Chapter II: Part 2

Much debate has swirled around Davis’ decision. Johnston and his partisans have argued that the general’s removal made inevitable the loss of Atlanta, the reelection of Lincoln, and the defeat of the Confederacy. They contend that had Johnston remained in command, the city would have been held, or that if it were surrendered, the army at least would not have been weakened and would have continued as an effective unit.

Hood and Davis maintained that Johnston’s long retreat had demoralized the army, that Johnston would not have held Atlanta, and that the Confederacy’s only chance for success lay in replacing Johnston with a bold commander who could strike Sherman a blow that would send the Northerners reeling back to Chattanooga.

Most historians have tended to accept Johnston’s position. There can be no definite answer, of course, but it does seem that Johnston would have evacuated the city rather than lose a large portion of his army fighting for it. This would have saved the army but, coming after the long retreat from Dalton, might have so demoralized it that desertion and disgust would have ended its career as an effective fighting force. If the retention of Atlanta was essential to the life of the Confederacy, President Davis seems justified in his decision to remove Johnston. It was the Confederacy’s misfortune that no bold, intelligent, and lucky general was available to take his place. But one thing was certain—with Hood leading the Southerners, the pattern of the campaign would change.

IN THE RANKS

Historians have long been in the habit of dealing with the past as if it were nothing more than the story of a small number of great men who moved about shaping the world as they saw fit. In reality, leaders are not long successful without followers—the great mass of the common people who do the work, bear the burdens, and suffer the consequences of their leaders’ policies. The Civil War offers a unique opportunity to study the common people of America because during that conflict large numbers of people were directly involved in the great events of the times. For most of them, the war was the single most important event of their lives. Consequently they wrote about it in great detail in their letters and diaries and saved these documents after the conflict ended. It is therefore possible to see the Civil War armies as groups of humans, not masses of automata. The men who followed Sherman, Johnston, and Hood in 1864 left behind information that adds much to an understanding of the campaign.

Records kept by the Federal Government show that the typical Northern soldier was 5 feet 8¼ inches tall and weighed 143½ pounds. Doubtless the Southerners were of a similar stature. The same records also indicate that before the war 48 percent of the men had been farmers. Among the Confederates the percentage of farmers was more than half. Relatively few immigrants served in either western army—perhaps one-fifth to one-sixth of the men were of foreign birth. More than half the units in Sherman’s armies were from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, and Wisconsin also furnished large contingents. Such Eastern States as New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were represented, but their contributions were small. More than two-thirds of the units in the Southern army were from Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. Other States with significant numbers of troops in the Confederate ranks were Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee were represented by units on both sides. Most of the men in the armies that struggled for Atlanta had volunteered for military service in 1861 or 1862. By 1864 they had become veterans, inured to the hardships of military life. Nevertheless, they found the Atlanta Campaign a severe trial.

Unlike many Civil War military operations in which fighting occurred at infrequent intervals, the struggle for Atlanta was virtually a continuous battle. Sometimes, as at Resaca, almost all of the opposing forces were engaged; at other times, action was limited to the desultory firing of skirmishers. But only on rare occasions were the soldiers able to escape the sounds and dangers of combat.

The weather—whether a freak cold wave in mid-June, the unusually heavy rains of late May and June, or the normal heat of July and August—affected every man and often hampered troop movements as well. Frequently units on the march lost men who could not stand the pace. The soldiers would drop by the roadside until they had recovered their strength, then move on to overtake their comrades. For example, the heat on July 12 was so bad that only 50 of the men in an Illinois regiment could keep up on a 3-mile march. When the armies were in fortified positions, as they were at Kennesaw Mountain, the men often stretched blankets or brush across the trenches to protect themselves from the sun. On rainy days, fence rails or rocks in the trenches served to keep soldiers out of the water.

Clothing was also a problem. As a rule, Sherman’s men were better supplied than their opponents, but the wool uniforms they wore were unsuited to the hot Georgia summer. The Confederates had almost no new clothing after the campaign began and their uniforms deteriorated rapidly. A Texan summed up their plight in early June when he wrote: “In this army one hole in the seat of the breeches indicates a captain, two holes a lieutenant, and the seat of the pants all out indicates that the individual is a private.”

Rarely did the men of either army have a chance to wash and almost all of them were affected by body lice and other vermin. A sense of humor helped them to survive these trials—soldiers who were pinned down in a water-filled trench by enemy fire consoled themselves with the thought that they were at least drowning the lice. The Federals complained that the retreating Southerners infested the country with lice that attacked the advancing Northerners. Other pests included chiggers, ticks, snakes, scorpions, flies, and ants.

