munitions factories foundries tanneries hospitals warehouses and many other buildings Two months later much of Atlanta lay in ruin A Union officer wrote home to explain Nothing was left of Atlanta except the churches the City Hall and private dwellings You could hardly find a vestige of the splendid railroad depots THE GATE CITY OF THE SOUTH warehouses etc By the 1850s Atlanta had become an important MARCH TO THE SEA railway hub Four major rail lines ran through Atlanta Its passenger depot was the largest On November 15 Sherman and the and finest in the South and the volume of people passing through it helped give Atlanta 62 000 Union soldiers under his command the nickname the Gate City of the South The left the smoldering city They began city's population boomed and Atlanta became marching east through Georgia burning a thriving center of business Mills tanneries law offices banks and insurance agencies the homes and barns of those who fought began to sprout up Immigrants made their way back They continued until they reached to Atlanta to become part of the growing city of opportunity By 1860 approximately 12 000 the coastal city of Savannah Georgia on people lived and worked in Atlanta December 21 During their 285 mile 460 km March to the Sea Sherman's troops destroyed railroads wrecked supply depots and ransacked government buildings They also stole livestock and raided homes for food What they could not consume or
Under General Sherman's orders soldiers destroyed railroad tracks in Atlanta carry with them they burned or ruined Their goal was to destroy everything in their path that might aid the Confederate army They sought to frighten civilians into abandoning the cause
Sherman was determined to make all young and old wealthy and poor feel the horrors of war To do this he allowed his soldiers to destroy any and all property they encountered Although Sherman had forbidden his army from harming civilians the Union soldiers left a wake of destruction as they pressed on through Georgia In the course of 26 days Sherman estimated his men caused 100 million worth of damage to Georgia which would equal approximately 1 3 billion today General Sherman's March to the Sea GENERAL HOOD S COMMAND was not the only devastation endured in the course of the Civil War Three years of The mass destruction of Atlanta was not entirely the fault of General Sherman's troops With battles had left cities and towns destroyed supply lines to the city cut Confederate general homes and farms burned to the ground John Bell Hood was forced to give the command to his army to retreat and abandon Atlanta crops devastated tunnels and bridges Before leaving he ordered his men to destroy collapsed hundreds of thousands of lives factories and rail cars that held ammunition and other military supplies He would rather they lost and a nation fractured burn than fall into enemy hands and be used by the Union army The explosions resulting from DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION the fires could be heard for miles Journalist and By the end of the Civil War in 1865 historian Wallace Putnam Reed described the scene stating All the thunders of the universe nearly 50 major battles had been fought in seemed to be blazing and roaring over Atlanta 23 states Thousands of smaller battles skirmishes and engagements had occurred
General William T Sherman rides along the Union line near Atlanta in 1864 as well From the moment the war began in 1861 until it ended in 1865 there were few stretches of time when there was not fighting happening somewhere in the country The final major engagement of the war happened on April 9 1865 during the Battle of Appomattox Station in Virginia The Union army had taken control of a train loaded with supplies for the Confederate army and headed a mile
