Until then, with no major Confederate Army left to contest Sherman and his men, he would order them to move east, towards Savannah, and from there, north into the Carolinas.
Many of the photographs below are the work of George Barnard. The remaining photographs are attributed to the Matthew Brady Studios but were likely not taken by Brady but one of his employees. Notice the detail in the images: rifle stacks, railroad trestles, entrenchments, the ravages of war. These images might make a good, but simple research project. Have students access descriptions of the Atlanta Campaign either on-line or with a print source and then have them place the images in the chronological sequence they represent.
For example, which images represent battles in the early part of the campaign or which images took part at the end of the campaign? There are more online images taken during the Atlanta Campaign available from the National Archives. Sherman, however, was determined to pound Hood out of the city. On July 20 he ordered that any artillery positioned within range begin a cannonading, not just of the Confederate lines but also of the city itself, which still held about 3, civilians down from 20, earlier in the spring.
The artillery barrage reached its height on August 9, when Union guns fired approximately 5, shells into town. The number of wounded and maimed must be judged much higher, although Southern medical records offer no precise data. Though his own headquarters came under shellfire, Hood refused to budge. Supplies continued to arrive into the city from Macon , even after the third railroad to Montgomery had been cut in mid-July by a Union cavalry raid in Alabama.
Sherman tried twice to cut the last railroad, the Macon and Western, with cavalry raids in late July and mid-August. After these attempts failed with a few miles of torn track quickly repaired , Sherman concluded that only a massive infantry sweep would cut the Macon Road. On August 25, with his forces withdrawn to guard the Chattahoochee bridgehead northwest of Atlanta and his siege lines abandoned, Sherman marched most of his army six of seven corps south and then southeast toward Jonesboro, fifteen miles from Atlanta.
Hood found that he could not stretch his outnumbered army far enough. With a third of his infantry and state militia forced to man the city defenses, he tried to send his troops down the railroad to meet the new threat. To the north on that same day, other Union troops actually reached the railroad and began wrecking the rails. Hood was left with no option but to order the evacuation of Atlanta on September 1. Union soldiers entered the city on September 2, thus concluding the Atlanta campaign.
Telegraphing Washington, D. In both armies roughly seven out of ten soldiers fell sick at some time; their incapacitation for duty probably affected both sides in equal proportion. Northern generals moved into the finer houses Sherman occupied the John Neal home , while soldiers pitched camp in vacant lots or parks, such as those around City Hall, sometimes stripping buildings of wood to build shanties.
Some structures had already been destroyed; in addition, retreating Confederates had detonated an ammunition train, which had leveled the big rolling mill.
The work began November 12, after Union troops had sent north their last train loaded with materials that the army would not use in its upcoming march.
Not until November 15 did engineers begin torching designated sites, some with explosive shells placed inside. A hand-drawn map now at the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts indicates the buildings that were destroyed, including a storehouse at Whitehall and Forsyth streets, a bank at the railroad and Peachtree Street, the Trout and Washington hotels, and various other structures.
Four days earlier, on the night of November 11, Union soldiers milling about town began to torch private buildings, especially residences. The young Carrie Berry, still living with her family in the city, recorded the event. Her diary survived and is held at the Atlanta History Center. Churches were particularly kept under guard, resulting in five of them being spared from the flames that eventually consumed much of downtown.
On the final night of the Union occupation, November , Union troops, encouraged by the arson carried out by the engineers, committed unlicensed burnings that set much of downtown afire. With the loss of Atlanta, Confederate defeat was only a matter of time. Davis, Stephen. Davis, S. Atlanta Campaign. In New Georgia Encyclopedia. General William T. Sherman gathers his staff on the lawn of East Fourth Avenue in Rome. Sherman and his troops occupied the city during the Civil War from May to November and burned many buildings upon their departure.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives , Vanishing Georgia, flo View on partner site. The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print. Photograph by George N. Barnard, courtesy Library of Congress.
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If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. Hardee 's corps in a flank attack every bit as audacious as Stonewall Jackson's at Chancellorsville. Union army commander McPherson was killed in the fighting there, the bloodiest battle of the campaign. Although Hood came closer to victory than at any other time, the Confederates were ultimately repulsed. Sherman did not intend to assault the strong earthworks surrounding Atlanta, but planned to capture the city by cutting its railroads and starving Hood out.
Union troops had cut the line running east to Augusta, and cavalry in Alabama had damaged the line to Montgomery. Sherman's movements west of the city to cut that railroad led to battles at Ezra Church July 28 and Utoy Creek August As Hood extended his lines during August, Sherman's artillery bombarded the city and its several thousand remaining residents. Around this time, Hood sent Maj. Joseph Wheeler and his cavalry into north Georgia and Tennessee to cut Sherman's rail lines; they also failed.
Finally, on August 25, Sherman sent most of his infantry corps on a wide swing toward Jonesboro, 17 miles south of Atlanta, determined to cut the railroad. Union troops reached it on August With their arrival and victory there, the last life line to Atlanta was effectively cut. Hood was forced to abandon Atlanta on the night of September 1, and the city surrendered to Federal forces the following morning.
Battle casualties for the four-month campaign totaled approximately 34, for the North and about 35, for the South. Sherman's capture of Atlanta was a major blow to the Confederacy, all but assuring President Abraham Lincoln 's re-election two months later, and setting the stage for Sherman's March to the Sea.
Civil War Article. The Atlanta Campaign.
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