After failing to seize the railroad below Atlanta, Major-General William T. Sherman, commanding the Federal armies in Georgia, admitted to his superiors that he was “too impatient for a siege.” His Federals had marched through northern Georgia and arrived outside Atlanta, but after nearly a month they had not yet been able to get in. Northern confidence that Atlanta would fall was being replaced by southern confidence that Atlanta would hold. A Wisconsin soldier wrote that “we make but little progress toward Atlanta, and it may be some time before we take the place.”
Sherman sought to cut the Macon & Western Railroad below Atlanta, the last supply line running into the city. But until he could develop a plan to get to that heavily guarded line, he opted to bombard the city. He wrote Major-General Oliver O. Howard, commanding the Army of the Tennessee, “Let us destroy Atlanta and make it a desolation.”
The Federals emplaced siege artillery and Parrott rifles atop Bald Hill, overlooking the city, and began their barrage on August 9. They fired an average of 5,000 rounds into Atlanta every day for the next two weeks, killing several noncombatants, including women and children. The bombardment was meant to not only destroy Atlanta, but to demoralize the citizenry as well.
In addition, Sherman detached raiding parties to “make a circle of desolation around Atlanta” by destroying anything useful to the enemy throughout the surrounding countryside. Sherman wrote to General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant, “One thing is certain, whether we get inside of Atlanta or not it will be a used-up community when we are done with it.”
General John Bell Hood, commanding the Confederate Army of Tennessee, had prevented Sherman from capturing Atlanta thus far, but he lacked the strength to drive the Federals off permanently. He therefore assigned Major-General Joseph Wheeler to lead 4,500 cavalrymen on a raid of the Western & Atlantic Railroad. Running north all the way to Nashville, this served as Sherman’s principal supply line. Hood hoped that wrecking the railroad would starve Sherman’s armies and force them to either fall back or make a desperate attack against the strong Confederate defenses.
Wheeler was to ride north into Tennessee, leave half his command to operate against the railroad in that state, and return to Atlanta with his remaining men. He set out on the 10th, and over the next four days, he destroyed track spanning 30 miles from Marietta to Dalton. Wheeler demanded the surrender of the Federal garrison at Dalton, but the commander refused. Federal reinforcements soon arrived, and Wheeler continued on, skirmishing with enemy pursuers along the way.
The Confederates did not cause the damage that Hood hoped. Sherman’s Federals quickly repaired the railroad and supplies continued getting to the armies as Wheeler virtually took him out of the campaign by veering off into eastern Tennessee for the rest of the month. Hood now had hardly any cavalry to gather military intelligence.
Meanwhile, Grant wrote that Sherman’s recent message sounded like he probably would not capture Atlanta before the Democratic convention at the end of August. Although this would harm President Abraham Lincoln’s chances for reelection, Grant urged Sherman not to retreat: “I never would advise going backward even if your roads are cut so as to preclude the possibility of receiving supplies from the North but would recommend the accumulation of ordnance and supplies while you can and if it comes to worst move South as you suggested.”
Sherman assigned Brigadier-General H. Judson Kilpatrick to conduct a cavalry raid of his own, leading 4,000 troopers and horse artillery in wrecking the two remaining railroads below Atlanta. The Macon & Western ran south of Atlanta to Macon, and it also diverged into a second (Atlanta & West Point) railroad at East Point, which ran east to Montgomery, Alabama.
Kilpatrick’s Federals reached their first objective, Fairburn, on the 18th, and destroyed a section of the seldom-used Atlanta & West Point. At the same time, Major-General John Schofield’s Army of the Ohio advanced along Utoy Creek, southwest of Atlanta. Sherman wanted Schofield to be the pivot for the rest of the Federals to swing west and cut off the city’s south side.
The next day, Kilpatrick’s force arrived at Jonesboro, a key depot on the Macon & Western Railroad. They kept the guards busy as they destroyed large amounts of supplies. The troopers then rode south along the railroad to Lovejoy’s Station. They began destroying more supplies and wrecking more track when they were suddenly confronted by Confederate infantry under Brigadier-General William H. Jackson.
The two forces battled into the night, when Kilpatrick ordered a withdrawal back to Sherman’s lines. Jackson’s troops attacked the Federal rear guard and nearly surrounded the force, but Kilpatrick fought them off long enough to escape. He returned to the main Federal force two days later.
Kilpatrick reported that his men had wrecked enough of the railroads to prevent supplies from reaching Hood’s army for 10 days. Sherman hoped that this would force Hood to withdraw his starving army from Atlanta. However, the Confederates repaired the track and trains resumed deliveries the very next day. The cavalry failed Sherman again. He later wrote, “I became more than ever convinced that cavalry could not or would not work hard enough to disable a railroad properly, and therefore resolved at once to proceed to the execution of my original plan.”
Sherman’s original plan involved shifting six of his seven corps around to the southwest to permanently cut the railroads and force Hood to either evacuate the city or give battle. This was risky because the Federals would be separated from their communication and supply lines, but Sherman preferred this to attacking the strong Confederate fortifications ringing the city. Sherman notified his superiors, “I will be all ready, and will commence the movement around Atlanta by the south, tomorrow night, and for some time you will hear little of us.”
The movement began on the night of the 25th, as troops of Major-General George H. Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland left their trenches. The Twentieth Corps fell back to guard the railroad bridge over the Chattahoochee River. Men of the Fourth Corps marched to the Twentieth’s right rear to position themselves beside the Fourteenth Corps. The Fourteenth was beside Schofield’s army (which consisted of the Twenty-third Corps) near Utoy Creek. Dismounted cavalry replaced the withdrawing infantry in the trenches to mask the movement from the Confederates.
The next morning, the Federal artillery bombardment stopped, and Confederates reported that the trenches north of Atlanta were empty. Hood believed that Wheeler had forced Sherman to fall back across the Chattahoochee. Residents even planned victory celebrations for that night. However, Wheeler’s men were in Tennessee, unable to warn Hood of the real reason why the Federals abandoned their northern trenches.
Bibliography
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