InNovember of 1863, Atlanta _____ during Sherman's famous "March to the Sea." 1.completely was burned, 2.completely burned it, burned, 4.were completely burned, 5.it was burned completely InNovember of 1863, the city of famous " March to the sea". Pertanyaan In November of 1863, the city of Atlanta _____ during Sherman's famous "March to the Sea". The best answer to complete the sentence above is. was completely burned. completely was burned. Todayit is hard to imagine two massive armies maneuvering and clashing in the area that is now Atlanta: one army attempting to force its will upon the future metropolis and the other doing everything in its power to resist that will. Under the command of General William T. Sherman, a large Federal force moved out of Chattanooga, Tennessee towards the Georgia capital. The smaller Confederate OnNovember 15, 1864, United States forces led by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman burned nearly all of the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. This event occurred near the end of the U.S. Civil War during which 11 states in the American South seceded from the rest of the nation. The Confederate States of America was formed to maintain contoh kegiatan perumahan dan tata laksana rumah tangga. In the summer of 1864, during the Civil War 1861-65, Union General William T. Sherman faced off against Confederate generals Joseph E. Johnston and John B. Hood in a series of battles in northern Georgia. Sherman’s goal was to destroy the Army of the Tennessee, capture Atlanta and cut off vital Confederate supply lines. While Sherman failed to destroy his enemy, he was able to force the surrender of Atlanta in September 1864,boosting Northern morale and greatly improving President Abraham Lincoln’s re-election bid. With Atlantaunder Union control, Sherman embarked on his March to the Sea, which laid waste to the countryside and hastened the Confederacy’s T. Sherman and Atlanta Campaign Background William Tecumseh Sherman 1820-91 was an Ohio native who attended West Point and served in the Army before becoming a banker and then president of a military school in Louisiana. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Sherman joined the Union Army and eventually commanded large numbers of troops, under General Ulysses S. Grant 1822-85, at the battles of Shiloh 1862, Vicksburg 1863 and Chattanooga 1863. In the spring of 1864, Sherman became supreme commander of the armies in the West and was ordered by Grant to take the city of Atlanta, then a key military supply center and railroad hub for the you know? Today, the city of Atlanta’s motto is “Resurgens,” Latin for “rising again.” The city also adopted the phoenix, a mythical bird that is reborn from its own ashes, as a Atlanta campaign began in early May 1864, and in the first few months his troops engaged in several fierce battles with Confederate soldiers on the outskirts of the city, including the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain on June 27, which the Union forces lost. However, on September 1, Confederate forces under John Hood 1831-79 pulled out of Atlanta and the city, a symbol of Confederate pride and strength, was surrendered the next day. Sherman’s men continued to defend it through he set off on his famous March to the Sea on November 15, Sherman ordered that Atlanta’s military resources, including munitions factories, clothing mills and railway yards, be burned. The fire got out of control and left Atlanta in to the Sea After leaving Atlanta, Sherman and some 60,000 of his soldiers headed toward Savannah, Georgia. The purpose of this March to the Sea was to frighten Georgia’s civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. Sherman’s troops did not destroy any of the towns in their path, but they stole food and livestock and burned the houses and barns of people who tried to fight troops arrived in Savannah on December 21, 1864. The city was undefended when they got there. The 10,000 Confederates who were supposed to be guarding it had already fled. Sherman presented the city of Savannah to President Abraham Lincoln 1809-65 as a Christmas in 1865, Sherman and his men left Savannah and pillaged and burned their way through the Carolinas. The Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, when the Confederate commander in chief, Robert E. Lee 1807-70, surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, After the Civil War After the war, Sherman succeeded Grant as commander in chief of the Army, serving from 1869 to 1883. Sherman, who is credited with the phrase “war is hell,” died in 1891 at age 71, in New York City. The city of Atlanta swiftly recovered from the war and became the capital of Georgia in 1868, first on a temporary basis and then permanently by popular vote in 1877. The South, like the rest of the country, was forever altered by the dramatic events of the Civil War 1861-65. Few states, however, were more central to the outcome of the conflict than Georgia, which provided an estimated 120,000 soldiers