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.
[Illustration: _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 State.
Johnston, however, believed that conditions for such an offensive were
not favorable and that he should await Sherman’s advance, defeat it, and
then undertake to regain Tennessee. At the opening of the campaign in
early May, this issue had not been settled. The lack of understanding
and cooperation between the government in Richmond and the general in
Georgia, illustrated by this incident, was to hamper Confederate efforts
throughout the campaign.
[Illustration: _Gen. Joseph E. Johnston_]
[Illustration: ATLANTA CAMPAIGN
1864]