Battle of Atlanta

Coordinates: 33°44′45″N 84°20′56″W / 33.7459°N 84.3488°W / 33.7459; -84.3488

Battle of Atlanta Part of the American Civil War Battle of Atlanta, by Kurz and Allison (1888). Date July 22, 1864[1] Location Fulton County, Georgia[1] Result Union victory[1] Belligerents  United States (Union)  CSA (Confederacy) Commanders and leaders William T. Sherman[1] James B. McPherson† John Bell Hood[1] Units involved Military Division of the Mississippi[1] Army of Tennessee[1] Strength 34,863 [2] 40,438 [2] Casualties and losses 3,641[3] 8,499[3]

The Battle of Atlanta was a battle of the Atlanta Campaign fought during the American Civil War on July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia.^[4] Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply center of Atlanta, Union forces commanded by William T. Sherman overwhelmed and defeated Confederate forces defending the city under John B. Hood. Union Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson was killed during the battle. Despite the implication of finality in its name, the battle occurred midway through the campaign and the city would not fall until September 2, 1864, after a Union siege and various attempts to seize railroads and supply lines leading to Atlanta. After taking the city, Sherman's troops headed south-southeastward toward Milledgeville, the State capital, and on to Savannah with the March to the Sea.

The fall of Atlanta was especially noteworthy for its political ramifications. In the 1864 election, former Union General George B. McClellan, a Democrat, ran against President Lincoln on a peace platform calling for truce with the Confederacy. The capture of Atlanta and Hood's burning of military facilities as he evacuated were extensively covered by Northern newspapers, significantly boosting Northern morale, and Lincoln was reelected by a large margin.

Background

Further information: Atlanta Union order of battle, Atlanta Confederate order of battle

In the Atlanta Campaign, Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman commanded the Union forces of the Western Theater. The main Union force in this battle was the Army of the Tennessee, under Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson. He was one of Sherman's and Grant's favorite commanders, as he was very quick and aggressive. Within Sherman's army, the XV Corps was commanded by Maj. Gen. John A. Logan,^[5] the XVI Corps was commanded by Maj. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge, and Maj. Gen. Frank P. Blair Jr. commanded the XVII Corps.^[6]

During the months leading up to the battle, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston had repeatedly retreated from Sherman's superior force. All along the railroad line from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Marietta, Georgia, a pattern was played and replayed: Johnston would take up a defensive position, Sherman would march to outflank the Confederate defenses, and Johnston would retreat again. After Johnston's withdrawal following the Battle of Resaca, the two armies clashed again at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, but the Confederate senior leadership in Richmond was unhappy with Johnston's perceived reluctance to fight the Union army, even though he had little chance of winning. Thus, on July 17, 1864, as he was preparing for the Battle of Peachtree Creek, Johnston was relieved of his command and replaced by Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood.^[7] The dismissal and replacement of Johnston was one of the most controversial decisions of the Civil War.^[8] Hood, who was fond of taking risks,^[7] lashed out at Sherman's army at Peachtree Creek, but the attack failed with almost five thousand Confederate casualties.^[9]

Hood needed to defend the city of Atlanta, which was an important rail hub and industrial center for the Confederacy, but his army was small in comparison to the armies that Sherman commanded. He decided to withdraw, enticing the Union troops to come forward. McPherson's army closed in from Decatur, Georgia, to the east side of Atlanta.^[1]

Battle

Palisades and chevaux de frise in front of the Potter (or Ponder) House, Atlanta, Georgia, 1864.

Meanwhile, Hood ordered Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee's corps on a march around the Union left flank, had Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler's cavalry march near Sherman's supply line, and had Maj. Gen. Benjamin Cheatham's corps attack the Union front. However, it took longer than expected for Hardee to get his men in position, and during that time, McPherson had correctly deduced a possible threat to his left flank, and sent XVI Corps, his reserve, to help strengthen it.^[1] Hardee's force met this other force, and the battle began. Although the initial Confederate attack was repulsed, the Union left flank began to retreat. About this time, McPherson, who had ridden to the front to observe the battle, was shot and killed by Confederate infantry.^[10]

Near Decatur, Brig. Gen. John W. Sprague, in command of the 2nd Brigade, 4th Division of the XVI Corps,^[11] were attacked by Wheeler's calvalry. Wheeler had taken the Fayetteville Road while Hardee's column took the Flat Shoals Road toward McPherson's position. The Federals fled the town in a stampede but managed to save the ordnance and supply trains of the XV, XVI, XVII, and XX Corps. With the failure of Hardee's assault, Wheeler was in no position to hold Decatur and fell back into Atlanta that night.^[12] Sprague would later be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.^[13]