for the Confederacy. In addition, several hundred white and 3,500 Black Georgians enlisted for the Union cause. Battle of ChickamaugaCourtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division Georgia’s agricultural output was critical to the Confederate war effort, and because Georgia was a transportation and industrial center for the Confederacy, both sides struggled for control of the state. Some of the most important battles of the war were fought on Georgia soil, including Chickamauga, Resaca, and Kennesaw Mountain, while the battles of Peachtree Creek, Bald Hill Atlanta, Ezra Church, and Jonesboro were significant turning points during the Atlanta campaign of 1864. Perhaps most important, one can argue that the Civil War’s outcome was decided in Georgia with the Atlanta campaign and president Abraham Lincoln’s subsequent reelection. Georgians’ Road to War When Lincoln’s election to the presidency triggered the secession crisis in the winter of 1860-61, most Georgians initially hoped for yet another sectional compromise. The Georgia legislature, however, following a directive from Governor Joseph E. Brown, appropriated $1 million for military expenses and called for the election of delegates to a state convention to discuss secession. The majority of Georgia’s political leaders at this point, including Francis S. Bartow, Henry L. Benning, Governor Brown, Howell Cobb, Thomas R. R. Cobb, Wilson Lumpkin, Eugenius A. Nisbet, and Robert Toombs, advocated secession. Their efforts focused on exciting white southerners’ fears of slave insurrection and abolition, which could potentially lead to Black equality and intermarriage. Despite the best efforts of such antisecessionists as Alexander Stephens and Benjamin Hill, the die was cast. The secession convention vote on January 19, 1861, took Georgia out of the Union as expected, though by a closer vote than many had anticipated. Infantry regiments were authorized, and the convention appointed Bartow, the Cobb brothers, Nisbet, Toombs, Stephens, and four others as delegates to a convention of other seceded states to meet in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4. At Montgomery, the delegates organized the Confederate States of America, and Georgians played an important role in creating the provisional Confederate government. Howell Cobb served as president of the convention, and Thomas R. R. Cobb was the main architect of the Confederate Constitution. Toombs and Stephens were prominent in the proceedings, but to their disappointment the presidency of the new nation fell to Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. Still, Stephens won the vice presidency, and Toombs accepted the office of secretary of state. The War Begins After secession, most Georgians hoped to avoid war and peacefully leave the Union, but the firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, made conflict inevitable. Governor Brown’s call for volunteers on April 18 brought an enthusiastic response, and by October 1861 around 25,000 Georgians had enlisted in Confederate service. At first, Georgians experienced the war on far-off battlefields in Virginia and Tennessee. Fort PulaskiPhotograph by Brooke Novak Soon, however, the war came to Georgia by sea in the form of Union general Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda Plan,” a strategy to weaken the Confederacy by blocking southern coasts and by dividing the Confederacy in two through attempts at occupying the Mississippi River. A Union naval force under Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, established a base of operations on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, in the fall of 1861, to launch attacks along the south Atlantic coast and to disrupt international Confederate trade. Alarmed, President Davis sent General Robert E. Lee to Savannah to organize the defense of Georgia and upper Florida. Lee lacked the resources to do much, however, and before long Union forces began capturing key points along Georgia’s coast. By March 1862 Union troops had seized all of Georgia’s coastal islands, and on April 10, 1862, Union batteries on Tybee Island wrecked Fort Pulaski, leading to the fort’s surrender and the closure of Savannah as a functioning port. Despite the blockade, the Confederacy hoped that European demand for cotton would also bring support for the southern cause. These hopes were unfounded, however, as anti-slavery sentiment in England kept the British navy from becoming involved. By the war’s second year, the Union also targeted Georgia’s railroads. In April 1862 Union spy James J. Andrews led twenty saboteurs in a daring raid. In Big Shanty present-day Kennesaw, in Cobb County they seized the General locomotive and steamed northward. Western and Atlantic Railroad officials pursued them and, after a nearly ninety-mile chase, caught the Andrews gang near Ringgold before they could significantly damage the rail line. Confederate soldiers captured most of the saboteurs, and Andrews and seven of his raiders were hanged