Courage under fire at Utoy Creek

This is the second part of a series about Genoa and Clay Township’s contribution to the Civil War.

On the southwest side of Atlanta, Ga. lies the Cascade Springs Nature Preserve, which features a little over 100 acres of natural terrain covered by trees, rocks, and hills.

Through this verdant setting winds a tiny stream called Utoy Creek.

It is there, under the canopy of this wooded glen, that we find an unlikely link to the little village of Genoa, Ohio.

Along with Genoa’s village administrator Tom Bergman, I walked the well-worn trails of this preserve earlier in July on a sweltering Georgia afternoon to get a closer look at this place that we have read so much about.

All this time, I was keenly aware that our feet were touching something akin to sacred ground, knowing what happened there 161 years ago, a reverent moment as we reflected on the grim scenes that played out there for Genoa's boys and others who faced the terrible sound of gunfire and screams — a hellish day, fighting for a cause and fighting for survival.

Utoy Creek is a place where time stopped, and the human toll was high. The bond between this place and Genoa is real, forged in the heat of war.

When the war becomes real

The fresh Genoa recruits of the 100th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI) were members of Company G, composed of about 100 men, recruited by and under the command of Genoa’s Captain Frank Rundell.

The regiment organized in Toledo during the summer of 1862, but received scant training, if any. By September, they left Toledo by train, carrying with them an Austrian musket and buoyant hopes they would make it home someday.

The war had been underway for over a year, and they soon would be a part of it. No longer would it be just a story in a newspaper, but a daily mix of soldier's anxiety and boredom punctuated by sheer moments of terror — an experience uniquely shared by only those who marched, ate, slept, and fought at their side.

Often those men were their neighbors, their best buddies, their brothers or fellow townspeople.

The war was personal in that regard and the triumphs and tragedies magnified.

While stationed in Lexington, Ky. in March 1863, at least 20 of the new recruits of the 100th OVI took ill and died. At least three men from the Genoa area were among the unfortunate. As the regiment eventually moved south across Kentucky to Tennessee, they faced a series of hostile engagements with their Southern adversaries in a fearsome trade of bullets and blood.

By the spring of 1864, the 100th OVI grinded its way into Georgia in a run up to the so-called Atlanta Campaign as Union forces under General William Tecumseh Sherman attempted to make a final siege and deal a crippling blow on Atlanta.

Murderous barrage at Utoy Creek

On Aug. 4, General Sherman wanted to seize the railroad. He ordered troops the next day to advance and "not stop until he has absolute control of that railroad."

It was accomplished as Sherman desired, but with the cost of 83 killed and wounded. On Aug. 6, the division, including the 100th OVI and Company G, were ordered to attack the rebel posts at Utoy Creek.

But the Confederates were ready and waiting and had already strengthened their positions with barricades of fallen trees. By 10 a.m., as the Union forces charged up the slopes towards the ridge, they were met with a fusillade of heavy musket and cannon fire.

Their advances were gallant but repulsed. A heavy rain did not help their advance.

Witnesses would recount later that as the Johnnies, or Confederate soldiers, kept unleashing round after round of gunfire, the hillsides were a blur of bullets and confusion.

Genoa's Company G and the other boys in blue advanced into a wall of hot lead. One reporter said they faced “murderous fire right into their faces.”

Despite the pounding fusillade, the 100th OVI stood firm, at least for a while. Eventually, however, the rebel barrage proved overwhelming, and there was little choice but to pull back and to find safety from the rain that fell from the heavens and the rain that fell from the hell of the Johnnie's guns.

Colonel Patrick Slevin, the regiment commander of the 100th OVI, was so seriously wounded he relinquished command of the entire regiment to Genoa's Captain, Frank Rundell.

Men were falling all around. Some wounded beyond hope. In total, hundreds were wounded and more than 100 were left dead or dying.

One of those who died was Genoa's Sergeant Charles Elliot Wyman, age 28, who was shot seven times. He was one of three from the company that died that day.

Private Isaac Metzker was also killed. His brother, Samuel, was killed in the war one year earlier.

Isaac was shot in both thighs, both hands and the shoulder, and he clung to life on the battlefield at the mercy of enemy scavengers. He laid on the field from 1 p.m. on Aug. 6 to 1 p.m. on Aug. 7 before he was taken up by his fellow soldiers.

One of those fellow comrade’s, Henry Fissell of Company G, later wrote of Metzker’s final hours.

“He said he lay upon the field in the hot scorching sun when a Johnny came up and stole his boots. Isaac begged him not to and to give him a sip of water, but the Johnnie replied he needed the boots, and he got no water for him. Later in the night another Johnny came and took his hat, despite his pitiful protest that the sun the next day would burn his eyes out. At last however, another, in the person of a third Johnny, there came a Good Samaritan who knelt by his side and gave him some water to drink and prayed to God to relieve his suffering and restore him to his comrades … then giving him another drink and arranging some bushes over him, left him. The next day at 1'o'clock, we succeeded by a flank movement in bringing him into the line and he expressed himself as feeling in first rate spirits and thought he would be able to get home. It was a delusive hope, for he died that evening at sunset. He was one of the noblest boys in the regiment and he will never be forgotten.”

Many summers have passed after the fury of that day in 1864.

Today, a quiet peace prevails at Utoy Creek. It is lush green and verdant, the stillness of a pastoral refuge broken only by the sounds of birds, the babble of the creek, the quick dash of a startled deer through the brush, and the hum of a suburban neighborhood nearby.

It is a peaceful place that mirrors that of the solemn and sobering visit we found at the Marietta National Cemetery, north of Atlanta, which is where the Genoa soldiers who fell at Utoy Creek now rest forever.

Tom Bergman and I spent several hours at this sacred resting place where thousands of white tombstones stud the sprawling green hillsides, row by row — each one marking the grave of those whose love of country is not forgotten, nor should it be.

After some searching, we found our way to the graves of Sgt. Charles Elliot Wyman, and Private Isaac Metzker. We also found the grave of Private Barney Carey, the third Genoa soldier who perished at Utoy Creek.

Their graves clustered close to each other — even in death, still together as a band of brothers, and their names clearly etched into the stone of history.

We also found the white tombstones of two other comrades from Genoa and Clay Township from Company G — David Long, who was killed in fighting at Kennesaw Mountain, and Eli Williams, who perished in battle at Dallas, Ga.

Standing there, looking at the tombs of these Genoa soldiers, 600 miles and 161 summers removed from the fog of battle, time stands still. History melds into the present. Their stories become alive.

In next week's story, The Press brings you a more personal glimpse of the war from the letters and journals of some Genoa area soldiers who were witnesses to history.