By Stephen Davis General Sherman had only been in Big fires in American history Atlanta a few days when he proposed spawn legends. Mrs. O’Leary‘s cow to U. S. Grant an idea for his next may not have started the Great Chi- campaign: rest his troops at Atlant cago Fire, but William T. Sherman’s for a while, then march them across shadow looms large over the Burn- Georgia to Savannah and the Atlaning of Atlanta. tic Ocean. “I would not hesitate to The old legend has it that he al- cross the State of Georgia with six lowed his soldiers to burn the entire thousand men,” he wrote on Septemcity. Go to the Georgia state capitol ber 10, 1864. Later he added, “I ca today and you’ll see on the square a make the march and make Georgia plaque placed there in 1920 by the howl.”2 United Daughters of the Confedera- Of course, before he left for th cy. On September 2, it states, Feder- sea, Sherman would have to tend to al troops entered Atlanta and shortly the enemy facing him. At the time, thereafter Sherman “reduced the city Gen. John B. Hood’s Army of Tento ashes.”1 nessee, having evacuated Atlanta, It really didn’t happen that way, was hovering twenty miles south of but after almost a century the plaque it. In late September Hood decidis still there. Old legends die hard. ed to march off into north Georgia, The truth—or as near to it as we either hoping to lure the Federals can get—is more complicated--and into battle or striking the Chattan fascinating. ga-Atlanta railroad to cut them off About the only burning done by Hood’s troops was here, at the eastern edge o along the Georgia Railroad. Near it they also set fire to more than two doze heat created the “moonscape” photographed here by George Barnard during the Bear River Powder Est. 1999 GOEX Black Powder Available in 1F – 4F, cannon and reenactor grade American-made Visco Cannon Fuse – any length up to 10,000 feet 25’ of Visco fuse free with order of 25 lbs of powder Craig Kirkland – GOEX Master Distributor
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from supplies. Sherman eventually sent George Thomas and John Schofield with two infantry corps back t Tennessee, where Hood seemed to be heading. Then, in early October, Sherman slowly followed Hood’s course with three corps, leaving Gen Henry Slocum’s XX Corps to hold Atlanta. By October 11, Grant had approved Sherman’s proposed march to the sea. Sherman would have to wait awhile, though, before launching it. For the next month he tarried in north Georgia with his XIV, XV and XVII Corps, monitoring the movements of the Rebel army. Meanwhile he got his commissary and quartermaster officers in Atlanta gathering supplies and getting rid of the stuf his troops would not need for “the grand move into Georgia,” “my big raid,” and “the grand march,” as he nta. As they evacuated on the night road cars filled with ammunition, wh l occupation.
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variously called it. On November 1 he also ordered Slocum to “make preliminary preparations for the absolute destruction
Atlanta of the railroad track, depot car and store houses, shops, and indeed everything that might be used to our disadvantage by an enemy.”
It is likely that General Sherman had more than that in mind for the city he had worked so hard to capture. To Grant on November 6 he confided that before he left, he wou see that “Atlanta itself is utterly stroyed.”3 The people themselves had all been cleared out. Soon after taking Atlanta Sherman ordered all remaining civilians to leave. They could g south; he arranged a ten-day truce with Hood so those wishing to enter Confederate lines could do so. Or they could go north; he offered train transport to Nashville, Louisville and other points. By late September almost all civilians had been expelled. After that, the story of Sherman’ wrecking of Atlanta begins with three Federal regiments. During most of the occupation, only three eptember 1-2, Confederates torched t could not be gotten out of town. The
Union regiments—the 2nd and 33rd Massachusetts and 111th Pennsylvania—were quarte downtown. The rest of Slocum’s
troops were encamped outside of the city. To these three regiments was assigned the work of planning the destruction of Atlanta’s railr and manufacturing facilities. The 2nd got the big passenger depot (the “car shed”) in the center of the city, and factory buildings to its east along Decatur Street. The 111th would destroy the Western & Atlantic roundhouse and the gas works out Marietta Street. The 33r would target the Macon & Western roundhouse, but also the several blocks of commercial storefront al Whitehall and Peachtree Streets. O a map submitted to Col. William Cogswell, post commandant, an officer of the 33rd shaded in an a labeled simply “brick block.” But also to be destroyed were downtown hotels and even the Medical Colleg where sick Federal soldiers were being treated. The only explanatio for destroying such non-military targets was that orders had come down for everything made of brick n rolling mill sions and intense (Library of Congress