Odes to Kirkwood · Track 3 · middle

Battle of Atlanta Skirmish 1864

July 22, 1864 — Confederate General John Bell Hood's attempted attack on Sherman's left flank during the Atlanta Campaign. Kirkwood and East Atlanta were the skirmish grounds. Bald Hill (now Brownwood Park), the Decatur Cemetery, trees that still stand as witnesses. The bloody fields that became neighborhood.

Lyrics

[Intro]

Old oak, you stood here on July 22, 1864.
Scarred bark from the 12-pounder Napoleon shells.
Bald Hill beneath your branches, now Brownwood Park.
Tell me what you saw, witness tree.

[Verse 1]
John Bell Hood, 33 years raw with ambition,
ordered his men forward at 1:00 PM,
through the humid haze, 90 degrees pressing down.
Union lines under William Tecumseh Sherman,
44 and iron-willed, held the ridge.
Your leaves trembled with the crack of Springfield Model 1861 rifle-muskets.
Minié balls biting into your trunk like forgotten teeth.

[Chorus]
Witness tree, you remember the gunpowder sting,
thick in the throat, mingled with blood's metallic tang.
Fields soaked red, becoming Kirkwood streets.
Decatur Cemetery stones watching silent.
You, old oak, still here, scarred but standing.
Addressing you now, my quiet sentinel.

[Verse 2]
Confederate shouts echoing near your roots,
ambulance wagons creaking past, hauling the broken.
Hardtack crumbs and salt pork rations scattered,
under the summer sun's unrelenting eye.
Enslaved hands that built those fortifications,
names lost to the record, fleeing the chaos.
Civilian families huddled in farmhouses,
their stories buried deeper than the dead.

[Bridge]

Now children play in Brownwood Park,
laughter where screams once cut the air.
But you, witness tree, hold the truth unsparing.
The bloody fields gentrified into bungalows.
A quiet joke: war's echo in a picnic shade.

[Verse 3]
Sherman's quote hangs in your branches: Atlanta is ours.
Hood's desperation: attack at once, consequences be damned.
From Official Records, Series 1, Volume 38,
Captain Henry Stone's diary pages turning like leaves.
Your scars, small strange fact, etched by cannon fire.
Still standing in this eastside neighborhood.

[Outro]

Old oak, goodnight from these porch lights.
You witnessed the skirmish, now watch the peace.
Kirkwood's heart, beating slow.