as spies in Atlanta. A year later, a Union cavalry force under Colonel Abel D. Streight attempted to cut the Western and Atlantic rail line near Rome, but Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest captured the Union force before it could do any real damage. Georgians Battling Richmond Meanwhile, the hardships and realities of war began to wear on Georgians. In April 1862 the Confederate government in Richmond initiated conscription to replenish depleted ranks. This was the first national draft in American history. Governor Brown argued that the draft was unconstitutional and despotic. He fought it and tried to maintain control of the state militia and other state troops. As the age limits of the draft were expanded, Brown protested anew. He relentlessly labored to field some viable separate state force and further circumvented conscription by recruiting militia members, who became known as “Joe Brown’s Pets.” Despite attacks from pro-Davis nationalists, Brown remained popular and won a fourth straight term as governor in 1863. But Brown was not the only Georgia statesman battling the Davis administration. Vice President Stephens spent much of his time at his home in Georgia denouncing Davis’s despotism. Toombs had quickly become bored as secretary of state and left to command a military brigade in Virginia, but he soon resigned and spent the rest of the war also denouncing the Davis administration. Even moderate Herschel V. Johnson joined the critics of the Richmond government. These men did much to hinder Confederate efforts and inflame anti-Davis sentiment. Home Front Mobilization While Brown struggled with the centralization policies of the Confederate government, he also worked to increase the state’s wartime production, especially with the manufacture of military supplies and equipment. Georgia quickly became a vital production center for the Confederate war effort. Atlanta, the state’s rail center, emerged as a home front, and the city contained one of the South’s few rolling mills, a quartermaster’s depot, and several major military hospitals. Additionally, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, and Savannah were vital industrial centers. Augusta was home to the Confederate Powder Works, the largest gunpowder factory in the Confederacy; one of the largest textile mills in the South; and an arsenal. Columbus had the Confederate Naval Iron Works, Columbus Naval Yard, cotton and woolen mills, and the South’s largest shoe factory. An arsenal in Savannah produced munitions until 1862, when operations were moved to Macon after the fall of Fort Pulaski. Macon also boasted a laboratory for bullet design and testing and was a depository for Confederate gold. The industrial village of Griswoldville, near Macon, manufactured weaponry before being destroyed by Union troops. Confederate CurrencyPhotograph by Wikimedia Financing the war was another struggle for the Brown administration. Like the rest of the Confederacy, Georgia tried to pay for the war with bonds and treasury notes instead of taxes. This led to massive inflation as paper money poured into the economy and the price of necessities soared beyond the reach of the masses. By early 1864 in Atlanta, for example, firewood sold for $80 a cord, corn for $10 a bushel, and flour for $120 a barrel; by contrast a Confederate private received $11 a month. Governor Brown worked tirelessly to aid common whites and made sure that needy soldiers and their families received money and salt to preserve foodstuffs. Yet the hardships of war touched the lives of every citizen, male and female, white and Black. Georgia soldiers saw action in every major campaign of the Civil War, and although Georgia units were engaged in the battles of the western theater, most served in the eastern theater in the Army of Northern Virginia. These men faced chronic shortages of food, clothing, and medicine as the ravages of combat and sickness relentlessly depleted their ranks. At home, white women faced the dilemma of managing farms and providing food for themselves and the war effort without adequate labor. Indeed, Georgia women had to step into multiple roles, providing support to soldier aid societies, working in hospitals or factories, and caring for their families. Social and Military Upheavals The war also challenged slavery and the plight of African Americans. Slavery broke down during the war, with enslaved workers using the absence of white males to secure better working and living conditions. While most enslaved Georgians remained on farms and plantations, many served the war effort of both sides as cooks, teamsters, servants, and laborers. Moreover, as Union forces penetrated the state, many bondsmen ran away to seek their freedom with the advancing Northern troops. Overwhelmed by the influx of freedpeople, Union forces set up “contraband” camps to provide food and shelter. In 1862 Union authorities began to authorize Black enlistment, and many Black recruits emerged on the coast and in northwest Georgia. While