Atlanta in The American Civil War - The Fall of Atlanta

The Fall of Atlanta

In 1864 the city, as feared by Gilmer, did indeed become the target of a major Union invasion (the subject of the 1939 film Gone with the Wind). The area now covered by metropolitan Atlanta was the scene of several fiercely-contested battles, including the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta and the Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta, after a five-week siege mounted by Union General William Sherman, and ordered all public buildings and possible Confederate assets destroyed.

On September 2, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city. Sherman sent a telegram to Washington reading, "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won" and he established his headquarters there on September 7, where he stayed for two months. That same day, Sherman ordered the civilian population to evacuate.

After a plea by Father Thomas O'Reilly of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Sherman did not burn the city's churches or hospitals. However, the remaining war resources were then destroyed in the aftermath and in Sherman's March to the Sea. These included Edward A. Vincent's railroad depot, built in 1853. As General Sherman departed Atlanta at 7:00 a.m. on November 15 with the bulk of his army, he noted his handiwork:

... We rode out of Atlanta by the Decatur road, filled by the marching troops and wagons of the Fourteenth Corps; and reaching the hill, just outside of the old rebel works, we naturally paused to look back upon the scenes of our past battles. We stood upon the very ground whereon was fought the bloody battle of July 22d, and could see the copse of wood where McPherson fell. Behind us lay Atlanta, smouldering and in ruins, the black smoke rising high in air, and hanging like a pall over the ruined city.

— William T. Sherman, Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman, Chapter 21