Friday, October 16, 2009 11:52 AM CDT
USA's Yesterdays: Atlanta campaign -- Repeated rebel retreats; and then, disaster
By Hal Malehorn
Seventy years ago “Gone With the Wind,” the classic movie depicting life in and around Atlanta during the Civil War, was produced for showings in neighborhood theaters. Accordingly, my dad, a high school history teacher, drove our family 15 miles eastward to see the show in Aztec, N.M., where the film was then playing.
Three things I distinctly recall from that experience: first, the intermission in the middle of that four-hour epic: second, the impressive cinematic re-creating of the burning of Atlanta; and, finally, the unconventional remark Rhett Butler uttered near the conclusion of the show.
Six years later, as a high school sophomore, I sat under the classroom tutelage of my father in a course in American history. Only then did I begin to understand the causes of the Civil War, along with the manner in which Atlanta was captured. But the main thing I recall from that unit of instruction is that the fall of Atlanta opened the door to Gen. Sherman’s infamous “March to the Sea.”
The Union army’s campaign to take Atlanta began in Chattanooga, Tenn. There in the late fall of 1863, Grant’s Union army had successfully scaled Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, dislodging the Rebels and sending them to regroup at Dalton, in nearby northern Georgia.
But between those signal victories and the summer of 1864, two important changes had occurred: President Lincoln had installed Ulysses S. Grant as commander of all Northern armies (leaving Gen. Sherman in charge in southeastern Tennessee). And Jefferson Davis had fired Gen. Bragg (who had failed miserably at Chattanooga).
To head up the Rebel army in Dalton, Davis named (as his least objectionable choice) Joe Johnston. Johnston was a combat veteran wounded by Indians, by Mexicans, and, most lately, by Yankees during McClellan’s ill-fated Peninsula Campaign.
Unhappily for the Confederate cause, Davis (skeptical as to Johnston’s abilities) and Johnston (sensitive as to his rank) had often quarreled in prior years. But, for a variety of reasons, Johnston was now appointed to command, as it were, by default.
In contrast, Yankee Generals Sherman and Grant had long been on compatible terms, both having served agreeably together in several successful campaigns.
As the spring action opened, Grant’s overall national strategy was to pressure the Confederacy on five fronts simultaneously: southeastern Virginia, south-central Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, coastal Alabama and northern Georgia. This would keep Rebel armies off-balance and prevent them from massing for concerted attacks in any single sector.
And, within his own sector, that is precisely what Sherman decided to do: keeping on the move, maneuvering about the stationary, defensive-minded Confederate Johnston.
Johnston’s decision to wait inside his defensive works at Dalton (and, later, elsewhere) gave the initiative to Sherman, who could thus choose the time, place and manner of attack. Moreover, Sherman knew northwestern Georgia terrain quite well, for he had ridden over much of the region during his prior years of service. Johnston, in contrast, had viewed the area only from a railroad car.
In the opening foray of the campaign, Union troops’ feints and speed of movement managed to completely fool Johnston, who elected to withdraw his forces to Resaca, on the banks of the Oostanaula River.
Sherman, in turn, avoided launching massive assaults. Instead, he jabbed at the enemy’s fortifications, ruined their railroads, and tried to outflank them. However, in establishing this tactic, Sherman, with his superior manpower, would subsequently overlook several opportunities for delivering a disabling blow.
On May 20 federal skirmishers reported that Johnston had once again fallen back, this time to the Etowah River. In three weeks time the Unionists had already forced their foes back half the distance to Atlanta.
By early June three other changes had occurred: first, the Confederate soldiers were building fortifications on a scale not seen before. Using rocks, trenches, fence rails, stumps, logs, felled trees — and even church pews, the Rebel troops dug in.
A second change was the falling-out that affected Johnston and his chief subordinate, John Bell Hood. Due to misunderstandings on Johnston’s part, and criticisms on Hood’s part, the two men became bitter enemies. Johnston could ill afford yet another foe.
The third change involved Johnston’s battlefield tactics. Whereas earlier he had announced as his plan, “To beat the enemy when he advances and then to move forward,” by June he never took the opportunity “to beat the enemy.” It was simpler just to cancel the effort and continue the retreat.
Thus, at Kennesaw Mountain no major massed conflicts took place before the Rebels retreated, once again, to the Chattahoochee River. In consequence, Johnston relinquished a considerable industrial area.
Meanwhile the pressure was increasing upon Sherman, as well. For one thing, the progress of the Union troops in the four other sectors had failed to produce even one decisive victory. This dearth included Grant’s own army, as well, for his men were bogged down in bloody combat around a besieged Petersburg near Richmond, Va.
Then, too, there were upcoming November presidential elections that would pit Lincoln against the popular Democrat candidate, George McClellan, This worried the Republicans; something had to be done to show Northern voters that Lincoln’s war policies were sound.
For the Rebels’ part, they were equally frustrated. After all, if Atlanta fell, the loss would surely cost the South a rail hub, and likely re-elect Lincoln. Jefferson Davis’s solution: relieve Johnston and put in his place John Bell Hood.
There again, antagonisms arose between Hood and Davis, as well as between Hood and his chief subordinate.
By August it was apparent that, with Union troops on three sides of Atlanta and federal artillery lobbing thousands of shells into the city, Atlanta was doomed.
Before withdrawing his troops, Hood ordered the military warehouses burned, along with 28 rail cars filled with ammunition. The resulting explosions created fires elsewhere in town.
On Sept. 3, 1864, a telegram arrived in Washington: “So Atlanta is ours, and fairly won.”
Indeed, the fall of Atlanta allowed Sherman subsequently to devastate much of Georgia, something for which he was long reviled by the populace.
To this revulsion the unrepentant Sherman undoubtedly responded exactly like Rhett Butler did.
Hal Malehorn portrays Alfred Balch at Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site.
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