The Wigfall Grays spent the winter of 1863–64 at Dalton, Georgia, rebuilding under General Joseph E. Johnston. In early May, William T. Sherman came south with three armies. For the next seventy-one days, the regimental historian wrote, the 4th Tennessee was under fire on sixty: at Dug Gap and Mill Creek Gap, at Resaca, Adairsville, Ellsberry Ridge, Kennesaw Mountain, Peachtree Creek, Atlanta and Jonesboro.
Corporal Merritt Brown was present on his last surviving muster roll, at Dalton in April 1864. After that his record falls silent until the spring of 1865. Captain Cargill's file ends in July 1864.
Adairsville, May 17. As Johnston fell back from Resaca, Cheatham's division turned to hold off the Union advance on a rise north of Adairsville. The fighting centered on Robert Saxon's eight-sided gravel house, the Octagon House, and lasted until dark. Among the Union troops thrown back was a young major named Arthur MacArthur, whose son Douglas would command in the Pacific eighty years later. C. M. Haynie of the Wigfall Grays was wounded.
Ellsberry Ridge and Kennesaw. In late May, near New Hope Church, the 4th went out on the skirmish line before daylight and held it in open woods, at places scarcely fifty yards from the enemy. A private named Halley fired eighteen times before a ball passed through his body and arm. The regiment lost a third of the men on duty. J. E. Pittman of the company was wounded on May 27. In June the regiment held the left of the "Dead Angle" on Kennesaw Mountain, where the Union assault of June 27 was thrown back with terrible loss.
July 22. After Hood replaced Johnston, he sent Hardee's corps on an all-night march around the Union left to strike the Army of the Tennessee from the flank. Around noon the Tennesseans of Cheatham's old division came out of the woods near Bald Hill. Strahl's brigade, on the far left, went forward in three lines against entrenched Union troops and was driven back; General Strahl was wounded. The Union commander, James B. McPherson, was killed that day, and some 10,000 men on both sides were lost.
It was the worst day in the company's records. G. L. Rogers was killed. J. M. Robertson died of his wounds. G. F. Rudd, A. J. Swinea, J. L. Holder and R. L. Waller, wounded for the second time, were hit, and M. P. Hughes was wounded that month. E. B. Buchanan was captured and escaped. Hezekiah S. Halley was captured with three comrades and held until February 1865.
Six weeks later, after the fighting at Jonesboro, Atlanta fell.
Sources: Luke W. Finlay, "Fourth Tennessee Infantry," Military Annals of Tennessee (1886); National Park Service, The Campaign for Atlanta; H. S. Halley, Tennessee Civil War Veterans Questionnaire (1922); compiled service records, National Archives; Morton Museum of Collierville History, master roster of the Wigfall Grays.
The story of Corporal Merritt R. Brown, the Wigfall Grays and their town is told in An Honor Unearned: From the Streets of Collierville, Tennessee, to Edgefield, South Carolina, by Michael Louis Meece. Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. More about the book at anhonorunearned.org.