Atlanta 1864: Sherman marches South

Union Major-General William Tecumseh Sherman's telegraph--"Atlanta is ours, and fairly won"--had a huge impact on the course of the Civil War. The culmination of a four-month campaign in the Western Theater, it propelled Abraham Lincoln to reelection.

Atlanta marked the beginning of the final Confederate struggle for survival. Union forces under Sherman lined up against Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee. The superior Union numbers forced the Confederates into a series of delaying acti...