Soldiers in both armies suffered from a shortage of food and had no scruples about supplementing their rations with whatever could be taken from the surrounding farms and homes. Corn, pork, chickens, geese, hams, potatoes, apples, and onions disappeared as the armies moved through a neighborhood. Wild berries and fish were also eaten. Nevertheless, there were many times when food was in short supply. One Federal wrote, “most of the time we are on the move and cannot get such as is fit for a man to eat.”

The Atlanta Campaign, like many of the later Civil War campaigns, saw the development of trench warfare on a large scale. Protecting works were built from loose rocks, fence rails, tombstones, or even the bodies of dead comrades. By the third or fourth week of the campaign, both sides had mastered the art of field fortification—a trench, with the dirt piled on the side toward the enemy and surmounted by a headlog under which were small openings for firing. Such works left “little but the eyes ... exposed” to enemy fire. In front of the trenches the underbrush would be cleared away and young trees cut so they fell toward the foe. The trees were left partly attached to the stump so that they could not be dragged aside. Telegraph wire was sometimes strung between them to create further obstacles.

From behind their fortifications soldiers could pour out such a volume of fire that there was no chance for a successful massed attack—unless complete surprise could be achieved or overwhelming numbers brought against a weak part of the enemy’s line. Much of the fighting was therefore done by small patrols and snipers, especially in heavily wooded country such as the area around New Hope Church and Kennesaw Mountain.

The soldier who died in battle could expect no elaborate funeral. Usually the armies were too busy to do more than bury the dead as quickly as possible and they would probably be put in a mass grave near the place where they had fallen. Later the bodies might be exhumed and moved to a cemetery where they would be listed as “unidentified” and reinterred in a numbered but nameless grave.

The soldier who was wounded or who was disabled by disease suffered greatly. As a rule, the Northerner who was sent to an army hospital fared better than his opponent because the Federals were better equipped and provisioned than the Confederates. Field hospitals treated men whose wounds were either very slight or too serious to permit further movement. Others were sent by wagon and rail to hospitals in the rear—Rome, Chattanooga, and Knoxville for the Federals; Atlanta and the small towns along the railroads south of that city for the Southerners.

Transportation in crowded hospital wagons over rutted roads or in slow hospital trains was an indescribable horror. The hospitals themselves were better but, by modern standards, uncomfortable and dirty. For painful operations, Northern soldiers often enjoyed the blessing of chloroform. Many Southerners, however, especially those in the hospitals in smaller towns, frequently endured major surgery without the benefit of any opiate except, perhaps, whiskey. In such cases the hospitals echoed with the screams of men undergoing amputations or such treatments as that calling for the use of nitric acid to burn gangrene out of their wounds.

No precise figures as to the number of men who were killed, wounded, or sick during the campaign are available. However, it is known that for the war as a whole, disease killed about twice as many men as did the weapons of the enemy. Sickness brought on by exposure and unsanitary camps undoubtedly accounted for many lives among the soldiers in Georgia. Diseases that were especially common were smallpox, scurvy, dysentery, diarrhea (also known as “dierear” and the “Tennessee quick step”), and various types of fevers.

Religion provided a great source of comfort for many soldiers. Chaplains accompanied both armies but were too few to serve all the troops. Some chaplains preferred to spend the campaign in the rear where they would be safe, while others, of far more influence with the men, braved hardships and dangers with the units they served. At least three of the latter group were killed in battle during the campaign—either while helping the wounded or fighting in the ranks. When chaplains were not available the men sometimes organized and conducted their own religious services. On the other hand, many soldiers ignored religion altogether and continued such “sinful” practices as cursing, drinking, and gambling. Nevertheless, what one soldier called “the missionary influence of the enemy’s cannon” and the constant presence of death and suffering led many to seek comfort in religion.

Throughout the campaign, when the armies were in a relatively stable situation, the men sometimes agreed not to shoot at one another. Instead, they would meet between the lines to talk, swim, drink, bathe, enjoy the sun, pick blackberries, exchange newspapers, swap Northern coffee for Southern tobacco, play cards, wrestle, eat, sing, rob the dead, and argue politics. Officers on both sides tried to prohibit this fraternization, but the men in the ranks had the good sense to ignore their orders. These informal truces would usually be respected by all, and when they were over, fighting would not resume until every man had gotten back to his own trenches. Much of the tragedy of the war was reflected in a letter written by a Wisconsin soldier on June 24:

We made a bargain with them that we would not fire on them if they
would not fire on us, and they were as good as their word. It seems
too bad that we have to fight men that we like. Now these Southern
soldiers seem just like our own boys, only they are on the other side.
They talk about their people at home, their mothers and fathers and
their sweethearts, just as we do among ourselves.

However, regardless of the soldiers’ feelings about each other during those times of truce, the war was being run by the generals and the generals said it must go on.

