Atlanta - Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow. John R. Hornady
the extreme right flank of the Federal army, commanded by General Logan. From 11:30 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, the battle was waged with all the fury of desperation, but it, too, was futile. The enemy could not be dislodged. Here again, due to the nature of the fighting, the losses of the Confederates greatly outnumbered those of the Federals. General Logan placed his losses in killed and wounded at 572, while the Confederates suffered losses in killed and wounded aggregating some 2,700, the figures bearing witness to the valor they displayed in charging the defenses of the enemy time and time again.
From this time forward, throughout July, the Union forces made sundry efforts to break through the Confederate lines and enter Atlanta, but were repulsed on each occasion. Meanwhile the City was under fire and slowly but surely the damage from solid shot and explosive missies mounted upward. Early in August further attempts were made to penetrate the Confederate lines, attacks being launched on the 5th and 7th, but they were repulsed, as had been the previous assaults.
August came and brought with it a tightening of the lines about the city. The enemy was seeking to cut off every line of communication with the outside world, and in this he finally succeeded. Meanwhile the shelling of the City continued, reaching its greatest fury on August 16, on which date numerous citizens were killed and injured and immense damage to property resulted. The Confederates had stationed a huge gun at Peachtree and Kimball Streets, which they used with great effectiveness, but it served to concentrate the fire of the Federal gunners upon that quarter, resulting in great damage to numerous structures in the business section. Other guns stationed about the city boomed furiously in reply to the thunder of the enemy's weapons, and between the sound of these explosions, and the continual crash of exploding shells, the city became an inferno of noise, swollen at frequent intervals by the roar of a falling building. The very air was loathsome with the odor of burned powder, while a pall of smoke and dust overhung the City, so thick that the sun seemed a ball of feebly glowing sulfur.
This shelling of a city, with its thousands of helpless women and children, and its feeble old men, seemed a monstrous thing to General Hood, and he wrote a letter to General Sherman protesting in the most vigorous terms, but what he had to say made no impression upon the grim leader of the besieging hosts. General Sherman replied by charging General Hood with cowardice in seeking shelter in a city full of women and children and then appealing to the enemy for mercy, and reminding the General that war ''is the science of barbarism," the main object being to slay and destroy. After pronouncing this grim doctrine, he expressed love for the South, but made it evident that he considered it entitled to considerable punishment.
On the last day of August the final struggle between the contending forces in and about Atlanta was fought at Jonesboro, where the Confederates did their utmost to break the stranglehold of the Federals, but without success. With the loss of this battle hope for Atlanta vanished and General Hood prepared quickly to abandon the city.
The psychological effect of the fall of Atlanta was tremendous. The fight of the South had been waged with such relentless vigor, and had been crowned with so many successes, particularly under General Robert E. Lee, that the gloom throughout the North was intense. Though forced backed repeatedly by overwhelming numbers, the armies of the Confederacy seemed to be unbeatable, and there was a feeling that the struggle would be prolonged indefinitely. This condition had created so much dissatisfaction in the North that grave doubt existed concerning the re-election of President Lincoln. There was a very general demand for a change, and the administration viewed the approaching election with grave concern. Not only so, but there was in the North a strong sentiment in favor of closing the war by compromise.
With the fall of Atlanta, the change was electrical. The North foresaw the end, and was delirious with joy. The reelection of Lincoln was made certain, and talk of compromise was hushed.
This crowning disaster to Southern arms, came suddenly and was due largely to an entire change of tactics, following the supplanting of General Johnston by General Hood. The former had carried on a remarkable campaign, refusing to accept battle with the overwhelming forces of Sherman unless the conditions were favorable to his own forces; a method under which the maximum of punishment was inflicted upon the enemy and a minimum of loss was sustained by the Confederates. He lost much territory, but maintained an army upon a high state of efficiency, and it was an army that Sherman always approached with the utmost caution.
With the ascendency of General Hood, the aggressive was adopted, and the comparatively small forces under him were thrown against the mighty army of Sherman in magnificent assaults that accomplished no important results, but served to reduce the army in frightful fashion. This mode of fighting about Atlanta cost the Confederate army as many men, within a few hundred, as had been lost under Johnston during all the fighting that had occurred in the seventy-odd days preceding the change in commanders. In the interval between July 17, 1864, and February 23, 1865, When General Johnston was reinstated, the army which he had built up and which ho had conserved with masterly skill, was shot to pieces.
Following the fall of Atlanta, one of the most astonishing military developments in all history was witnessed. General Hood shortly thereafter turned his army toward Tennessee and in a little while General Sherman was headed for Savannah. Thus two forces that had faced one another and fought one another through weeks and months, were back to back — one sweeping practically unopposed through the State like a devouring flame, and the other headed for ultimate ruin upon another front. A unique and amazing spectacle!
CHAPTER IV. Through War's Furnace
PREPARATIONS for the evacuation of Atlanta proceeded with great rapidity, and by midnight of September 1, the withdrawal was complete, save for a small cavalry force whose labors would not be complete until the military stores in the city, which it was impossible to remove, had been destroyed.
This work of destruction began about the midnight hour, and for a little while the city resembled a seething volcano. The earth trembled beneath the force of mighty explosions as locomotives were blown up at shops and round houses, and the din reached appalling proportions as the work of destroying seventy carloads of ammunition began. The noise of exploding shells was incessant and the heavens were continuously aglow with the flames which shot high above the City as carload after carload of munitions were destroyed. Houses rocked upon their foundations as the earth reeled beneath the mighty impact, while the noise of breaking glass and falling plaster added to the din.
Until almost dawn the work of destruction went forward, and then the cavalrymen who had thus signified the passing of Atlanta from the hands of the Confederates, quickly withdrew to join the retreating forces of General Hood.
With the departure of the Confederates, which left the City without government of any kind, there was a brief reign of anarchy. The lawless element, finding the reins of authority lying loose, formed into sundry groups and began to loot stores and vacant dwellings. But the things obtained were of comparatively little value, as most merchants had foreseen the possibility of such an eventuality, and valuables had been put out of the way.
Under the almost continuous rain of shells, the people of Atlanta had become phlegmatic; accustomed to the noise and the danger and quite at home in their dug-outs or cellars. Now a new and unknown something awaited them, and a feeling of profound apprehension gripped the community. No notice had been given of the intended evacuation by the Confederate forces, and some, the day before, even cherished the delusion that a great victory had been achieved over Sherman at Jonesboro. Now the defenders were gone, and the enemy stood without the city gates with nothing to hinder his entrance. What would he do when in possession? What new horrors awaited this afflicted people?
These questions, upon almost every lip, went unanswered for a time. Quiet fell upon the City, death-like after the awful noises of the night before. And while the people waited in tense silence, the invaders made no move. No soldiers in blue appeared, no messengers arrived, no token of any kind came from beyond those lines where were tens of thousands of armed men; men who had fought their way for hundreds of miles in order to realize this hour.
The apprehension and uncertainty grew, and finally Mayor Calhoun called a conference of prominent