Georgia, Clayton County,

August 31–September 1, 1864

By late August the Federal armies had been within three miles of Atlanta for more than a month, and the Confederate lines stretched fifteen miles to protect the city. It was time for action. US General Sherman had only a week’s supply of grain for the animals and three weeks’ supply of rations for his men. The Republicans needed a Sherman victory to win the November election, particularly since US General Grant had had no dramatic summer victories resulting from his strategy of applying pressure simultaneously on the Confederacy’s defenses north of the James River and on its supply lines out of Petersburg.

Sherman abandoned the formal siege of Atlanta and launched his earlier plan to force CS General Hood to retreat or attack. He ordered his supply wagons driven north of the Chattahoochee and guarded by the XX Corps positioned on the south bank. When the Confederates found the Federal fortifications abandoned on August 26, they occupied them and feasted on the food left behind. Atlanta welcomed the end of the bombardment. On August 28 the XV and XVII Corps reached the railroad at Fairburn, and the IV and XIV Corps hit it at Red Oak (today just southwest of the airport) and continued destroying it through the twenty-ninth.

With little cavalry, having sent CS General Wheeler to north Georgia to cut Sherman’s supply line, Hood had no information on the Federal armies. He concluded that Sherman had retreated north, and the Confederates had celebrations in Atlanta. Hood continued to guard his rail connection to Macon. When Federal troops were reported near Jonesboro, Hood concluded that they were cavalry on a raid. In fact they were all of Sherman’s forces except the XX Corps.

When US General Howard’s army emerged west of Jonesboro on August 31, Hood finally acted. He ordered CS General Hardee with two corps (his own and CS General Lee’s) to attack Howard’s army west of Jonesboro. The Federals repulsed Hardee, and Hood pulled Lee’s Corps back that night to cover the Atlanta defenses. Hardee entrenched along the railroad. On September 1 the Federals destroyed miles of the railroad track. At 5:00 p.m. one of Howard’s corps and two of Thomas’s assaulted and broke Hardee’s line at Jonesboro.

The loss of the railroad forced Hood to evacuate Atlanta that night, and the XX Corps occupied the city the following morning. Sherman received no news about Atlanta while he pursued Hardee’s 8,000–10,000 troops who had slipped out of Jonesboro and entrenched in a strong position one mile north of Lovejoy’s Station. Sherman learned of the fall of Atlanta on September 3 and decided to end the Atlanta campaign. He wired Washington, “So Atlanta is ours and fairly won. I shall not push much farther on this raid, but in a day or so will march to Atlanta and give my men some rest. Since May 5, we have been in one constant battle or skirmish, and need rest.” Sherman had launched the Atlanta campaign with 110,000 men. His armies suffered about 37,000 casualties. The Confederates’ maximum numerical strength was nearly 70,000 men. Their losses were about 10,000 under CS General Johnston and about 20,000 under Hood.

The fall of Atlanta left little doubt that the Confederacy would be defeated in the Civil War. Republicans who, before the fall of Atlanta, had wanted to replace President Abraham Lincoln, saw him after Atlanta as a victorious leader. In the 1864 presidential election the peace plank of the Democratic Party platform called for ending the war—which was described as “four years of failure to restore the Union”—as well as an armistice, and a Union that guaranteed “the rights of the States unimpaired.” Slavery would be protected. George B. McClellan, in accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, rejected one part of the platform, the peace plank, and stated, “The Union is the one condition of peace—we ask no more.” Lincoln held firm to his position that peace required both union and emancipation. He was re-elected in November 1864, the first president to win two terms since Andrew Jackson in 1832.

Estimated Casualties: 1,149 US, 2,000 CS