  One of the most important military campaigns of the American Civil War was fought in northwestern Georgia during the spring and summer of 1864 between Northern forces under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman and Confederates commanded first by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and then by Gen. John B. Hood. This campaign resulted in the capture of Atlanta by the Unionists, prepared the way for Sherman’s “March to the Sea,” and, in the opinion of many historians, made inevitable the reelection of Abraham Lincoln and the consequent determination of the North to see the war through to final victory rather than accept a compromise with secession and slavery. Spring 1864 marked the beginning of the war’s fourth year. In the eastern theater, 3 years of fighting had led to a virtual stalemate, with the opposing armies hovering between Washington and Richmond—about where they had been when the war began in 1861. However, the situation was quite different in the vast area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, a region known in the 1860’s as “the West.” There in 1862 Federal armies had driven the Southerners out of Kentucky and much of Tennessee. In the following year the Northerners secured control of the Mississippi River and captured the important city of Chattanooga. By early 1864, Union armies were poised for what they hoped would be a quick campaign to dismember the Confederacy and end the war. This feeling was well illustrated by an Illinois soldier who wrote his sister on April 22, “I think we can lick the Rebs like a book when we start to do it & hope we will Clean Rebeldom out this summer so we will be able to quit the business.” To realize these hopes, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Northern armies, planned a simultaneous move on all fronts, with the greatest efforts devoted to Virginia, where he would personally direct operations, and to the region between the Tennessee and Chattahoochee Rivers, where the Federals would be led by Sherman and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks. Grant hoped that Banks would move from New Orleans, seize Mobile, and advance northward toward Montgomery, while Sherman’s force struck southward from Chattanooga. Had these plans succeeded, the Confederacy would have been reduced to a small area along the coast of Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. Confederate victories in Louisiana, however, made Banks’ projected campaign infeasible, and Sherman’s drive southward into Georgia, with Atlanta as the initial goal, became the major Union effort in the West. Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman Leaders on both sides had long recognized the importance of Atlanta, located a few miles south of the Chattahoochee and about 120 miles from Chattanooga. In 1864, only Richmond was more important to the South. Atlanta’s four railroads were not only the best means of communication between the eastern and western parts of the Confederacy but they were also the major lines of supply for the Southern armies in Virginia and north Georgia. The city’s hospitals cared for the sick and wounded and her factories produced many kinds of military goods. In the words of a Northern editor, Atlanta was “the great military depot of Rebeldom.” In addition, the city’s capture would give the Union armies a base from which they could strike further into Georgia to reach such vital manufacturing and administrative centers as Milledgeville, Macon, Augusta, and Columbus. All of these things were clear to the men who led the opposing armies. William Tecumseh Sherman was a thin, nervous, active man, with a wild shock of reddish or light-brown hair. A 44-year-old native of Ohio, he had been graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1840 and, after several years’ service in the Army, had resigned his commission to go into banking and later into education. The outbreak of war had found him serving as superintendent of a military college in Louisiana. He resigned this position and returned to the North, where he entered Federal service. Rising rapidly in the Army, he was chosen as supreme commander in the West in early 1864. His soldiers liked him and affectionately called him “Uncle Billy.” An officer who was with him in 1864 described the Federal commander as “tall and lank, not very erect, with hair like a thatch, which he rubs up with his hands, a rusty beard trimmed close, a wrinkled face, prominent red nose, small bright eyes, coarse red hands ... he smokes constantly.” Sherman was also a dogged fighter unawed by obstacles that would have broken lesser men, and Grant knew he could be counted on to carry out his part of the grand strategical plan for 1864. Sherman’s assignment was to break up the Confederate army in north Georgia and “to get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.” To accomplish this mission, he had almost 100,000 men organized into three armies—the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas; the Army of the Tennessee, commanded by Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson; and the Army of the Ohio, commanded by Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield. By early May, Sherman had assembled these troops around Chattanooga and was prepared to march with them into Georgia. Opposed to Sherman’s host was the Confederate Army of Tennessee, commanded by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. Johnston was a Virginian and, like Sherman, a graduate of West Point (Class of 1829). He had served in the U.S. Army until Virginia seceded in the spring of 1861, when he resigned and entered Confederate service. In December 1863 he was named commander of the major Confederate force in the West and given the mission of defending the area against further Northern advance. Johnston had an almost uncanny ability to win the loyal support of his subordinates. An Arkansas officer who met the Southern commander in early 1864 noted in his diary: “General Johnston is about 50 years of age—is quite gray—and has a spare form, an intelligent face, and an expressive blue eye. He was very polite, raising his cap to me after the introduction.” Unfortunately for the Confederacy, Johnston was also secretive, stubborn when dealing with his superiors, petulant, and too prone to see difficulties rather than opportunities. He constantly worried about defeat and retreat, and was hesitant to act. In sum, he was a man whose personality prevented him from effectively utilizing his many abilities. At the beginning of May, the 55,000 men of Johnston’s army were concentrated around Dalton, Ga., 35 miles southeast of Chattanooga. The Southern force consisted of two infantry corps commanded by Lt. Gens. William J. Hardee and John Bell Hood, and a cavalry corps led by Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler. What Johnston would do with these troops was still very much in doubt. The Confederate government wanted him to march into Tennessee and reestablish Southern authority over that crucial Gen. Joseph E. Johnston ATLANTA CAMPAIGN |
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