In early May 1864, about 98,000 Union troops under the command of Gen. William T. Sherman opened the Atlanta campaign by seizing control of Tunnel Hill and the critical rail tunnel for the Western & Atlantic Railroad, located a few miles north of Dalton, Ga.
Sherman’s force was divided into three armies: the Army of the Tennessee under Gen. James B. McPherson; the army of the Ohio under Gen. John Schofield; and the main force, the Army of the Cumberland, led by Gen. George H. Thomas, whose heroics the previous year in northern Georgia earned for him the sobriquet “the Rock of Chickamauga.”
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