Battle of Atlanta Georgia

Battle of Atlanta Georgia 

The Atlanta Campaign was a series of battles fought in the Western Theater throughout northwest Georgia and the area around Atlanta, Georgia, during the summer of 1864, leading to the eventual fall of Atlanta and hastening the end of the American Civil War. The Atlanta Campaign followed the Union victory at the Battle of Chattanooga in November 1863; Chattanooga was known as the "Gateway to the South", and its capture opened that gateway. After Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to general-in-chief of all Union armies, he left his favorite lieutenant, Major General William T. Sherman, in charge of the Western armies.

Grant's strategy was to apply pressure against the Confederacy in several coordinated offensives. While he, George G. Meade, Benjamin Butler, Franz Sigel, George Crook, and William W. Averell, advanced in Virginia against Robert E. Lee, and Nathaniel Banks attempted to capture Mobile, Alabama, Sherman was assigned the mission of defeating the army of General Joseph E. Johnston, capturing Atlanta, and striking through Georgia and the Confederate heartland. At the start of the campaign, Sherman's Military Division of the Mississippi consisted of three armies: Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson's Army of the Tennessee (Sherman's old army under Grant), Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield's Army of the Ohio, and Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas's Army of the Cumberland.

When McPherson was killed at the Battle of Atlanta, Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard replaced him. Opposing Sherman, the Army of Tennessee was commanded first by Johnston, who was relieved of his command in mid-campaign and replaced by Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood. On paper at the beginning of the campaign, Sherman outnumbered Johnston 98,500 to 50,000, but his ranks were initially depleted by many furloughed soldiers, and Johnston received 15,000 reinforcements from Alabama. However, by June, a steady stream of reinforcements brought Sherman's strength to 112,000. Johnston was a conservative general with a reputation for withdrawing his army before serious contact would result; this was certainly his pattern against George B. McClellan in the Peninsula Campaign of 1862.

But in Georgia, he faced the much more aggressive Sherman. Johnston's army repeatedly took up strongly entrenched defensive positions in the campaign. Sherman prudently avoided suicidal frontal assaults against most of these positions, instead maneuvering in flanking marches around the defenses as he advanced from Chattanooga towards Atlanta. Whenever Sherman flanked the defensive lines (almost exclusively around Johnston's left flank), Johnston would retreat to another prepared position.

Both armies took advantage of the railroads as supply lines, with Johnston shortening his supply lines as he drew closer to Atlanta, and Sherman lengthening his own. Sherman was victorious, and Hood established a reputation as the most recklessly aggressive general in the Confederate Army. Casualties for the campaign were roughly equal in absolute numbers: 31,687 Union (4,423 killed, 22,822 wounded, 4,442 missing/captured) and 34,979 Confederate (3,044 killed, 18,952 wounded, 12,983 missing/captured).

But this represented a much higher Confederate proportional loss. Hood's army left the area with approximately 30,000 men, whereas Sherman retained 81,000.[3] Sherman's victory was tainted because it did not fulfill the original mission of the campaigng destroy the Army of Tennessee—and Sherman has been criticized for allowing his opponent to escape. However, the capture of Atlanta made an enormous contribution to Northern morale and was an important factor in the re-election of President Abraham Lincoln. The Atlanta Campaign was followed by Federal initiatives in two directions: almost immediately, to the northwest, the pursuit of Hood in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign; after the 1864 U.S. presidential election, to the east in Sherman's March to the Sea.

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