both Confederate and Union forces sought ways to use Black labor, freedpeople continually looked for ways to assert their own desire for freedom, dignity, and economic stability. Crucial to maintaining and enhancing their physical freedom was ownership of land. In Savannah, Union general William T. Sherman issued his controversial Special Field Order No. 15, giving freed people control of abandoned lands in the Sea Islands and signaling a new era of Black independence throughout the South. While radical elements of the Republican Party applauded this measure, the idea of taking property from whites, even Confederates, and giving it to African Americans proved far too drastic for the majority of white Americans, North and South. Therefore, the order was rescinded following the war. African American “Contrabands”Photograph by Wikimedia Adding to the chaos of the home front was the growing presence of Confederate deserters who, after 1863, hid in remote areas of the state, from the mountains in the north to the swamps and piney woods in the southeast. Equally harsh, Confederate and Unionist guerrillas of north Georgia made a hellish existence for many civilians. Georgia’s Appalachian counties had long been a stronghold for Unionists, and as the war continued to turn against the Confederacy, these areas became ever more hostile toward the Confederate government. War weariness led to other forms of dissent from Georgia civilians, who by late in the war joined with more ideologically committed Unionists to resist government-imposed conscription, impressment, and taxes-in-kind. Union Military Incursion The first full-scale military operations in Georgia took place in the late summer of 1863. In September a Union army under Major General William S. Rosecrans captured Chattanooga, Tennessee, and swept into Georgia. Later that month, Confederate forces under General Braxton Bragg defeated Rosecrans at the Battle of Chickamauga and followed the retreating Union troops back to Chattanooga. The situation eventually led Lincoln to remove Rosecrans and appoint Ulysses S. Grant as commander of all Union forces in the western theater. Using reinforcements, Grant shattered Bragg’s forces at Missionary Ridge, sending them fleeing to Dalton in north Georgia. Confederate EarthworksFrom Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign, by G. N. Barnard In May 1864, the beginning of the Atlanta campaign, the Union launched simultaneous advances in Virginia and Georgia designed to crush the last remaining Southern resistance. General Sherman began the invasion of Georgia with more than 110,000 men. His objective was to capture Atlanta and destroy the Confederate Army of Tennessee under the command of Bragg’s replacement, General Joseph E. Johnston. Using his superior numbers to outflank the Confederate defenses of Dalton, Sherman began a long series of flanking maneuvers designed to bypass Johnston’s fortified positions. Only once, at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, did the Union troops attempt a large-scale frontal assault. Its failure led to a return to the war of maneuver. By July Sherman had pushed Johnston to Peachtree Creek at the outskirts of Atlanta. An anxious President Davis replaced Johnston with General John B. Hood. An aggressive commander, Hood attacked Sherman repeatedly during the battles of Peachtree Creek, Bald Hill Atlanta, and Ezra Church. Although the attacks failed to destroy the Union troops, they did stymie Sherman’s advance. Meanwhile, in August, the Confederates managed to defeat two Union cavalry raids headed for Macon and Andersonville. By the end of the month, however, Sherman broke the last Confederate rail line supplying Atlanta at Jonesboro, forcing the Confederates to abandon the city. The fall of Atlanta helped to ensure the reelection of Lincoln, thus making the Atlanta campaign arguably the most important of the war in terms of political consequences. Union SoldiersCourtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division After evacuating Atlanta, Hood’s army marched north into Tennessee, hoping to disrupt Sherman’s supply lines and draw him away from Georgia. Sherman briefly followed but then swung back to Atlanta after sending Major General George H. Thomas northward with sufficient forces to crush Hood’s army near Nashville, Tennessee, by the end of the year. Meanwhile, in mid-November, Sherman launched his March to the Sea. Having destroyed Atlanta’s capacity as a rail and industrial center, Sherman and 60,000 men marched southeastward against token opposition, cutting a sixty-mile-wide swath through Georgia to Savannah. Along the way, rail lines, bridges, factories, mills, and other wartime resources were annihilated. Despite orders, private property was also looted and destroyed. The Union soldiers foraged liberally off the land, although instances of murder and rape were rare. On December 21, 1864, Union forces finally reached Savannah. Triumphantly, Sherman telegraphed Lincoln “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.” In