THE FALL OF ATLANTA 2 SEPTEMBER 1864 - PART FOUR
THE FALL OF ATLANTA 2 SEPTEMBER 1864 – PART FOUR
Lincoln had not been fortunate in his generals-in-chief (commanders-in-chief). Winfield Scott, while a sound strategist, was too old and too infirm to command in war. McClellan, ‘the Young Napoleon’ appointed with much flourish and hope, turned out to be incompetent; his successor, Halleck, had a reputation as a great intellect and as the author of military texts, although in fact he had done little but translate French and German works. He was far too cautious as a field commander and early on lost the confidence of his subordinate generals. At last, Lincoln in 1864 settled on Ulysses S Grant as general-in-chief, partly because of Vicksburg but also largely because, unlike the other field commanders, Grant carried on campaigning without constantly asking for reinforcements. Born in 1822, Grant graduated from West Point in 1843 and did well in the Mexican American War (1846-48) but as a captain in 1854 resigned rather than be cashiered for drunkenness. A period of extreme poverty as an unsuccessful businessman followed, but at the outbreak of war in 1861 he re-joined and was promoted colonel (against McClellan’s advice). A brigadier general from February 1862 and a major general from April, after his success as an army commander at Vicksburg in July 1862 he was placed in command of all forces in the Western Theatre. On appointment as general-in-chief in 1864 he was promoted to lieutenant general, the only one in the Union forces. Accusations of drunkenness pursued him throughout his career but while he did drink heavily there is no evidence that he was ever incapable of performing his duty. Halleck was re-assigned as chief of staff, for which he was far more suited, and he did a competent job in managing recruitment and supply.
Although Grant was now general-in-chief he elected to position himself with the Army of the Potomac, now commanded by Major General George Meade, rather than direct the war from Washington. Meade was instructed to destroy Robert E Lee’s army, considered by Grant to be the major threat to the Union. As his successor in the west Grant nominated Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, a West Point graduate who had left the army as a captain but had re-joined in May 1861. Sherman was an uncompromising disciple of total war. He believed that the way to victory in the deep South into which he proposed to march, was to bring devastation to its inhabitants, and he proposed to live off the country and destroy anything that his army did not consume or use. Strategically Sherman’s first objective was the important rail and supply centre of Atlanta, in Georgia. If he could capture that he would severely restrict the Confederacy’s ability to move and supply their troops.
Opposing Sherman was General Joseph E Johnston and the confusingly named Army of Tennessee (the Union named its armies after rivers, the Confederacy after states). Johnston, aged fifty-seven in 1864, was another West Point graduate who had served with distinction in the Mexican American and the Indian wars. In 1860 he was the Quartermaster General of the United States Army, in the rank of brigadier general. As a Virginian he resigned his commission and went with his state when Virginia seceded in 1861, the most senior officer to do so. In August of that year he was promoted, along with four others, to the rank of full general in the army of the Confederate States, but of the five promoted Johnston was gazetted fourth in seniority, behind three officers, including Robert E Lee, who had been junior to him in the pre-war United States Army. Johnston protested strongly to President Jefferson Davis, to no avail, and his resentment led to continuing bad relations with his commander-in-chief. As commander in the Atlanta theatre Johnston was well aware that he was outnumbered numerically by Sherman and considered that his priority was to keep his army in being, to delay, harass and avoid a pitched battle in the hope – increasingly likely – that the Peace Party in the North would prevail and McClellan would win the election.
Sherman began his march from Chattanooga towards Atlanta on 4 May 1864 with three armies, that of the Cumberland, the Ohio and the Tennessee[*]. Johnston’s tactic was to take up a defensive position, wait until Sherman had deployed to outflank him, and then to withdraw to another defensive position further back. Where circumstances and the terrain permitted, Johnston was prepared to confront Sherman, but only if his withdrawal route was secure, and at Hope Church, Pickett’s Mill and Dallas between 25 and 28 May he did fight successful rearguard actions, and on June 27 at the battle of Kennesaw Mountain he repulsed a major frontal attack by Sherman, which cost the Union 3,000 casualties to the Confederate’s 630. All this made eminent military sense, as if Johnston could not confront Sherman in a pitched battle and defeat him – which he could not – then the best tactic was to delay, slow Sherman’s advance and hope for political change in the North. Sensible though it undoubtedly was, it did not seem that way to President Jefferson Davis and his government. They noted that Sherman had advanced 120 miles to within twenty miles of Atlanta in eight weeks – failing to note that without Johnston and his delaying tactics the advance would have been a lot faster than two miles a day – and when Johnston withdrew across the Chattahoochee River, the last major defensive feature before Atlanta, Davis’s patience ran out.