PEACHTREE CREEK

John Bell Hood, the new commander of the Confederate forces, found himself in a difficult position on the morning of July 18, 1864. Hood was young—only 33—and relatively inexperienced in handling large bodies of troops. After graduation from West Point (in the same class with the Federal generals McPherson and Schofield) he had served with the U.S. Army until the spring of 1861, when he resigned and cast his lot with the Confederacy. In the early years of the war Hood had risen rapidly in rank—a rise more than justified by his outstanding leadership at the brigade and division level.

Until the summer of 1863, Hood had been physically one of the most magnificent men in the Confederate Army. A woman who knew him in 1861 described him as “six feet two inches in height, with a broad, full chest, light hair and beard, blue eyes, with a peculiarly soft expression, commanding in appearance, dignified in deportment, gentlemanly and courteous to all.” By the time he took command of the Army of Tennessee, Hood’s appearance had undergone some changes. His left arm dangled uselessly at his side, smashed by a Federal bullet at Gettysburg in July 1863. His right leg was gone, cut away at the hip following a wound received at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. Hood suffered great pain from these wounds, and no doubt he should have been retired from field command; but he was not the kind of man who could stay away from the army during a war.

After recovering from his second wound, he was sent to the Army of Tennessee as a corps commander and had served in that capacity until Davis selected him to succeed Johnston. He may have been taking a derivative of laudanum to ease his pain and some students of the war believe that this affected his judgment. Many soldiers in the army distrusted Hood’s ability. Some officers resented his promotion over the heads of generals who had served with the army since the beginning of the war. Hood himself believed that the army had been demoralized by Johnston’s long retreat and hence was unlikely to fight well.

Nor could the tactical situation have brought Hood any encouragement. Thomas’ Army of the Cumberland was advancing southward directly toward Atlanta, while the armies of McPherson and Schofield were east of the city, advancing westward. Two of the four railroads that connected Atlanta with the rest of the Confederacy were in Federal hands. Unless Hood could keep the remaining lines open, the city was doomed.

Battle of Peachtree Creek JULY 20
Battle of Ezra Church, JULY 28
Battle of Atlanta JULY 22

On July 19, the Army of the Cumberland crossed Peachtree Creek, but as it advanced, it drifted toward the west. Thus by the afternoon a gap had developed in the Northern line between Thomas on the right and Schofield in the center. Hood decided to concentrate the corps of Hardee and Stewart against Thomas. The Confederate commander hoped to overwhelm the isolated Army of the Cumberland before help could arrive from McPherson and Schofield. Hood relied upon his former corps, temporarily commanded by Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham, and the cavalry to defend the area east of Atlanta. The attack on Thomas was set for 1 p.m., July 20.

Early in the morning of the 20th, while the Southerners were preparing to assail the right of the Federal line, the Northerners east of Atlanta moved west along the Georgia Railroad toward the city. Their progress was so rapid that Hood felt it necessary to shift his army to the right in an effort to strengthen the forces defending the eastern approaches to Atlanta. This movement led to such confusion in the Confederate ranks that the attack against Thomas was delayed for about 3 hours. When the Southerners were finally ready to strike, Thomas’ men had had time to establish and partly fortify a position on the south side of Peachtree Creek.

What Hood had planned as a quick blow against an unprepared Northern army thus developed into a headlong assault against a partially fortified line. For several hours the Southerners threw themselves against the Federals. Most of the attacks were halted before they seriously threatened the Union position, but for a short while it appeared that some of Hardee’s men would sweep around the left of Thomas’ line and win a great victory. Hastily, Thomas assembled artillery batteries and directed their fire against the Southerners. Eventually the Confederates were driven back.

While fighting raged along Peachtree Creek, McPherson continued to push toward Atlanta from the east. By 6 p.m., Hood was forced to call upon Hardee for troops to reinforce the Southern lines east of the city. This order drew from Hardee the reserve division that he was preparing to throw into the assault against Thomas and forced him to abandon the attack. The first of Hood’s efforts to cripple the Federal army had failed, although at the time some Southerners saw it as a blow that slowed Federal progress.

Northern casualties in the Battle of Peachtree Creek were reported at 1,600. Estimates of Southern losses (mostly from Federal sources) range from 2,500 to 10,000. It seems now that 4,700 is a reliable estimate of Confederate casualties.

The battle later became a source of controversy between Hood and Hardee. Hood, smarting under the criticism of Joseph E. Johnston and others, blamed the failure to crush Thomas on Hardee. The corps commander, Hood charged, had failed to attack at the proper time and had not driven home the assault. Hardee, who had outranked Hood when they were both lieutenant generals and who may have been disgruntled at serving under his former junior, replied that the delay was caused by Hood’s decision to shift the line to the right and that the assault had not been as vigorously executed as it normally would have been because Hood’s late-afternoon order to send reinforcements to the right had deprived the attackers of the unit that was to deliver the final blow. Postwar commentators mostly favor Hardee and a careful examination of the evidence supports this view.

THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA

After the Battle of Peachtree Creek, attention shifted to the eastern side of the city. Hood determined to strike McPherson who, on July 20 and 21, had moved past Decatur and entrenched a line running north and south a few miles east of Atlanta. The Confederate commander realized that he might march troops around the left of McPherson’s position and attack him from the flank and rear. He chose Hardee’s Corps to be the flanking column and planned to have Cheatham’s men attack the front of McPherson’s army from the west while Hardee struck from the south and east. With luck, this sensible plan could result in the defeat of a large part of Sherman’s forces.

Late on the 21st, Hardee’s men withdrew from their advanced position north of Atlanta and by midnight they were marching out of the city. They were to move southward, then turn and swing eastward and northward. Meanwhile, the other Southerners fell back to shorter lines where, it was hoped, they would be able to hold off the Federals while Hardee outflanked them.

On the morning of July 22, Sherman found the Southerners gone from his immediate front and concluded that Atlanta had been abandoned. However, as his armies pushed forward, they discovered that the defenders had only fallen back to a new position. The Northern advance contracted the Federal lines and the XVI Corps of McPherson’s army was crowded out of place. McPherson ordered it to move to his extreme left. Thus at the time Hardee was moving to that area, McPherson, by chance, was sending in reinforcements.

Hardee’s march was long and hard. Poor roads, inept guides, and the July heat combined to delay the Southerners. It was not until noon that Hardee had his men in position, and at 1 p.m. he sent them forward. The Confederates made their way through heavy underbrush and emerged facing the Federal XVI Corps which had halted in a perfect position to meet the charge which broke upon them.

Poor coordination also weakened the force of the Confederate offensive. Cheatham’s men, who assailed the XVII Corps, did not join the assault until about 3:30, by which time Hardee’s attack had lost much of its force. Nevertheless, the fighting was severe. One Federal brigadier wrote of the attackers:

They burst forth from the woods in truly magnificent style in front of
my right.... Hardly had the enemy made his appearance in my front when
[the artillery] ... opened on them a deadly fire, which rather
staggered their line, yet on came the advancing rebels, and hotter
grew the fire of ... [our artillery]. At the same time the ...
infantry ... opened on them with cool and deadly aim. Still on came
the charging columns, more desperate than ever, those in front urged
up by those in rear.

The first charge was driven back, but the Southerners returned to the attack again and again throughout the long afternoon. Several times they swarmed over the Federal positions, capturing men and cannon, but each time they were driven back. In one of the early charges, McPherson was killed by advancing Confederate skirmishers as he rode forward to rally his men. Finally, about 7 p.m., the Southerners abandoned the attack and fell back. Their losses have been estimated at about 8,000. Union casualties were reported at 3,722.

For the second time Hood had lashed out at his opponent and had been thrown back. Later he tried to shift the blame to Hardee whom he accused of failing to be in the proper place at the proper time. In post-war years, a bitter verbal battle raged over the question. Most present-day authorities feel that Hardee did all that could reasonably have been asked of him. His troops were worn from the battle on Peachtree Creek, the bad roads slowed his march, and the fateful positioning of the XVI Corps was a matter over which he had no control.

In the summer of 1864, however, many Confederates saw the battle as a splendid victory. One artilleryman wrote on July 23:

We gained a great victory yesterday of which I suppose you know [from
newspapers] as much as I do. We left before much was accomplished but
hear that our corps captured 3,500 prisoners and 22 pieces of
artillery & the enemies killed & wounded amounted to twice our own.

EZRA CHURCH

For several days after the Battle of Atlanta, there was a lull in military activities around the city. Both sides were reorganizing. Sherman selected Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard to command the army that McPherson had led. On the Confederate side, Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee replaced Cheatham as commander of the corps that had originally been Hood’s.

By July 26, Sherman had decided upon his next maneuver. His goal was the railroads south and west of Atlanta—the last links between that city and the rest of the Confederacy—and to reach them he would swing Howard’s Army of the Tennessee around from his extreme left to his extreme right. The movement began that afternoon and by nightfall on the 27th, Howard’s men were west of Atlanta. Early the following day the advance was resumed. The only effective opposition came from a small body of Confederate cavalry.

