This post gives us our first look at Atlanta’s role in the Civil War. Since I’ve been immersed with the Civil War starting with our trip to Mississippi, walking around it at the Atlanta History Center, and our next trip to Raleigh and a plantation outside of town, I’ve been wondering why we spend so much time on this period of America’s history. I have my ideas; what are yours? I’ll share mine after we visit Raleigh.
Over 160 years ago, Atlanta was the site of one of the final battles in the Civil War. Until I moved to the Atlanta area, all I knew about this battle was what I learned in the movie Gone With the Wind. I knew that the railroad tracks and depot were central to the battle, but that’s all I knew before moving here.
But the name of the city wasn’t always Atlanta; it had the name Terminus from 1837-1847. The word terminus refers generally to an end point used in transportation (end of a line) and can refer to a city. Railroads made Atlanta a city.
Atlanta was founded as a railroad junction. The city’s first seal, adopted in 1854, featured a locomotive similar to the Texas that we’ll see later in this post.
In 1864, Atlanta was a prime target for the U.S. Military, and the fighting here was the final turning point of the Civil War. Four rail lines ran through the city, making it the central transportation and supply hub for the Confederate States. If an army’s supplies are cut off, the war is probably lost.
After the war, railroads were among the first structures to be rebuilt. The trains were running again by early 1867.
President Lincoln’s reelection depended on public support for the war since he promised that victory would preserve the union and end the enslavement of 4M Americans.
[Just a little tidbit of history from one of our trips along the eastern side of the Sierras: Nevada became a state just 8 days before the 1864 election. Union sympathizers were so eager to gain statehood and be able to vote in the election that they sent their constitution to Congress by telegraph. This was the largest and costliest transmission ever made by telegraph.]
On September 2, 1864, Atlanta surrendered to the U.S. armies, and this was the turning point of the war. The news boosted Northern spirits and demoralized the Confederacy. Lincoln was reelected just 2 months later, assuring Union victory.
Twenty-two years later, the importance of Atlanta remained in public memory. The American Panorama Company of Milwaukee chose the largest of the battles for the city as the subject of a huge circular painting completed in 1886: The Battle of Atlanta cyclorama that we’ll see in the next post.
back to the battles for Atlanta
In May 1864, General Sherman led 110,000 men south from Chattanooga toward Atlanta along the Western & Atlantic Railroad. Over the following weeks they outmaneuvered 70,000 Confederate soldiers; after each battle, the Confederate Army was forced to retreat.
By July 20, Sherman’s artillery was within range of Atlanta. The Confederates’ third counterattack started on July 22 around Atlanta, which they lost. But Atlanta wasn’t defeated yet. The U.S. Armies fought for 17 more weeks to capture the city.
The Confederate attack failed. Approximately 5500 Confederate and 3800 U.S. soldiers were killed, wounded, missing, or captured. This is the battle shown in the cyclorama that we’ll see in the next post.
Atlanta surrendered on September 2, 1864, after U.S. forces destroyed the last railroad supplying the city.
Between November 11-15, 1864, the U.S. Army destroyed around 40% of Atlanta and its Confederate war-making capabilities that included most of the city’s downtown commercial buildings, industrial facilities, and all of its railroads.
In mid-November, the army began its March to the Sea to strike through central Georgia. A little side note is that Gen. Sherman was assumed to follow the rail lines to the sea, but he often did what was unusual. His actual route would have taken him through the town of Madison that was filled with the beautiful town homes owned by the plantation owners.
Remember that we said in our recent Mississippi travels that some plantation owners were pro-Union, probably because they were businessmen and some came from the North? This was the case of Madison, Georgia. Here’s what AI said:
“Madison was largely spared from destruction during Sherman’s March to the Sea in 1864 primarily because it was the home of Senator Joshua Hill, a prominent anti-secessionist and pro-Union figure. According to tradition, Hill rode out to meet Union forces to plead for the town’s safety, which was honored.”
Here are some other reasons why Madison was spared:
- Reputation: The town was known to have a strong Union sentiment, making it less of a target for destruction compared to other Georgia cities.
- Strategic Decisions: While Sherman’s army was famously destructive to logistics, infrastructure, and property deemed supportive of the Confederacy,, selective sparing sometimes occurred due to local negotiations or political influences.
Today Madison is still a lovely city and is a wonderful place for a day or weekend trip.
Savannah surrendered at the end of December—Sherman said it was a Christmas gift to the President. “I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.”
If you want to read more about why Gen. Sherman didn’t destroy Savannah, you may want to read this article from the Savannah Morning News.
I then asked AI about the turning points in the Civil War, and here’s what I found:
- Antietam (September 1862) was the bloodiest single day in American history and gave President Lincoln the political leverage to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
- Gettysburg and Vicksburg (both ending in July 1863) are often cited as the dual turning points that shifted the war’s momentum permanently in favor of the Union.
While these battles were definitely turning points, the battle of Atlanta cemented the direction of the war because the supply lines in and out of the city were completely destroyed.
By May 1865, the Confederate States had collapsed. The Civil War was over.
The picture on the right is the Old Union Station built in 1871 on the site of the firs stationt. It functioned as the heart of the city’s business district through the early 1900s and was demolished in 1930. For decades, railroads drove Atlanta’s growth.
The Great Locomotive Chase
If you grew up in the 1950s, and/or are a lover of old Disney movies, you may have watched the movie The Great Locomotive Chase. I watched it many times over the years, so I love getting to learn about this look at history. We’ll see the Texas locomotive in this post; the other train in this true story is in a museum in Kennesaw, Georgia, where part of this story happened.
Their goal was to run the locomotive north toward Chattanooga and destroy the Confederate supply lines along the way as they blew up bridges and brought down telegraph lines. Confederate Conductor William Fuller pursued the raiders on foot, then by handcar, and finally by using multiple engines, including the Texas.
The raiders ran out of fuel near Ringgold, Georgia, [close to the Georgia/Tennessee line] and were captured. Eight were executed as spies (including Andrews), eight escaped by floating down the Chattahoochee River until they were rescued in the Gulf of Mexico, and six were held as prisoners and eventually exchanged.
Even though their mission failed, the Andrews Raiders were the first recipients of the U.S. Medal of Honor.
While this locomotive chase didn’t affect the outcome of the Civil War, participants shared their memories again and again through newspapers and books. By the 1880s, the chase had become one of the war’s most famous stories. Readers loved the idea of two steaming machines racing at breakneck speed during a secret wartime raid.
In 1927, Hollywood comedian Buster Keaton played The Great Locomotive Chase for laughs. He starred as an unlucky but clever Confederate railroad engineer who rescues his fiancee through a series of comic stunts. While the movie was a financial failure, it’s considered a comedy classic today and is probably Keaton’s best work.
Numerous movies have been made about this chase, but Disney’s is the most famous. Near the end of the film as he was about to be executed, raider James Andrews (Jess Parker) shakes hands with the Confederate conductor. This fictional heroic ending reflects how most white Americans chose to view the Civil War.
Here are some early photographs of these two famous locomotives.
On the right is the General that was displayed in the 1880s in both the North and South at veterans’ reunions, fairs, and expositions while still serving as a working engine. It was taken out of service in the 1890s.
Now that we’ve looked at the years covering the Civil War, the next 2 posts from the Atlanta History Center cover what the world has seen of the war and the myths that came about because of it.
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