On 17 July 1864 Johnson was replaced by John B Hood now promoted to full general. Hood had graduated from West Point in 1853 and was a cavalry lieutenant in 1861 when he resigned his commission and went south. Promoted captain by the Confederacy on arrival he was a colonel by December, a brigadier general in March 1863 and a major general in October of the same year. On assuming command from Johnston he was at thirty-three the youngest army commander on either side. Hood was known to be aggressive and a risk taker, which endeared him to Davis, but those were exactly not the qualities required at this stage of the war in this theatre. On July 22 Sherman’s troops had closed up to the outer defences of Atlanta and the siege began. Hood sent a major part of his force on a long flanking manoeuvre intending to attack Sherman from the rear. They almost succeeded and did open up a gap in the Union lines which threatened to collapse Sherman’s entire position, but swift reinforcement by Major General McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee saved the day, although McPherson himself was killed. By the end of the day Hood had lost control of three of the four railway lines that converged on Atlanta and was back within the town defences with casualties of 8,499 compared to the Union losses of 3,641. Many of the Confederate casualties were caused by two Illinois regiments, the men of which had, at their own expense, purchased Henry rifles. This weapon, designed by gunsmith Benjamin Tyler Henry in 1860, was lever action and had a tubular magazine which held fifteen copper cased rounds, with a further round in the breech. In skilled hands this gave the Henry a rate of fire of around fifteen rounds a minute, compared to two or three rounds for the muzzle loading rifles used by infantry on both sides. Another big advantage was that the copper cased ammunition withstood long storage time and wet weather, whereas the paper cartridges for the rifled muskets did not. That the Henry, along with the Spencer, another lever action weapon produced slightly ahead of the Henry, was not used more widely was partly due to its cost and the slow rate of production by the arms factories, but mainly because, in the case of the Union, it was considered that soldiers equipped with magazine weapons would fire off much more ammunition, which the logistics system could not deliver in the quantities required, and in the case of the Confederacy because in any event they had no access to copper to manufacture the ammunition.
Gradually Sherman closed up on Atlanta intending to cut it off from the outside world, subjecting the city to continuous artillery bombardment. Both sides engaged in cavalry manoeuvres, one, by the Union Major General George Stoneman (a captain at the outbreak of war) so incompetent that Stoneman and 700 of his men were taken prisoner, but slowly and certainly the noose tightened and by the end of August it was clear to Hood that the city could not be defended any more, particularly when his last supply line was cut. On 1 September Hood withdrew from Atlanta, burning all stores and foodstuffs that his army could not take away with them and levelling any buildings of military usefulness. On 2 September Sherman was able to telegraph Lincoln ‘Atlanta is ours’.
The significance of Vicksburg may have been lost on the Northern population, but that of Atlanta was not. It was widely reported on in the Northern press and painted as a strategic victory, as indeed it was, allowing the Union to penetrate deep into the heart of the South. Combined with the naval victory at Mobile, captured by the Union navy a few days later, it had a major effect on Northern morale. Perhaps the generals were not as incompetent as thought, perhaps the sanctity of the Union was worth fighting for, perhaps this war could be won. Opinion was shifting, from a general belief that the Democrats and their peace platform would prevail in the Presidential election, to cautious optimism in some Republican circles. Even on the eve of voting Lincoln was convinced that he would lose, and that his final act as president would be to cobble together some sort of peace that would preserve the Union (which would probably mean accepting slavery).
Logistically the organisation of the election was a considerable feat. It was considered that soldiers must be afforded the opportunity to vote, but while some states allowed postal or proxy votes, others did not, insisting that the voter had to appear in person. Arrangements were made to get soldiers back to their homes in time to register and to vote, particularly difficult in the cases of those armies actually engaged in fighting, but in some states it was the soldier vote that carried the day. In the event the victory of Atlanta was the game changer. Lincoln won eighty percent of the soldier vote and fifty-five percent of the popular vote, but in the American electoral college system that gave him 234 electoral votes to McLellan’s 21, taking every Union state except for Delaware, Kentucky and New Jersey. The war would continue, the Union would win, the Union would be preserved.
Had Jefferson Davis retained confidence in Joseph Johnston, it is inconceivable that the latter would have attempted, as Hood did, to attack Sherman outside Atlanta on 22 July losing over 8,000 experienced soldiers in so doing. Johnston would not have lost the railway access to Atlanta and while ultimately he would have had to withdraw, he could have held the city for far longer than Hood was able to do. As voting in the presidential election then began in mid-September with the final day being 8 November, Johnston would only have had to hold Atlanta for another two months for its fall to have no effect on the election. In that scenario it is reasonable to assume that McLellan would have won, would have put aside his personal view that the war should continue, and would have made peace with the Confederacy accepting the right of states to secede.
The central cause of the war is generally seen as the indivisibility of the Union versus States’ rights, and freedom versus slavery, but it was also much more than that. In reality it was a conflict between two very different cultures, one agricultural and conservative, the other industrialising and, relatively at least, liberal. Even today the outsider can see a difference between the ‘good old boy’ of the South and the ‘get up and go’ found in the North. Had the result of the election been a victory for McClellan and a Democrat negotiated peace resulting in two American nations, slavery would eventually have been abolished for economic reasons, but it is difficult to see that the two halves would ever have become reunited, their economies and the attitudes of their populations were just too different and would have remained so. The American superpower, the policeman of the world, would never have emerged. Atlanta really was a battle that changed history, and Jefferson Davis’s replacement of Johnston by Hood was the tipping point.
[*] As well as the state of that name there is a River Tennessee, a tributary of the River Ohio