SHERMAN IN ATLANTA: A Photographic Portfolio
On September 3, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln telegraphed the commanding officer of the Federal Military Division of the Mississippi: “The national thanks are rendered ... to Major-General W. T. Sherman and the officers and soldiers of his command before Atlanta, for the distinguished ability and perserverence displayed in the campaign in Georgia which, under Divine favor, has resulted in the capture of Atlanta. The marches, battles, sieges and other military operations that have signalized the campaign, must render it famous in the annals of war, and have entitled those who have participated therein to the applause and thanks of the nation.”
The Union soldiers had, in Sherman’s words, “completed the grand task which has been assigned us by our Government.” Atlanta, chief rail hub of the Confederacy and one of the South’s principal distributing, industrial, commercial, and cultural centers, was in Federal hands at last. It was a choice prize.
The city was founded in 1837 as Terminus, so-named because a rail line ended there. It was incorporated as Marthasville in 1845; two years later it was renamed Atlanta. Only a few dozen people lived there in the 1840’s, but by 1861, when the Civil War began, some 10,000 people called it home. By 1864, when Sherman’s armies started south from Chattanooga, Atlanta’s population was double that number. The city boasted factories, foundries, stores, arsenals, government offices, and hospitals, which, as the war progressed and drew closer, were hard pressed to handle the mounting number of casualties needing treatment. So strategic was Atlanta that Confederate President Jefferson Davis proclaimed that “Its fall would open the way for the Federal armies to the Gulf on one hand, and to Charleston on the other, and close up those granaries from which Gen. Robert E. Lee’s armies are supplied. It would give them control of our network of railroads and thus paralyze our efforts.” Now, with Federal soldiers in Atlanta, Davis’ fears would be realized.
Sherman’s troops occupied Atlanta for more than 2 months. The photographs and captions that follow highlight aspects of that occupation.
National Archives
Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, conqueror of Atlanta.
Library of Congress
Confederate palisades and cheveaux-de-frise around the Potter house northwest of Atlanta. Near here, Mayor James M. Calhoun surrendered the city to Sherman’s forces.
Library of Congress
Union soldiers lounge inside one of the abandoned Confederate field forts defending Atlanta.
Library of Congress
Atlanta, October 1864: “solid and business-like, wide streets and many fine houses.”
Atlanta Historical Society
Federal officers commandeered many of Atlanta’s houses for staff headquarters. Col. Henry A. Barnum and his staff moved into General Hood’s former headquarters, described as the “finest wooden building in the city.”
Library of Congress
After Sherman turned Atlanta into an armed camp, wagon trains, like this one on Whitehall Street, rumbled through the city day and night.
Atlanta Historical Society
The 2d Massachusetts Infantry, the “best officered regiment in the Army,” set up camp in City Hall Square. When this photograph was taken, near the end of the occupation, the soldiers’ tents had been replaced by more substantial wooden huts built from demolished houses.
Library of Congress
Atlanta residents, evicted from the city by General Sherman, await the departure of the baggage-laden train that will take them south beyond Union lines.
Library of Congress
Federal soldiers pry up the city’s railroad tracks before leaving on their march to the sea.
Library of Congress
The railroad depot after it was blown up by Federal demolition squads.
National Archives
This desolate scene marks the site where retreating Confederate soldiers blew up their ordnance train early on the morning of September 1, 1864. Sherman’s soldiers left similar scenes of destruction in their wake as they marched across Georgia in the closing months of the war.