February 1865 Sherman moved northward out of the state to crush resistance in the Carolinas. The War’s End Capture of Jefferson DavisPhotograph from Wikimedia The last significant military action in Georgia came from Alabama, with Union major general James Harrison Wilson’s cavalry force capturing Columbus on April 16, wrecking its industrial center, and moving on to Macon. Wilson’s Raid occurred one week after the surrender of the Confederacy at Appomattox. By early May, Governor Brown formally surrendered the state’s remaining military forces. Union forces quickly arrested Brown, Stephens, and Cobb, but Toombs escaped to Europe. Also captured was Captain Henry Wirz, the commandant at Andersonville Prison, which had the highest mortality rate of any Civil War prison; Wirz was the only person to be executed for war crimes committed during the Civil War. Jefferson Davis held the last meeting of the shadow government at Washington in Wilkes County. On May 10 Wilson’s forces captured him at Irwinville. The long war had finally ended, and emancipation was completed in 1865. Although Georgians realized that the nation would remain united and that slavery had ended, other questions remained to be answered as they sought during Reconstruction to build a new Georgia from the rubble of the old. Timeline January 1863 Emancipation ProclamationIn an effort to placate the slave-holding border states, Lincoln resisted the demands of radical Republicans for complete abolition. Yet some Union generals, such as General B. F. Butler, declared slaves escaping to their lines "contraband of war," not to be returned to their masters. Other generals decreed that the slaves of men rebelling against the Union were to be considered free. Congress, too, had been moving toward abolition. In 1861, Congress had passed an act stating that all slaves employed against the Union were to be considered free. In 1862, another act stated that all slaves of men who supported the Confederacy were to be considered free. Lincoln, aware of the public's growing support of abolition, issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring that all slaves in areas still in rebellion were, in the eyes of the federal government, free. March 1863 The First Conscription ActBecause of recruiting difficulties, an act was passed making all men between the ages of 20 and 45 liable to be called for military service. Service could be avoided by paying a fee or finding a substitute. The act was seen as unfair to the poor, and riots in working-class sections of New York City broke out in protest. A similar conscription act in the South provoked a similar reaction. May 1863 The Battle of ChancellorsvilleOn April 27, Union General Hooker crossed the Rappahannock River to attack General Lee's forces. Lee split his army, attacking a surprised Union army in three places and almost completely defeating them. Hooker withdrew across the Rappahannock River, giving the South a victory, but it was the Confederates' most costly victory in terms of casualties. May 1863 The Vicksburg CampaignUnion General Grant won several victories around Vicksburg, Mississippi, the fortified city considered essential to the Union's plans to regain control of the Mississippi River. On May 22, Grant began a siege of the city. After six weeks, Confederate General John Pemberton surrendered, giving up the city and 30,000 men. The capture of Port Hudson, Louisiana, shortly thereafter placed the entire Mississippi River in Union hands. The Confederacy was split in the Fall of Vicksburg—July 1863These photographs include three which William R. Pywell took in February 1864, referring back to Grant's brilliant campaign of the previous summer. June-July 1863 The Gettysburg CampaignConfederate General Lee decided to take the war to the enemy. On June 13, he defeated Union forces at Winchester, Virginia, and continued north to Pennsylvania. General Hooker, who had been planning to attack Richmond, was instead forced to follow Lee. Hooker, never comfortable with his commander, General Halleck, resigned on June 28, and General George Meade replaced him as commander of the Army of the July 1, a chance encounter between Union and Confederate forces began the Battle of Gettysburg. In the fighting that followed, Meade had greater numbers and better defensive positions. He won the battle, but failed to follow Lee as he retreated back to Virginia. Militarily, the Battle of Gettysburg was the high-water mark of the Confederacy; it is also significant because it ended Confederate hopes of formal recognition by foreign governments. On November 19, President Lincoln dedicated a portion of the Gettysburg battlefield as a national cemetery, and delivered his memorable "Gettysburg Address."Photographs of the battleground began immediately after the battle of July 1-3. This group of photographs also includes a scene of Hooker's troops in Virginia on route to Gettysburg. September 1863 The Battle of ChickamaugaOn September 19, Union and Confederate forces