The Crow's Nest

At this approximate location stood the Crow's Nest, a sixty-foot-tall Georgia pine topped by a signal platform. Before and after the battle, information was sent by signal flag communication from this platform to General Sherman through a signal station on Kennesaw Mountain, some 18 miles south. During the battle, signalmen James W. McKenzie and Frank A. West tried to send a message while standing on top of the eastern redoubt. Using a six-foot flag on a sixteen-foot staff, they drew intense fire from Confederate sharpshooters, and the message was finally seen from Kennesaw Mountain at 10:35 a.m.: “We hold out. General Corse here.” After the war, the Crow's Nest tree became diseased and Governor Joseph M. Brown ordered it cut down. Souvenir cigar boxes and gavels made from the trunk were sent to Generals Joseph E. Johnston, Samuel G. French, and John M. Corse, as well as Allatoona Station Master Sam W. Wilkes, the Y.M.C.A. of Boston, Massachusetts, and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. First Lieutenant Henry Otis Dwight sketched the signal post on Kennesaw Mountain during the Battle of Allatoona Pass, where Sherman received word that General Corse had arrived and anxiously awaited news from the battle.

Georgia · United States