Hood was aware of Sherman’s new maneuver and determined to block it by sending the corps of Lee and Stewart west along the road to the little settlement of Lickskillet. By noon the opposing forces were in the area of a meetinghouse known as Ezra Church, about 2½ miles west of Atlanta. The Confederates had been ordered to attack and prevent the Northerners from crossing the road, and Lee and Stewart sent their men forward in a series of assaults against the XV Corps. The Federals had not had time to entrench, but they had piled up barricades of logs and church benches, and these afforded some protection.

“Our skirmishers, overpowered by numbers, were compelled to fall back to the main line,” wrote a Union officer,

followed at an interval of but a few paces by dense columns of the
enemy, which, covered as they were by the undergrowth, advanced within
forty or fifty paces of our lines, when a terrific and destructive
fire was opened upon them, and was continued steadily until their
advance was checked, at the distance of some twenty to thirty paces.
Their lines were cut down, disordered, and driven back some distance,
when they rallied and again came boldly forward to the charge, but
under the murderous fire of our rifles were no more able to disorder
or discompose our lines than before. They gained a little ground
several times, only to lose it inch by inch, after the most terrible
fighting on both sides.... After a very short interval, which did not
amount to a cessation of the battle, new and largely augmented columns
of the enemy came pouring in upon us, with the same results, however,
as before, although their colors were planted within twenty paces.

For 4 or 5 hours the assaults continued, but the Confederates attacked piecemeal—separate units rushing forward—rather than striking a unified blow, and all their desperate courage was not enough to overcome this handicap. The Southern army is estimated to have suffered about 5,000 casualties in this battle. Federal losses were reported at 600.

THE MONTH OF AUGUST

Although he had inflicted heavy losses on the Southerners, Sherman seems to have become convinced that he would not be able to capture Atlanta by his customary tactics. Hood had constructed a line of trenches that ran from Atlanta southward to East Point, protecting the railroads. The Confederate fortifications were too strong to be attacked and too long to be encircled. Sherman brought up a battery of siege guns and shelled the city. The Southern artillery in Atlanta replied and for several weeks helpless citizens lived in their cellars and scurried about amid bursting shells as the artillery duels started fires and smashed buildings, killing soldiers and civilians indiscriminately.

The Federal commander also decided to try cavalry raids in the hope that his horsemen could reach the railroads below Atlanta and, by cutting them, force Hood to evacuate the city. Late in July, two expeditions were launched. One under Brig. Gen. George Stoneman was to swing to the east to McDonough, Lovejoy Station, and Macon, tearing up the railroad and destroying supplies as it went. These cavalrymen were then to strike southwest to Americus where they hoped to free the 30,000 Northerners held in the prisoner of war camp at Andersonville. The other expedition, under Brig. Gen. Edward M. McCook, was to operate to the west and join Stoneman in attacking the Confederate lines of communication south of Atlanta.

From the start both raids were badly managed. Much of the blame must rest upon Stoneman who chose to go directly to Macon rather than follow orders. The scattered Federals were faced by a well-handled Confederate force led by Wheeler. Except for Stoneman’s column, the Northern horsemen were driven back to Sherman’s lines after destroying some Confederate supplies. Stoneman reached the vicinity of Macon where on July 31 he was attacked by the Southerners and captured along with 500 of his men.

Somehow during these busy weeks, Sherman found time to write a letter to Miss Emily Hoffman of Baltimore, the fiancée of the dead McPherson. “I owe you heartfelt sympathy,” he wrote, adding, “I yield to none of Earth but yourself the right to excell me in lamentations for our Dead Hero. Better the bride of McPherson dead than the wife of the richest Merchant of Baltimore.” Sherman described the fallen leader of the Army of the Tennessee who had been a close friend as well as a trusted subordinate as “the impersonation of Knighthood” and added that “while Life lasts I will delight in the Memory of that bright particular star.”

On August 10, Hood, perhaps thinking that the defeat of Stoneman and McCook had weakened Sherman’s cavalry, struck out at his opponent’s line of supply. He sent cavalry commander Wheeler with 4,000 men to destroy the railroad north of Marietta and to disrupt Sherman’s communications with the North. Although Wheeler was able to make some temporary breaks in the line, he was unable to reduce substantially the flow of supplies to Sherman’s armies. The Federal commander had built strong fortifications at the most strategic points on the railroad and his efficient repair crews quickly rebuilt those parts of the track that Wheeler could reach and damage. Eventually, the Confederate cavalry drifted into Tennessee and did not rejoin Hood until the campaign was over. Many students of the war regard Wheeler’s mission as a mistake because the absence of the cavalry deprived Hood of the best means of keeping posted on Sherman’s activities and thus proved fatal to the army at Atlanta.

