Tuesday, April 11, 2011, is the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War.
Today, the Georgia Historical Society dedicated a marker at the site where Union General William T. Sherman ordered what’s known as the “Burning of Atlanta.”
“There is no marker to tell about the burning of Atlanta, which marked the end of the war,” Society President W. Ted Groce said. “We are standing on Ground Zero. This is where the burning and destruction started.”
The Atlanta Campaign was a series of battles fought in the Western Theater of the American Civil War throughout northwest Georgia and the area around Atlanta during the summer of 1864. Union General William T. Sherman invaded Georgia from the vicinity of Chattanooga, Tennessee, beginning in May 1864, opposed by the Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston.
Johnston's Army of Tennessee withdrew toward Atlanta in the face of successive flanking maneuvers by Sherman's group of armies. In July, the Confederate president replaced Johnston with the more aggressive John Bell Hood, who began challenging the Union Army in a series of damaging frontal assaults. Hood's army was eventually besieged in Atlanta - The Burning of Atlanta took place on July 21 – 22, 1864 - and the city fell on September 2, hastening the end of the war.
The American Civil War was one of the earliest true industrial wars. Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, and mass-produced weapons were employed extensively. The practices of total war, developed by Sherman in Georgia, and of trench warfare around Petersburg foreshadowed World War I in Europe. It remains the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties.
The “Burning of Atlanta” historical marker is located in front of the Georgia Freight Railroad Depot, on the plaza overlooking Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
