By this time Hood had realized what was happening and knew that Atlanta could not be held any longer. During the night of September 1-2, he evacuated the city. Supplies that could not be carried away were burned. Hood’s forces moved far to the east of the city to pass around Jonesborough and join Hardee at Lovejoy’s Station. On September 2, Mayor James M. Calhoun surrendered Atlanta to a party of Federal soldiers.
On the following day, Sherman sent a telegram to the authorities in Washington announcing that “Atlanta is ours, and fairly won.” He added that he would not pursue the Confederates, who were then fortified at Lovejoy’s Station, but would return to Atlanta so that his men could enjoy a brief respite from fighting. “Since May 5,” he wrote, “we have been in one constant battle or skirmish, and need rest.”
A few days later another Federal wrote from his camp near Atlanta: “Here we will rest until further orders.... The campaign that commenced May 2 is now over, and we will rest here to recruit and prepare for a new campaign.”
Some writers have been critical of Sherman’s decision not to press after Hood’s army. They maintain that the enemy force and not the city of Atlanta was the true objective of the Unionists. It may have been that Sherman’s action was determined by the question of supplies or it may have been that his men were too exhausted for immediate operations south of the city. At any rate, the capture of Atlanta delighted and heartened Northerners. News of Sherman’s victory was greeted with ringing bells and cannon fire all over the North.
EPILOGUE
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.