The main lines of battle now formed an "L" shape, with Hardee's attack forming the lower part of the "L" and Cheatham's attack on the Union front as the vertical member of the "L". Hood intended to attack the Union troops from both east and west. The fighting centered around a hill east of the city known as Bald Hill. The Federals had arrived two days earlier and began to shell the city proper, killing several civilians.^[12] A savage struggle, sometimes hand-to-hand, developed around the hill, lasting until just after dark. The Federals held the hill while the Confederates retired to a point just south of there. Meanwhile, two miles to the north, Cheatham's troops had broken through the Union lines at the Georgia railroad. In response, twenty artillery pieces were positioned near Sherman's headquarters and shelled the Confederates, while Logan's XV Corps regrouped and repulsed the Southern troops.^[1]

The Union had suffered 3,641 casualties, including Maj. Gen. McPherson,^[5] to the Confederates' 8,499.^[1] This was a devastating loss for the already reduced Confederate Army, but they still held the city. One notable establishment destroyed by Union soldiers was the Potter (or Ponder) House, built in 1857 and owned by Ephraim G. Ponder, a holder of sixty-five slaves before the war. In the battle, it was used by Confederate sharpshooters until Union artillery inflicted heavy damage. It was never rebuilt. One of Ponder's slaves, Festus Flipper, was the father of Henry Ossian Flipper, who later became the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point.^[14]

Siege and closure

The Potter (or Ponder) House in Atlanta housed Confederate sharpshooters until Union artillery made a special target of it.

Ruins of Atlanta Union Depot after burning by Sherman's troops, 1864

Sherman settled into a siege of Atlanta, shelling the city and sending raids west and south of the city to cut off the supply lines from Macon, Georgia. Both of Sherman's calvary raids were defeated by superior southern horsemen.^[12] Following the failure to break the Confederates' hold on the city, Sherman began to employ a new strategy. He would swing his entire army in a broad flanking maneuver to the west.^[12] Finally, on August 31 at Jonesborough, Georgia, Sherman's army captured the railroad track from Macon, pushing the Confederates to Lovejoy's Station. With his supply lines fully severed, Hood pulled his troops out of Atlanta the next day, September 1, destroying supply depots as he left to prevent them from falling into Union hands. He also set fire to eighty-one loaded ammunition cars, which led to a conflagration watched by hundreds.^[15]

On September 2,^[7] Mayor James Calhoun,^[16] along with a committee of Union-leaning citizens including William Markham,^[15] Jonathan Norcross, and Edward Rawson, met a captain on the staff of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum and surrendered the city, asking for "protection to non-combatants and private property".^[15] Sherman, who was in Jonesborough at the time of surrender,^[15] sent a telegram to Washington on September 3 reading, "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won".^[17][18] He then established his headquarters there on September 7, where he stayed for over two months before Sherman ordered the evacuation of all citizens. On November 14,^[19] Sherman's army burned all but about 400 buildings, including homes and businesses; estimates of the number of buildings destroyed range from 3,200 to 5,000.^[20] The next day, the army departed east toward Savannah on what would become known as Sherman's March to the Sea.^[7]

Aftermath

The fall of Atlanta and the success of the overall Atlanta Campaign were extensively covered by Northern newspapers, and were a boon to Northern morale and to President Lincoln's political standing. The 1864 election was between former Union General George B. McClellan, a Democrat, and Abraham Lincoln. McClellan ran a conflicted campaign - McClellan was a Unionist who advocated continuing the war until the defeat of the Confederacy, but the Democratic platform included calls for negotiations with the Confederacy on the subject of a potential truce. The capture of Atlanta and Hood's burning of military facilities as he evacuated showed that a successful conclusion of the war was in sight, weakening support for a truce. Lincoln was reelected by a comfortable margin, with 212 out of 233 electoral votes.^[7]

Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson, who was one of the highest-ranking Union officers killed in action during the Civil War, was mourned and honored by Sherman, who declared in his official report:

His public enemies, even the men who directed the fatal shot, ne'er spoke or wrote of him without expressions of marked respect; those whom he commanded loved him even to idolatry; and I, his associate and commander, fail in words adequate to express my opinion of his great worth. I feel assured that every patriot in America, on hearing this sad news, will feel a sense of personal loss, and the country generally will realize that we have lost, not only an able military leader, but a man who, had he survived, was qualified to heal the national strife which has been raised by designing and ambitious men.^[21]

Despite the damage caused by the war, Atlanta recovered from its downfall relatively quickly; as one observer noted as early as November 1865, "A new city is springing up with marvelous rapidity".^[19][22] In 1880, Atlanta ranked among the fifty largest cities in the United States.^[19] The battlefield is now urban residential and commercial land, with many markers memorializing notable events of the battle,^[23] including McPherson's place of death. The marker was erected in 1956 by the Georgia Historical Commission.^[24] To commemorate the 140th anniversary of the battle in 2004, two new markers were erected in the Inman Park neighborhood. The Atlanta Cyclorama building, built in 1921 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a museum located in Grant Park containing a panoramic painting of the battle.^[19][25]

