The "Atlanta campaign" is the name given by historians to the military operations that took place in north Georgia during the Civil War (1861-65) in the spring and summer of 1864.
Battle of Atlantamost Confederate Southerners had probably given up hopes of winning the war by conquering Union armies. The Confederacy had a real chance, though, of winning the war simply by not being beaten. In spring 1864 this strategy required two things: first, Confederate general Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia had to defend its capital, Richmond, and keep Union general Ulysses S. Grant's forces at bay; and second, the South's other major army, led by Joseph E. Johnston in north Georgia, had to keep William T. Sherman's Union forces from driving south and capturing Atlanta, the Confederacy's second-most important city.
This win-by-not-losing strategy involved a time element as well. If Lee and Johnston could hold their respective fields through early November, then war-weary Northerners might vote U.S. president Abraham Lincoln out of office. The Democratic candidate, in turn, might seek an armistice with the Confederacy and end the war.
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