met on the Tennessee-Georgia border, near Chickamauga Creek. After the battle, Union forces retreated to Chattanooga, and the Confederacy maintained control of the in Virginia—August-November 1863After the Battle of Gettysburg, General Meade engaged in some cautious and inconclusive operations, but the heavy activity of the photographers was confined to the intervals between them—at Bealeton, southwest of Warrenton, in August, and at Culpeper, before the Mine Run Campaign. November 1863 The Battle of ChattanoogaOn November 23-25, Union forces pushed Confederate troops away from Chattanooga. The victory set the stage for General Sherman's Atlanta 1863After Rosecrans's debacle at Chickamauga, September 19-20, 1863, Confederate General Braxton Bragg's army occupied the mountains that ring the vital railroad center of Chattanooga. Grant, brought in to save the situation, steadily built up offensive strength, and on November 23- 25 burst the blockade in a series of brilliantly executed attacks. The photographs, probably all taken the following year when Chattanooga was the base for Sherman's Atlanta campaign, include scenes on Lookout Mountain, stormed by Hooker on November Siege of Knoxville—November-December 1863The difficult strategic situation of the federal armies after Chickamauga enabled Bragg to detach a force under Longstreet to drive Burnside out of eastern Tennessee. Burnside sought refuge in Knoxville, which he successfully defended from Confederate assaults. These views, taken after Longstreet's withdrawal on December 3, include one of Strawberry Plains, on his line of retreat. Here we have part of an army record Barnard was photographer of the Chief Engineer's Office, Military Division of the Mississippi, and his views were transmitted with the report of the chief engineer of Burnside's army, April 11, 1864. This time line was compiled by Joanne Freeman and owes a special debt to the Encyclopedia of American History by Richard B. Morris. The Union victory in the largest battle of the Atlanta Campaign led to the capture of that critical Confederate city and opened the door for Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s most famous operation—the March to the Sea and the capture of Savannah. How it ended Union victory. Confederate Lt. Gen. John B. Hood’s attack on Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s troops at Atlanta was repulsed with heavy losses. Hood and Sherman continued to battle for the crucial Confederate city throughout the summer until Hood was finally forced to abandon Atlanta to Union forces on September 1, 1864. In context In the spring of 1864, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, general-in-chief of all armies, ordered five, simultaneous offensives to press Confederates all along their frontier. Grant recognized that the Confederates could not win a war of attrition, and he instilled in his commanders the need to exhaust the resources of the Rebels by destroying their armies. Grant assigned his friend Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman to command the fifth advance against Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s army. Johnston was charged with defending Atlanta, the largest industrial, logistical, and administrative center outside of Richmond. Atlanta was at the junction of four railroads that connected all remaining Confederate-held territory east of the Mississippi River. By early July, Johnston had fallen back into the defenses of Atlanta. Frustrated by Johnston’s lack of aggressiveness, President Jefferson Davis replaced him with Lt. Gen. John B. Hood on July 18. Within days, Hood launched two attacks on Sherman—one at Peach Tree Creek on July 20 and the other along the Georgia Railroad known as the Battle of Atlanta on July 22. Both ended in defeat and led to the fall of Atlanta in September. The capture of such a valuable Confederate stronghold boosted Northern morale, helped ensure the reelection of President Abraham Lincoln in November, and precipitated the downfall of the Confederacy. On July 21, 1864, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s three armies are separated on the outskirts of Atlanta. Major General James B. McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee, facing Atlanta from the east astride the Georgia Railroad, has its left flank “in the air” Sherman has sent his cavalry to wreck the railroad further east. This situation presents Confederate general Hood with an opportunity to launch a flank attack like the one made famous by “Stonewall” Jackson at Chancellorsville. Hood plans for the corps of Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee to drop back from its lines north of the city into the main fortified perimeter on the night of July 21–22; the remaining corps of Maj. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart and Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham will follow. Hardee’s corps will march through and out of the city, southeast then northeast, guided by Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s cavalry, and jump into McPherson’s left-rear, while Wheeler attacks McPherson’s wagon trains at Decatur. Cheatham will support Hardee from the east edge of Atlanta. It is an ambitious plan, calling for a 15-mile night march by Hardee’s troops and a dawn attack on July 22. July 22. A late start, exhausted troops, a hot night, and dusty roads combine to bring the four assault divisions not nearly far enough into McPherson’s rear when Hardee, well behind schedule, decides to deploy. Then rough terrain adds further delay, and Confederate Maj. Gen. W. H. T. Walker is killed while getting his division into place. Hardee’s “surprise” attack does not begin until shortly after noon. The Federals have better luck. By chance, a Union Sixteenth Corps division under Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Sweeny happens to be in just the right position to meet Hardee’s opening assault. Instead of overrunning hospital tents and wagon trains in McPherson’s rear, Walker’s and Maj. Gen. William Bate’s troops run face-to-face into veteran Yankee infantry. McPherson, having left Sherman’s headquarters just before the firing started, is watching Sweeny contend with the Rebels. He rides off to see how Maj. Gen. Frank Blair’s Seventeenth Corps are faring; by now it has been struck by Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne’s hard-hitting division. McPherson and his staff are riding down a wagon road when they unexpectedly run into part of Cleburne’s line. “He came upon us suddenly,” Capt. Richard Beard of the Fifth Confederate Infantry later remembered I threw up my sword as a signal for him to surrender. He checked his horse, raised his hat in salute, wheeled to the right and dashed off to the rear in a gallop. Corporal Coleman, standing near me, was ordered to fire, and it was his shot that brought General McPherson down. McPherson’s subordinates dash off. One Union officer strikes a tree in his flight; the blow smashes his pocket watch and preserves the time of the general’s death—202 Cleburne’s attack initially overruns part of the Union line, capturing two guns and several hundred prisoners. Then the Southerners run up against infantry and artillery on a treeless hilltop occupied by Brig. Gen. Mortimer Leggett’s division and are stopped cold. Brig. Gen. George Maney’s Confederate division joins in the fight, but Leggett holds onto his hill. Around 300 Hood orders Cheatham’s corps to launch an attack from Atlanta’s eastern line of works. Cheatham’s fierce but uncoordinated assaults against the Federal line held by Logan’s Fifteenth Corps meet with initial success, overrunning the Union line at the Troup Hurt House and capturing artillery, until a counterattack forces it back. At the end of the afternoon, the Confederates retire back to their initial positions. The Battle of Atlanta, the bloodiest of Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, is over. Union3,7220 killed0 wounded0 missing & capturedEstimated Casualties9,222Confederate5,5000 killed0 wounded0 missing & captured Hood’s effort to roll up Sherman’s left flank fails. On July 27, Sherman resumes operations against the city by shifting to the west side to cut the Macon & Western Railroad. The armies meet again at Ezra Church on July 28, which earns the Union another victory. Worn out after that, both armies settle in for a siege of the city that lasts throughout August. Atlanta Featured Resources Rocky Face Ridge Whitfield County, GA May 7 - 13, 1864 Result Union Victory Est. Casualties 1,437 Union 837 Confederate 600 Resaca Gordon County and Whitfield County, GA May 13 - 15, 1864 Result Inconclusive Est. Casualties 5,547 Union 2,747 Confederate 2,800 New Hope Church Paulding County, GA May 25 - 26, 1864 Result Confederate Victory Est. Casualties 2,065 Union 1,665 Confederate 400 Pickett's Mill Paulding County, GA May 27, 1864 Result Confederate Victory Est. Casualties 2,100 Union 1,600 Confederate 500 Dallas Paulding County, GA May 28, 1864 Result Union Victory Est. Casualties 5,400 Union 379 Confederate 1,200 Gilgal Church Cobb County, GA Jun 15 - 17, 1864 Result Confederate Victory Est. Casualties 1,100 Union 650 Confederate 450 Kennesaw Mountain Cobb County, GA Jun 27, 1864 Result Confederate Victory Est. Casualties 4,000 Union 3,000 Confederate 1,000 Peach Tree Creek Fulton County, GA Jul 20, 1864 Result Union Victory Est. Casualties 4,250 Union 1,750 Confederate 2,500 Atlanta Fulton County, GA Jul 22, 1864 Result Union Victory Est. Casualties 9,222 Union 3,722 Confederate 5,500 Jonesborough Clayton County, GA Aug 31 - Sep 1, 1864 Result Union Victory Est. Casualties 3,149 Union 1,149 Confederate 2,000 Related Battles Fulton County, GA July 22, 1864Result Union VictoryEstimated Casualties9,222 What was General Ulysses S. Grant doing between his victory at Chattanooga on November 25, 1863, and his promotion to Lieutenant General four months later? History books rarely mention this section of time before Grant later faced Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Virginia. However, General