The turning point of the Civil War is a perennial matter of dispute among historians. Some specify the Henry-Donelson-Shiloh operation of early 1862 as the pivotal campaign; others insist that Antietam was the key event; still others are equally sure that Gettysburg and Vicksburg marked the watershed of military activities. Regardless of when the tide turned, there can be little doubt that the Federal drive on Atlanta, launched in May 1864, was the beginning of the end for the Southern Confederacy. And Sherman’s combination assault-flanking operation of June 27 at Kennesaw Mountain may very well be considered the decisive maneuver in the thrust toward Atlanta. For when Joseph E. Johnston found it necessary to pull his forces back across the Chattahoochee, the fate of the city was sealed.

The Atlanta Campaign had an importance reaching beyond the immediate military and political consequences. It was conducted in a manner that helped establish a new mode of warfare. From beginning to end, it was a railroad campaign, in that a major transportation center was the prize for which the contestants vied, and both sides used rail lines to marshal, shift, and sustain their forces. Yanks and Rebs made some use of repeating rifles, and Confederate references to shooting down “moving bushes” indicate resort to camouflage by Sherman’s soldiers. The Union commander maintained a command post under “signal tree” at Kennesaw Mountain and directed the movement of his forces through a net of telegraph lines running out to subordinate headquarters. Men of both armies who early in the war had looked askance at the employment of pick and shovel, now, as a matter of course, promptly scooped out protective ditches at each change of position.

The campaign was also tremendously important as a human endeavor, and one of the most impressive features of Richard McMurry’s account is the insight—much of it gleaned from unpublished letters and diaries—into the motivations, experiences, and reactions of the participants. The officers and men who endured the heat and the mud of what must have been one of the wettest seasons in the history of Georgia and who lived in the shadow of death day after day for 4 months of as arduous campaigning as occurred during the whole conflict, stand out as flesh and blood human beings. This time of severe testing led to the undoing of some of the generals, including Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood. Others, notably William Tecumseh Sherman, capitalized on the opportunities afforded by the campaign to prove their worth and carve for themselves lasting niches in the military hall of fame. Still others had their careers cut short by hostile bullets, among them Leonidas Polk, a leader whose Civil War experience makes inescapable the conclusion that he should never have swapped his clerical robes for a general’s stars. In marked contrast stood James B. McPherson, great both as a man and a combat commander, whose premature passing elicited moving statements of grief from leaders on both sides.

Human aspects of the campaign found most vivid and revealing expression in the letters of the lesser officers and the men whom they led. Robert M. Gill, a Mississippi lieutenant promoted from the ranks, poured out in full and frequent letters to his wife his homesickness, his hopes, his fears, and his spiritual concern; in so doing, he revealed his virtues and his frailties and his ups and downs of morale until a Yankee fusillade snuffed out his life at Jonesborough. On June 22, 1864, he wrote from near Marietta: “I saw a canteen on which a heavy run was made during and after the charge. I still like whiskey but do not want any when going into a charge for I am or at least was drunk enough yesterday without drinking a drop.” Lieutenant Gill tried very hard to live up to his wife’s admonitions against “the sins of the camp,” but he had great difficulty with profanity, especially in the excitement of battle. After the action at Resaca, he wrote apologetically: “The men did not move out to suit me, and I forgot everything and began to curse a cowardly scamp who got behind.” Six weeks later he reported another lapse, and following the Battle of Atlanta he wrote: “I done some heavy swearing, I am told.... I try to do right but it seems impossible for me to keep from cursing when I get under fire. I hope I will do better hereafter. I do not wish to die with an oath on my lips.” Gill’s morale remained relatively good until after the fall of Atlanta. Shortly after that event, he wrote: “I think this cause a desperate one ... there is no hope of defeating Lincoln.... I wish I could be sanguine of success.”