Battle of Ezra Church

The Battle of Ezra Church, also known as the Battle of Ezra Chapel and the Battle of the Poor House (July 28, 1864) saw Union Army forces under Major General William T. Sherman fight Confederate States Army troops led by Lieutenant General John B. Hood in Fulton County, Georgia during the Atlanta campaign in the American Civil War. Sherman sent Oliver Otis Howard's Union Army of the Tennessee circling around the west side of Atlanta with the purpose of cutting the Macon and Western Railroad. Hood countered the move by sending two corps commanded by Stephen D. Lee and Alexander P. Stewart to block the move. Before Howard's troops reached the railroad, the Confederates launched several attacks on them that were repulsed with heavy losses. Despite the tactical defeat, the Confederates prevented their foes from blocking the railroad.

From May to July 1864, Sherman's numerically superior Union forces pressed back their Confederate opponents to the outskirts of Atlanta. Dissatisfied with Joseph E. Johnston, the commander of the Army of Tennessee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaced him with Hood. The new commander promptly mounted two major attacks on Sherman's armies in the Battle of Peachtree Creek on July 20 and the Battle of Atlanta on July 22. Both assaults failed with heavy losses on both sides. After Ezra Church, Sherman persisted in his plan to cut the railroads leading into Atlanta for the next month. Hood's army frustrated all Union efforts until the last railroad line was successfully severed on August 31 during the Battle of Jonesborough.