After failing to defeat Federal forces near Peachtree Creek on 20 July 1864, Confederate commander General John B. Hood tried again on 22 July to crush the Federals approaching Atlanta from the east. Federal troops had occupied abandoned Confederate trenches, while Confederate forces held an earlier defense line built under Lemuel Grant near Randolph Street and Boulevard, with the Georgia Railroad running along its modern course. After a fifteen-hour overnight march from north of the city, Lieutenant General William J. Hardee's Confederate Corps opened the Battle of Atlanta shortly after noon by attacking the left end of the Federal line near the present intersection of Clay Street and Memorial Drive. About 3:30 p.m., Major General Frank Cheatham's Confederate Corps advanced to support Hardee, with Clayton's Division on the left, Brown's Division in the center along the railroad, and Stevenson's Division on the right. From Copenhill, Major General William T. Sherman observed the attack and ordered artillery concentrated there to fire into Cheatham's troops. Brown's Division broke through the Federal XV Corps line near the present Inman Park MARTA Station, but because Confederate commanders failed to recognize and support the breakthrough, a Federal counterattack drove back Brown's and Clayton's divisions, and the Confederates retreated without stopping the Federal advance. The battle cost both sides heavily, with 5500 Confederates and 3700 Federals killed, wounded, or missing, and among the Federal dead was Major General James B. McPherson, the highest-ranking Federal officer to die in combat during the war. After Federal forces overwhelmed the Confederates at Jonesboro, about 15 miles south of Atlanta, on 1 September 1864, the city lost its last rail connection to the rest of the Confederacy. When General Hood received news of the defeat that afternoon, he decided to evacuate Atlanta by way of the McDonough Road, but lacking enough wagons to remove all military stores, he ordered weapons, ammunition, and other supplies destroyed rather than abandoned to Federal forces. Fires set by the Confederates caused considerable damage in the city. A train loaded with military supplies, including eighty-one cars of which twenty-eight held ammunition, could not be moved south because Federal artillery fire had blocked its route near Rough and Ready earlier that day, so Confederate officers ordered it burned. The resulting explosions shook the area for hours and broke windows for miles around. Soon afterward, photographer George Barnard, working under contract to the Federal government during the occupation of Atlanta, photographed the remains of the burned train and the ruined Schofield and Markham Rolling Mill, highlighting Atlanta's importance as a military manufacturing and supply center.