North and west of Atlanta nearly 100,000 men waited while General William Tecumseh Sherman made a decision. With only the Chattahoochee River and General Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee between him and the city, he could move either south or east from Marietta to cross the mighty river that cuts through the center of Georgia from northeast to southwest. It was the last great physical barrier between Sherman and his prize.
Each choice had tactical advantages but Sherman was a strategic thinker. By cutting the rail line to the east he would increase the amount of time it would take for re-enforcements to arrive from Richmond, lengthen Johnston's lines of communication and reduce the Confederate Army's access to grain and meat from Georgia's agricultural belt between Atlanta and Savannah. Yet unscathed, East Georgia offered Johnston much more food than Alabama, whose crops and cattle had been repeatedly scavenged.
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