February 22, 1864 - February 27, 1864

	Union	Army of the Cumberland	0
	Confederate	Army of Tennessee	0
	Total Losses		0

Battle Location:  Whitfield County
Campaign:  Demonstration on Dalton (1864)
Theatre:  Main Western
Winner:  Confederacy
Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas		Gen. Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Union Commander		Confederate Commander
During the late winter of 1864, after his miraculous November 1863 victory at Missionary Ridge, which broke the Confederate siege of Chattanooga, General Ulysses S. Grant established General William T. Sherman in charge of an independent command and dispatched him to Meridian,Mississippi, a supply depot for the Confederate forces in the south. To counter this aggressive move, Confederate president Jefferson Davis sent a large force of troops from General Joseph E. Johnston"s command in northwest Georgia to reinforce General Leonidas Folk"s forces defending the Confederate supply center. The ever offensive-minded Grant then sent General George H. Thomas against Johnston, whose troops were held up in Dalton, Georgia, recuperating from their resounding November defeat. During the winter, Johnston had been reinforcing his defensive position, which stretched across Rocky Face Ridge, furthering the odds for his army. Besides checking Johnston from sending reinforcements wholesale to Polk, Thomas"s primary mission against Johnston"s position was to test the enemy for areas of weakness. On 22 February, Thomas"s troops marched across Taylor Ridge at the Ringgold Gap and maneuvered themselves into the valley across from Mill Creek Gap, where it slices through Rocky Face Ridge, west of Dalton, the main encampment of Johnston"s army. At the beginning of the advance, Thomas"s forces outnumbered the weakened Confederate forces opposing them. Seasonal rains slowed Thomas"s army as they slogged through the difficult terrain along the East Chickarnauga Creek, east of Dick Ridge. Finally in place north and south across from Dalton, Thomas advanced his troops against the opposition on 24 February and soon discovered what he had always suspected—that the wily Johnston had situated and built up his defensive forces well in that area. Despite the Confederate"s defensive advantage, the Union forces on the 25th found limited success north of Dalton, where the mountains taper down to a more manageable level. The Civil War Battlefield Guide notes that "that same day US Colonel Thomas J. Harrison"s 29th Indiana Mounted Infantry stormed Dug Gap, south of mill Creek Gap. The next day CS Brigadier General Hiram B. Granbury"s Brigade drove them out." Meanwhile Folk"s situation had improved (he had evacuated Meridian before Sherman could reach the city), and the reinforcements Johnston had sent were returned. Now outnumbered and satisfied that Johnston"s position was too difficult to conquer under present circumstances, Thomas on the 27th began withdrawing his troops back to their home base near Chattanooga. Thus ended the first of several engagements against Confederate forces in and around the city of Dalton. The Union lost an estimated 289 casualties with the Confederates losing 140. Although, as these comparatively few casualties indicate, the various engagements never amounted to any serious battle or threat to the Confederates dug in around Dalton, Thomas"s activities did eventually assist Sherman in his advance to Atlanta. Before Sherman, who was soon organizing his new command, developed his master strategy to dislodge Johnston from his strong defensive position and take the prize of the southern Confederacy, Atlanta, he further needed to test his enemy"s strength. Thomas"s February advance not only warned Sherman that another more serious offensive against the gaps directly across from Dalton would be extremely risky, it also identified other gaps south of Dalton as better opportunities to exploit Johnson"s defensive line. In his Civil War narrative, Shelby Foote sums up the later situation: "George Thomas, who had felt out the gray defenses back in February, as a diversion intended to discourage Johnston from sending reinforcements to Polk while Sherman marched on Meridian, came up with the suggestion that, while McPherson and Schofield took over the position he now held in front of Ringgold, confronting the Rocky Face entrenchments, he take his four-corps Army of the Cumberland down the west side of the ridge to its far end, then press on eastward through unguarded Snake Creek Gap for a descent on the railroad near Resaca, fifteen miles in Johnston"s rear." Although it would be McPherson who would advance through the Snake Creek Gap in May of that year, it was Thomas who discovered the opening. This strategy of maneuver, one that would ultimately decide the fate of Atlanta, was therefore hatched out of the first engagement at Dalton.
My Source:  Encyclopedia of the American Civil War — James H. Meredith