaching storm
sounding like distant field artillery. It rained
shortly after. When I got out of my vehicle,
I immediately realized that this particular
battlefield I was standing on was the most beautiful
place I had ever seen; yet it remains the saddest
place I have ever walked on. I have felt this
profound feeling every time I visit this sacred
place.
Mark Pollard – Official Civil War Historian for Henry County