During the Union advances in Georgia under General Sherman, General Leonidas Polk and his staff were caught in the open observing troop movements and came under artillery fire from the Fifth Indiana Artillery.  Polk, the Confederate's Third Corps commander and second in command of the Army of Tennessee, died almost instantly from severe shrapnel wounds. Polk, also an Episcopal bishop, was fifty-eight years old.  (By John Osborne) 

In Virginia, Union commander Ulysses Grant launched new raids to disrupt enemy communications.  One of these, a two brigade expedition aimed at railway lines, under Generals James H. Wilson and August Kautz, met with mixed results. They destroyed miles of track, but, encountering determined opposition, were forced to abandon their artillery and wagons and limp back to Union lines, losing perhaps a fifth of their strength. (By John Osborne)