Sherman soon turned Atlanta into an armed camp. Houses were torn down
and the lumber used for fortifications or soldiers’ huts. Civilians
could not be fed by the army and were ordered out of the city with the
choice of going north or south. In mid-September a truce was declared
and the citizens who chose to remain in the Confederacy were transported
by the Northerners to Rough-and-Ready, where they were handed over to
Hood’s men who conveyed them farther south.
After completion of this unpleasant task, Hood determined to reverse
Sherman’s strategy and to move with his whole army around Atlanta to
draw Sherman after him into Alabama or Tennessee. In late September the
Confederates crossed the Chattahoochee and marched northward over many
of the summer’s battlefields. Sherman left a strong garrison in Atlanta
and followed Hood northward for several weeks. Unable to bring his
opponent to bay, Sherman detached a strong force to deal with the
Confederates and returned to Atlanta. Hood’s army was virtually
destroyed in several battles fought in Tennessee in November and
December. Sherman, meanwhile, reorganized his armies and on November 15
burned Atlanta and marched out of the city on his way to the sea.
The final importance of the Atlanta Campaign may lie more in its
psychological impact than in any military results. Essentially, in early
September, the Confederate military forces were in the same position
relative to the Northern armies that they had held early in the spring.
Psychologically, however, there had been a great shift. The news that
Atlanta had fallen meant that the average Northerner had at last a
tangible military victory that made it possible for him to see the end
of the war in the future. There would be more months of marching,
fighting, and dying, but Sherman’s capture of Atlanta convinced many
that the Confederacy was doomed.
[Illustration: {uncaptioned}]