Wheeler’s departure led Sherman to send out a third cavalry expedition, commanded by Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick. The Northerners reached the railroads below Atlanta and on August 18-20 succeeded in tearing up sections of the track. On the 20th they were driven away. Kilpatrick reported to Sherman that the railroad had been so thoroughly wrecked that it would take at least 10 days to repair it. However, on the following day, the Federals saw trains bringing supplies into the city from the south. Clearly the Northern cavalry was not strong enough to destroy Hood’s lines of supply. New plans would have to be tried if the Unionists were to capture Atlanta.

Meanwhile, a curious kind of optimism was developing in the Southern ranks. Many Confederates did not see the hard battles of late July as defeats. Rather they viewed them as successful efforts to halt the progress of flanking columns that had threatened the city’s lines of supply. One officer wrote on August 4 about the battles of Atlanta and Ezra Church: “General Hood watches his flanks closely and has twice whipped the flanking columns.” When Sherman made no new efforts to flank the city and when the Northern cavalry raids were beaten off one after another, many men came to believe that Atlanta had been saved. In mid-August a Texan informed his homefolk that “affairs are brightening here. People and army seem more confident of success.” At about the same time, a Mississippian wrote that “The enemy seems checked in his flanking operations on our left, as he has made no progress in that direction for the last four or five days.” On August 28, an Alabamian wrote his wife that “It required hard fighting to check the enemy here after having pursued us so far.”

At the very end of August there came exciting news for the Southerners. Sherman had fallen back! The Northerners were gone from in front of Atlanta! Many thought Wheeler’s cavalry had cut off Sherman’s supplies and that this had forced the Federal commander to lift the siege. Joyous Confederates swarmed out of the city to romp over the abandoned Northern trenches. “The scales have turned in favor of the South,” wrote Capt. Thomas J. Key of Arkansas, “and the Abolitionists are moving to the rear.”

JONESBOROUGH

Some Southerners suspected in 1864 what we now know—Sherman had not retreated. Rather, he had concluded that only his infantry could effectively break Hood’s lines of supply and had resolved to move almost all of his force to the southwest of the city. The movement began on August 25. One corps was sent back to the Chattahoochee bridgehead to guard the railroad that connected Sherman with the North. The remaining Federal troops pulled out of their trenches and marched away to the west and south. By noon on the 28th, Howard’s Army of the Tennessee had reached Fairburn, a small station on the Atlanta and West Point Railroad, 13 miles southwest of East Point. Later that afternoon, Thomas’ troops occupied Red Oak, on the railroad 5 miles to the northeast. The Northerners spent the rest of the 28th and the 29th destroying the tracks. The rails were torn up, heated, and twisted so that they were useless. Only one railroad, the Macon and Western, running southeast from East Point to Macon, now remained in Confederate hands. Sherman soon moved to cut it.

By August 29, Hood had learned of the activities of the Federals at Fairburn. It was clear that the railroad to Macon would be Sherman’s next objective and the Southern commander acted to defend that line. However, he badly misjudged the situation and thought that only two corps of Sherman’s army were to the southwest. Late on August 30, Hood ordered Hardee to take two corps of the Southern army, move against the raiding column, and drive it away. Both armies were soon closing in on Jonesborough, 14 miles below East Point on the Macon railroad. By that evening, advance elements of the Union forces had crossed the Flint River and entrenched a position 1 mile west of Jonesborough. During the night, Hardee’s Southerners moved into the town by rail; by morning they were deploying in front of the Federal line.

Hardee had his own corps (temporarily led by Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne) and Lee’s. It took until mid-afternoon to complete preparations for an attack. The Confederates advanced about 3 p.m., their assault falling mostly on an entrenched salient on the east bank of the Flint held by the Army of the Tennessee. The attack was fierce but uncoordinated and failed to drive back the Northerners. When the fighting ceased that night, the relative positions of the armies were unchanged.

Meanwhile, Schofield’s Army of the Ohio had managed to break the Macon railroad near Rough-and-Ready, a small station between Jonesborough and East Point. This movement led Hood to conclude that Sherman’s main force was attacking Atlanta from the south. The Confederate commander, therefore, ordered Lee’s Corps to leave Hardee at Jonesborough and move toward Atlanta to help defend the city. Lee began this movement at 2 a.m. the next morning.

At dawn on September 1, Sherman with almost all of his troops was south of Atlanta. The Federals were concentrating at Jonesborough where they had encountered the bulk of the Southern army on the preceding day and where it seemed a decisive battle would be fought. The Confederates were widely separated. Hood, with one corps, was in Atlanta; Hardee, with his corps, was at Jonesborough; and Lee, with the remaining corps, was near East Point.

At Jonesborough, Hardee had taken up a defensive position north and west of the town. During the afternoon he was attacked by the overwhelming force of Northerners concentrated there. Although suffering many casualties, especially in prisoners, Hardee’s Corps fought well and held its position until night offered a chance to fall back to Lovejoy’s Station, 7 miles to the south.

