Wartime Allatoona

In 1866, George N. Barnard photographed Allatoona looking north from approximately this location. Here the Western & Atlantic Railroad from Atlanta to Chattanooga passed through the Allatoona Mountain range in a 175 ft. deep cut, beside a small community intersected by several important wagon roads. The plantation residence on the far left was the John Clayton, now Mooney, house, which remains much the same today. Immediately left of the railroad tracks stood the Allatoona train depot, and across the tracks were warehouses and sheds holding large quantities of Federal supplies at the time of the battle. The Star Fort, built to defend the railroad below, stood atop the hill on the left, while the Tennessee Wagon Road wound northward up and over the hill to the right. A frame house once standing on the right hill served as headquarters for the 4th Minnesota Infantry Regiment garrisoned at Allatoona. During construction of the defenses, Union forces removed trees on both hills to create a clear field of fire, but over time heavy forest growth reclaimed most of the battlefield. Advances in photography shortly before the beginning of America’s War Between the States gave the public unprecedented images of battles, heroism, and death. Photographers including George Barnard, Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, Timothy O'Sullivan, and George Cook documented major battles and everyday life in the North and South. Barnard's well-known photographs of Allatoona came from his service as an official photographer for the U.S. Army, while others worked independently or for newspapers and magazines. Because publications of the time lacked the technology to print photographs directly, engravers turned photographs and sketches into printed images, and artists such as Alfred and William Waud, Thomas Nast, and Edwin Forbes supplied war illustrations to Harper´s Weekly, Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, and The London Illustrated News.

Georgia · United States