The Fall of Atlanta

Once beyond Kennesaw Mountain, William T. Sherman drove toward the South's railroad and supply hub at Atlanta. After the battle of Kennesaw Mountain, drying roads let him resume his flanking strategy, and on July 2 Joseph E. Johnston's Confederate soldiers left their Kennesaw line for prepared defenses at Smyrna and then the Chattahoochee River, but the larger Union Army outflanked them each time. Dissatisfied with Johnston's retreats, Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaced him with the more combative John Bell Hood. As the Union Army closed in on Atlanta, Hood launched offensives with his beleaguered Confederate Army, but Sherman's army cut Atlanta's railroads with victories at Peachtree Creek, Atlanta, Ezra Church, and Jonesboro. The city's capture on Setember 2 dealt a bitter blow to the Confederacy.

Marietta, Georgia · United States