Just for the record, Sherman is still dead.
One hundred and fifty-eight years have passed, as of this week, since the Battle of Atlanta.
The battle and its immediate precursor, the Battle of Peachtree Creek, were fought in a variety of locales that are now inside the Atlanta city limits, including the neighborhoods we now call East Atlanta, Buckhead and Cascade Heights.
Despite modern Atlanta’s zeal to tear down, tear down, tear down, and then build, build, build, there are remnants and signs all around town of what was once ferocious combat between giant armies. You can see them, and learn about life in Atlanta at the time of the battle, in the AJC’s historical interactive presentation, “The War in Our Backyards,” created and first published in 2014 with the help of the Atlanta History Center.
The Battle of Atlanta was fought July 22, 1864. Union Gen. James McPherson was fatally wounded during the fighting; he would be the second highest-ranking Union officer to lose his life in combat during the Civil War. Fort McPherson, the U.S. Army post which would be built in Atlanta after the war, was named in his honor.
The fighting on July 22 didn’t end with a definitive victory so much as a siege, with Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s men surrounding Atlanta for weeks afterward.
The Confederates were able to hang on until the end of August, when Sherman captured the last rail line out of town -- the one connecting Atlanta with Macon.
With their last chances to be resupplied cut off, Confederate troops under Gen. John B. Hood then pulled out of the city.
Once Atlanta was captured, the stage was set for one of the most critical moments in the city’s history: Sherman had the city burned in November 1864, and he and his troops embarked on their march toward Savannah, which Sherman famously would present to President Abraham Lincoln as a Christmas present.
About the Author