By this time Hood had realized what was happening and knew that Atlanta could not be held any longer. During the night of September 1-2, he evacuated the city. Supplies that could not be carried away were burned. Hood’s forces moved far to the east of the city to pass around Jonesborough and join Hardee at Lovejoy’s Station. On September 2, Mayor James M. Calhoun surrendered Atlanta to a party of Federal soldiers.

On the following day, Sherman sent a telegram to the authorities in Washington announcing that “Atlanta is ours, and fairly won.” He added that he would not pursue the Confederates, who were then fortified at Lovejoy’s Station, but would return to Atlanta so that his men could enjoy a brief respite from fighting. “Since May 5,” he wrote, “we have been in one constant battle or skirmish, and need rest.”

A few days later another Federal wrote from his camp near Atlanta: “Here we will rest until further orders.... The campaign that commenced May 2 is now over, and we will rest here to recruit and prepare for a new campaign.”

Some writers have been critical of Sherman’s decision not to press after Hood’s army. They maintain that the enemy force and not the city of Atlanta was the true objective of the Unionists. It may have been that Sherman’s action was determined by the question of supplies or it may have been that his men were too exhausted for immediate operations south of the city. At any rate, the capture of Atlanta delighted and heartened Northerners. News of Sherman’s victory was greeted with ringing bells and cannon fire all over the North.

EPILOGUE

Sherman soon turned Atlanta into an armed camp. Houses were torn down and the lumber used for fortifications or soldiers’ huts. Civilians could not be fed by the army and were ordered out of the city with the choice of going north or south. In mid-September a truce was declared and the citizens who chose to remain in the Confederacy were transported by the Northerners to Rough-and-Ready, where they were handed over to Hood’s men who conveyed them farther south.

After completion of this unpleasant task, Hood determined to reverse Sherman’s strategy and to move with his whole army around Atlanta to draw Sherman after him into Alabama or Tennessee. In late September the Confederates crossed the Chattahoochee and marched northward over many of the summer’s battlefields. Sherman left a strong garrison in Atlanta and followed Hood northward for several weeks. Unable to bring his opponent to bay, Sherman detached a strong force to deal with the Confederates and returned to Atlanta. Hood’s army was virtually destroyed in several battles fought in Tennessee in November and December. Sherman, meanwhile, reorganized his armies and on November 15 burned Atlanta and marched out of the city on his way to the sea.

The final importance of the Atlanta Campaign may lie more in its psychological impact than in any military results. Essentially, in early September, the Confederate military forces were in the same position relative to the Northern armies that they had held early in the spring. Psychologically, however, there had been a great shift. The news that Atlanta had fallen meant that the average Northerner had at last a tangible military victory that made it possible for him to see the end of the war in the future. There would be more months of marching, fighting, and dying, but Sherman’s capture of Atlanta convinced many that the Confederacy was doomed.

SHERMAN IN ATLANTA: A Photographic Portfolio

On September 3, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln telegraphed the commanding officer of the Federal Military Division of the Mississippi: “The national thanks are rendered ... to Major-General W. T. Sherman and the officers and soldiers of his command before Atlanta, for the distinguished ability and perserverence displayed in the campaign in Georgia which, under Divine favor, has resulted in the capture of Atlanta. The marches, battles, sieges and other military operations that have signalized the campaign, must render it famous in the annals of war, and have entitled those who have participated therein to the applause and thanks of the nation.”

The Union soldiers had, in Sherman’s words, “completed the grand task which has been assigned us by our Government.” Atlanta, chief rail hub of the Confederacy and one of the South’s principal distributing, industrial, commercial, and cultural centers, was in Federal hands at last. It was a choice prize.

The city was founded in 1837 as Terminus, so-named because a rail line ended there. It was incorporated as Marthasville in 1845; two years later it was renamed Atlanta. Only a few dozen people lived there in the 1840’s, but by 1861, when the Civil War began, some 10,000 people called it home. By 1864, when Sherman’s armies started south from Chattanooga, Atlanta’s population was double that number. The city boasted factories, foundries, stores, arsenals, government offices, and hospitals, which, as the war progressed and drew closer, were hard pressed to handle the mounting number of casualties needing treatment. So strategic was Atlanta that Confederate President Jefferson Davis proclaimed that “Its fall would open the way for the Federal armies to the Gulf on one hand, and to Charleston on the other, and close up those granaries from which Gen. Robert E. Lee’s armies are supplied. It would give them control of our network of railroads and thus paralyze our efforts.” Now, with Federal soldiers in Atlanta, Davis’ fears would be realized.

Sherman’s troops occupied Atlanta for more than 2 months. The photographs and captions that follow highlight aspects of that occupation.