Grant was already preparing for his next move during this crucial time and contemplating a possible move from the western theater of the Civil War to the eastern theater. In the winter of 1864, General Grant was doing reconnaissance for an eventual campaign to take the southern railway city of Atlanta, Georgia. Civil War enthusiasts know the frequently told story of Atlanta falling to General William T. Sherman in September 1864, but General Grant initially made plans to capture Atlanta himself. During his reconnaissance, Grant traveled long distances to inspect possible supply routes that could be used to shuffle men and supplies to the front in Georgia. One of those possible supply routes could run through the Cumberland Gap, which sat across the borders of Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee. In January 1864, Grant traveled to the Gap to find out for himself if the mountain pass would make a good supply route for his plans. Not long after Grant’s victory in Chattanooga, he decided to move his headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee. Grant moved his headquarters because he believed “remaining at Chattanooga I was liable to have my telegraphic communications cut so as to throw me out of communication with both my command and Washington.” Grant saw Nashville as “the most central point from which to communicate with my entire military division, and also the authorities at Washington.” Grant’s plans encompassed more than just the capture of Atlanta. Grant proclaimed, “I expected to retain the command I then had, and I prepared myself for the campaign against Atlanta. I also had great hopes of having a campaign against Mobile from the Gulf. I expected after Atlanta fell to occupy that place permanently and to cut off Lee’s army from the West . . .” Grant might have succeeded in taking Atlanta and Mobile, but his Commander-in-Chief had other plans. President Abraham Lincoln decided to promote Grant to Lt. General, the first officer since George Washington to hold that rank permanently. Grant and Lincoln decided that it would be best for him to accompany General George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac in their pursuit of Robert E. Lee in Virginia. General Sherman would take over operations in the western theater and lead the charge to Georgia. Before his promotion, however, Grant made his long trek through the rugged terrain of eastern Tennessee, and eastern Kentucky. Grant left from Knoxville, Tennessee, and moved north towards the Cumberland Gap in January 1864 during an intensely cold winter. Grant wrote a letter to his wife Julia before leaving Knoxville stating that, “I very much fear the enemy intend holding a position in this country for the Winter and to make this the great battle field [sic] in the Spring.” The weather in Knoxville reminded him of his pre-war Army days in Sacketts Harbor, New York, in the 1840s and 1850s. It was so bitterly cold that Grant remembered “the thermometer being down as low as zero every morning for more than a week while I was at Knoxville, and on my way from there on horseback to Lexington, Kentucky . . .” The biting cold, combined with the bad roads, made it one of Grant’s toughest rides as he made his way towards Lexington, the city he needed to reach to catch a train back to his headquarters in Nashville. However, before he reached the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, he would need to make a stop at Cumberland Gap to inspect the troops as well as the road conditions leading through the Gap. What Grant found when he arrived at Cumberland Gap was not pleasant. The roads he wanted to use for moving men and supplies were some of the worst he had seen. Grant said, “The road over Cumberland Gap, and back of it, was strewn with debris of broken wagons and dead animals . . . The road had been cut up to as great a depth as clay could be by mules and wagons, and in that condition frozen; so that the ride of six days from Strawberry Plains to Lexington over these holes and knobs in the road was a very cheerless one, and very disagreeable.” The Army of the Ohio had been using the Gap as a supply route for some time, and now the route that Grant had considered as a trail to move supplies was looking very bleak. Grant mentioned that many of the Army of the Ohio’s “animals had nearly all starved” trying to pull supplies through the Gap. After seeing the roads at the Cumberland Gap, Grant realized that his ambitious plans for a supply route in this area would not work. He headed for Lexington to catch the train, and many people came out to see Grant as he rode towards central Kentucky. Grant remarked that “I found a great many people at home along that route, both in Tennessee and Kentucky, and almost universally, intensely loyal.” Many people in the mountains had been very pro-Union during the war. Grant, however, left the mountains behind to begin his leadership of all Union armies in Virginia.

in november of 1863 the city of atlanta