On May 25, 1864, Union Major General Joseph Hooker’s XX Corps advanced toward New Hope. The massed Union formations were exposed to a continuous fire from Confederate Major General Alexander P. Stewart’s division of about 4,500 men and repulsed with significant losses. Fighting continued the next day near the New Hope Church and persisted incessantly for three more days. A Union general wrote to his wife, “We have been here now five days and have not advanced an inch.” Nearly five acres of the area described by the solders as the Hell Hole have been preserved through efforts of the Georgia Civil War Commission, Atlanta History Center, and the Georgia Battlefields Association. The Pickett’s Mill State Historic Site maintains the New Hope Church Monument and Battle Site.