FOR FURTHER READING

The only published book-length study of the Atlanta Campaign is Jacob D. Cox’s _Atlanta_ (New York, 1882; new edition, 1963). More detailed accounts may be found in two doctoral dissertations: Richard M. McMurry, “The Atlanta Campaign, December 23, 1863, to July 18, 1864,” and Errol MacGregor Clauss, “The Atlanta Campaign, 18 July-2 September 1864.” Both were written at Emory University, the former in 1967 and the latter in 1965, and both are available on microfilm from University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Mich. In addition, the _Georgia Historical Quarterly_ and _Civil War Times Illustrated_ have published numerous articles dealing with specialized aspects of the campaign.

Good books by participants include Paul M. Angle, ed., _Three Years in the Army of the Cumberland: The Letters and Diary of Major James A. Connolly_ (Bloomington, 1959); John B. Hood, _Advance and Retreat: Personal Experiences in the United States and Confederate Armies_ (New Orleans, 1880; new edition, Bloomington, 1959); Joseph E. Johnston, _Narrative of Military Operations During the Late War Between the States_ (New York, 1874; new edition, Bloomington, 1959); Albert D. Kirwan, ed., _Johnny Green of the Orphan Brigade: The Journal of a Confederate Soldier_ (Lexington, Ky., 1956); Milo M. Quaife, ed., _From the Cannon’s Mouth: The Civil War Letters of General Alpheus S. Williams_ (Detroit, 1959); John M. Schofield, _Forty-Six Years in the Army_ (New York, 1897); William T. Sherman, _Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, by Himself_ (2 vols., New York, 1875; new, 1-vol. edition, Bloomington, 1957); U.S. War Department, comp., _War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies_ (128 vols., Washington, D.C., 1880-1901), Series 1, vol. 38; Sam R. Watkins, “Co. Aytch,” _Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment; or, A Side Show of the Big Show_ (Chattanooga, 1900; new edition, Jackson, Tenn., 1952); and Charles W. Wills, _Army Life of an Illinois Soldier ..._ (Washington, D.C., 1906).

CIVIL WAR SITES IN GEORGIA

Listed below are several of the major Civil War sites in Georgia. A good source on other areas is the booklet _Georgia Civil War Historical Markers_, published by the Georgia Historical Commission.

ANDERSONVILLE: This is now a national historic site. It was the site of the notorious Civil War prison where, in the summer of 1864, more than 30,000 captured Federals were held. On U.S. 49 at Andersonville, near Americus.

ATLANTA: Goal of the 1864 campaign. Most of the area in which the fighting occurred has been built over, but Grant Park contains the trenches of Fort Walker, the Cyclorama of the Battle of Atlanta, and a museum.

CHICKAMAUGA: On U.S. 278 near Rossville. A national military park where the great battle of September 19-20, 1863, was fought.

COLUMBUS: Site of the raised Confederate gunboat _Muscogee_ and a naval museum on Fourth Street, west of U.S. 27.

CRAWFORDSVILLE: On U.S. 278 west of Augusta. Liberty Hall, the home of Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, has been restored and is open to the public.

FORT PULASKI: A national monument on U.S. 80 east of Savannah. Site of an engagement in 1862 when Northern forces attacked and captured the fort.

IRWINVILLE: Off Ga. 107 in the south-central portion of the State. Museum at the site where President Jefferson Davis was captured by Federal forces in 1865.

KENNESAW MOUNTAIN: A national battlefield park on U.S. 41 north of Marietta. This park preserves much of the area where fighting occurred in 1864. Museum, slide show, and hiking trails.

MILLEDGEVILLE: On U.S. 441 in east-central Georgia. Capital of Georgia during the war. Occupied by the Federals during the “March to the Sea.” Many old buildings remain.

SAVANNAH: Terminus of the “March to the Sea.” Fort McAllister, east of the city on U.S. 17, was a Confederate defense post. Factors Walk Museum at 222 Factors Walk houses many wartime relics.

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park is administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. A superintendent, whose address is Box 1167, Marietta, GA 30060, is in immediate charge.

As the Nation’s principal conservation agency, the Department of the Interior has basic responsibilities for water, fish, wildlife, mineral, land, park, and recreational resources. Indian and Territorial affairs are other major concerns of America’s “Department of Natural Resources.” The Department works to assure the wisest choice in managing all our resources so each will make its full contribution to a better United States—now and in the future.

United States Department of the Interior
Thomas S. Kleppe, Secretary

National Park Service
George B. Hartzog, Jr., Director

★ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1976 224-506

Transcriber’s Notes

—Silently corrected a few typos.

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Road Past Kennesaw, by Richard M. McMurry