See also

American Civil War portal

• Atlanta in the American Civil War

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} "Battle Summary: Atlanta, GA". National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/abpp/battles/ga017.htm. Retrieved 27 December 2010. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Livermore (p. 122-123, 142) cites values of Union troops as 34,863 present for duty and 30,477 effective, and Confederate troops as 40,438 present for duty and 36,934 effective. Bodart (1908) (p. 538) gives the strength of the Union forces as circa 70,000 and the Confederate forces as circa 40,000.
3. ^ ^{a b} Kennedy 1998, p. 340.
4. ^ Cozzens 2002, p. 546.
5. ^ ^{a b} Ecelbarger 2010, p. 233.
6. ^ Ecelbarger 2010, p. 237.
7. ^ ^{a b c d e} Boyer et al. 2007, p. 457.
8. ^ Symonds 1994, p. 326.
9. ^ "Battle Summary: Peachtree Creek, GA". National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/abpp/battles/ga016.htm. Retrieved 15 January 2011. 
10. ^ Ecelbarger 2010, p. 115.
11. ^ Ecelbarger 2010, p. 236.
12. ^ ^{a b c d} Garrett 1987.
13. ^ "Civil War Medal of Honor Recipients - (M-Z)". U.S. Army Center of Military History. http://www.history.army.mil/html/moh/civwarmz.html. Retrieved 27 December 2010. 
14. ^ "THE POTTER HOUSE ATLANTA Photo from nature By G. N. Barnard". Digital Library of Georgia. http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/meta/html/dlg/vang/meta_dlg_vang_ful0896-84.html?Welcome. Retrieved 26 February 2011. 
15. ^ ^{a b c d} Garrett 1987, p. 633–638.
16. ^ "Surrender of Atlanta, September 2, 1864". Marietta Street Artery Association. http://www.artery.org/08_history/UpperArtery/CivilWar/CWM-Surrender.html. Retrieved 18 January 2011. 
17. ^ Cox 1994, p. xv.
18. ^ "Today in History: September 1". Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/sep01.html. Retrieved 21 January 2011. 
19. ^ ^{a b c d} "Industrial Atlanta". National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/atlanta/industrial.htm. Retrieved 21 February 2011. 
20. ^ Bonds 2009, p. 363.
21. ^ Reid 1868, p. 587-588.
22. ^ Cooper, Jr., William J.; Terrill, Thomas E. (2008). The American South: A History, Volume 2. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 468. 
23. ^ "Atlanta Markers - The Historical Marker Database". The Historical Marker Database. http://www.hmdb.org/results.asp?Town=Atlanta&State=Georgia. Retrieved 6 February 2011. 
24. ^ "Death of McPherson Marker". The Historical Marker Database. http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=8736. Retrieved 6 February 2011. 
25. ^ "Grant Park Historic District". National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/atlanta/ghd.htm. Retrieved 28 December 2010. 

References

• Bonds, Russell S. (2009). War Like the Thunderbolt: The Battle and Burning of Atlanta. Westholme Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59416-100-1. 
• Boyer, Paul; Clark, Jr., Clifford; Kett, Joseph; Salisbury, Neal; Sitkoff, Harvard; Woloch, Nancy (2007). The Enduring Vision (6th AP ed.). Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0618801633. 
• Cox, Jacob D. (1994). Sherman's Battle for Atlanta. Da Capo Press. ISBN 9780306805882. 
• Cozzens, Peter (2002). Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252024047. 
• Ecelbarger, Gary (2010). The Day Dixie Died: The Battle of Atlanta. Macmillan. ISBN 9780312563998. 
• Foote, Shelby (1974). The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox. Random House. ISBN 0-394-74913-8. 
• Garrett, Franklin (1987). Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events, Volume 1. University of Georgia Press. OCLC 191446. 
• Golden, Randy. "The Battle of Atlanta". About North Georgia. http://ngeorgia.com/history/battleofatlanta.html. Retrieved 27 December 2010. 
• Kennedy, Frances H. (1998). The Civil War Battlefield Guide (2nd ed.). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 0-395-74012-6. 
• Reid, Whitelaw (1868). Ohio in the War: Her Statesmen, Her Generals, and Soldiers. Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin. http://books.google.com/books?id=RLOCAAAAIAAJ. 
• Symonds, Craig (1994). Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393311303. 
• Livermore, Thomas Leonard (1900). Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861-1865. Houghton, Mifflin and company. http://books.google.com/books?id=jthCAAAAIAAJ. 
• Bodart, Gaston (1908). Militär-historisches kreigs-lexikon, (1618-1905). Stern. http://books.google.com/books?id=Eo4DAAAAYAAJ. 

Further reading

• Dodge, Grenville Mellen (1910). The Battle of Atlanta and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. The Monarch Printing Company. 
• Secrist, Philip L. (2006). Sherman's 1864 Trail of Battle to Atlanta. Mercer University Press. ISBN 9780865547452.