● Union victory
● William T. Sherman vs. John Bell Hood
● Heavy losses on both sides; 3700 Union casualties, 5,500 Confederate casualties
● Political battle, just as much as a physical battle
● Grant’s original idea: exhaust the Confederate resources, ordered five simultaneous
offenses to press the Confederates all along their frontier
● General Johnston (Confederate general in charge of Atlanta)
● Atlanta was at the junction of four railroads that connected all remaining
Confederate-held territory east of the Mississippi River
● Jefferson Davis didn’t like that Johnston did nothing, replaced with Hood
● Hood launched attacks on Sherman: Peach Tree Creek, and Georgia Railroad (AKA
Battle of Atlanta)
● Both ended in Confederate defeat; fall of Atlanta in early September
● The capture of Atlanta boosted Union morale, and helped ensure the reelection of
Lincoln, precipitated the downfall of the Confederacy
John Bell Hood:
● Confederate Lieutenant General, in command of Atlanta
● A veteran of Antietam and Gettysburg, lost his leg at the Battle of Chickamauga
● Launched 4 major aggressive attacks on Sherman’s troops
● Peachtree Creek (and all the others): failed, significant casualties
● Sept. 2, Union soldiers entered the city, concluding the Atlanta campaign
● Evacuated the city of Atlanta, burning as many military supplies and installations as
possible
William Tecumseh Sherman:
● U.S Military Academy grad, 6th in his class
● Campaign in Georgia described as “modern warfare,” and brought “total
destruction…upon the civilian population in the path of the advancing columns of his
armies”
● Sherman cut off all communications to his army and commenced his now-famous
“March to the Sea," leaving in his wake a forty to sixty mile-wide path of destruction
through the heartland of Georgia.
● On December 21, 1864 Sherman wired Lincoln to offer him an early Christmas present:
the city of Savannah
● “I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither
fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for
vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.” - William T. Sherman
● William T. Sherman vs. John Bell Hood
● Heavy losses on both sides; 3700 Union casualties, 5,500 Confederate casualties
● Political battle, just as much as a physical battle
● Grant’s original idea: exhaust the Confederate resources, ordered five simultaneous
offenses to press the Confederates all along their frontier
● General Johnston (Confederate general in charge of Atlanta)
● Atlanta was at the junction of four railroads that connected all remaining
Confederate-held territory east of the Mississippi River
● Jefferson Davis didn’t like that Johnston did nothing, replaced with Hood
● Hood launched attacks on Sherman: Peach Tree Creek, and Georgia Railroad (AKA
Battle of Atlanta)
● Both ended in Confederate defeat; fall of Atlanta in early September
● The capture of Atlanta boosted Union morale, and helped ensure the reelection of
Lincoln, precipitated the downfall of the Confederacy
John Bell Hood:
● Confederate Lieutenant General, in command of Atlanta
● A veteran of Antietam and Gettysburg, lost his leg at the Battle of Chickamauga
● Launched 4 major aggressive attacks on Sherman’s troops
● Peachtree Creek (and all the others): failed, significant casualties
● Sept. 2, Union soldiers entered the city, concluding the Atlanta campaign
● Evacuated the city of Atlanta, burning as many military supplies and installations as
possible
William Tecumseh Sherman:
● U.S Military Academy grad, 6th in his class
● Campaign in Georgia described as “modern warfare,” and brought “total
destruction…upon the civilian population in the path of the advancing columns of his
armies”
● Sherman cut off all communications to his army and commenced his now-famous
“March to the Sea," leaving in his wake a forty to sixty mile-wide path of destruction
through the heartland of Georgia.
● On December 21, 1864 Sherman wired Lincoln to offer him an early Christmas present:
the city of Savannah
● “I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither
fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for
vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.” - William T. Sherman
