At 7 a.m. on Nov. 16, 1864, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman accompanied the last corps of his Union army as it left Atlanta to begin a virtually uncontested “March to the Sea,” which would end in Savannah five weeks later. Three miles outside the city, he stopped for a final look back. “Behind us lay Atlanta smoldering and in ruins, the black smoke rising high in the air and hanging like a pall over the ruined city,” he recalled. Presently a nearby infantry band struck up John Brown’s anthem. “Never … have I heard the chorus of ‘Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!’ done with more spirit.” The men were proud of what they had done.
A little over six months earlier, Sherman and his men had started a campaign that culminated in the capture of Atlanta on Sept. 2, a victory that probably clinched President Abraham Lincoln’s re-election. But their most recent accomplishments were the destruction and civilian depopulation of Atlanta and other North Georgia towns. Under Sherman’s orders, by the end of September nearly all of Atlanta’s residents had been forcibly removed, although most had no place to go.
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