
	Feb. 8, 1820 - Feb. 14, 1891


	Maj-Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman

THE FALL OF ATLANTA
Five telegraphic words -- "Gen. SHERMAN has taken Atlanta," on Saturday, thrilled the nation with a joy not lees heartfelt, if somewhat less demonstrative, than that of France, when through the streets of Paris ran the cry: Sebastopol est pris. Indeed, the Sebastopol of Georgia has fallen, and with this splendid achievement one-half of the great campaign of the Summer is finished, and the seal of success already set upon the military operations of the year 1864. With nothing more done, the sum of that which has been done is victory. Four, months of constant and vigorous campaigning, a contested march of full two hundred miles, ten pitched battles, and two score of lesser engagements by night and day, make up the price we paid for Atlanta. It is worth them all; for our highest estimate will not outreach the magnitude of the solid fact. Considering simply the military results of SHERMAN's campaign, in the first place, it has worsted and nearly destroyed the second army of the Confederacy. Fifty thousand men have dropped from the thinned ranks of that army since it lay encamped around Dalton on the first day of last May. Its riddled files have been partially supplied from the dregs of the Gulf States, the worst of fighting material -- old men, boys, and such timorous conscripts as have hitherto, by many devices, eluded the clutch of the drafting officers. This motley array, whose cohesion was never of the strongest, has at length recoiled under a crushing and demoralizing defeat. Reeling back toward the coast, it parts at once with the city it was gathered to defend, and with that residue of hope under which this last effort has been made to hold the broad State of Georgia against the legions of the Union. Henceforth desertion will play a double part in the decimation of HOOD's army. Next, Atlanta is ours -- the point of which that far-seeing speculator. JOHN C. CALHOUN, prophesied, in the year 1850, that it would be the greatest inland city of the entire South, and at no distant day, said he, the capital of a Southern Confederacy. This is the place which, while rapidly approaching the fulfillment of CALHOUN's prediction, has been seized by the Union arms. At once the workshop, the granary, the storehouse, and the arsenal of the Confederacy, Atlanta and its environs were of incalculable value. The foundries, furnaces, rolling-mills, machineshops, laboratories and railroad repair-shops; the factories of cannon and small arms; of powder, cartridges and percussion caps; of gun carriages, wagons, ambulances, harnesses, shoes and clothing, which have been accumulated at Atlanta, are ours now. Much of the machinery and material has probably been destroyed or removed by the enemy; but that which is removed can never again be worked to such advantage as at Atlanta. But the downfall of Atlanta does not mean the occupation of that city alone. It includes the assured possession of contiguous and valuable cities and regions -- of Rome, Rossville and Marietta -- where are manufactured guns, ammunition, cotton and woolen clothing in abundance. In one word, Atlanta is at the centre of a network of towns and villages, which have furnished forth half its war material to the entire Confederacy, from the Rappahannock to the Rio Grande. This valuable region is now all ours. There is a geographical consideration also. Atlanta is the extremity of the vast grain-producing territory of northern Alabama and Georgia. Between it and the ocean lie the cotton lands. Atlanta ours, the great, rolling, fertile valleys at its back, teeming with food and forage, pass forever into our hands. Nor is even this all. A wide, mountainous region, comprising that portion of the Central Zone which is traversed by the manifold parallel ridges of the Alleghanies. is now surpassed, and the rest of SHERMAN's course lies over smoother ground, and through country less hostile to military operations. Should he direct his head of column away to the South, he would soon encounter the Pine Mountains, or, if to the Southwest, he would again skirt along the Alleghany chain. But toward the sea, which is the path most likely to be adopted, the land is less difficult. From this time Atlanta will assume the role of a base of operations. The rugged region betwixt that point and Chattanooga, than which nothing could be more defensible, is surmounted once for all. It can hardly be appreciated what advantage has been gained in the elimination from future campaigns of 150 miles of hilly and wooded country, arduous and perilous, always interposed at the outset against every campaign whose base is Chattanooga. Now, in fine, SHERMAN marches against the cotton lands of the South. He has uncovered, in taking Atlanta, the entire series of railroads which form junction there, and threatens with imminent destruction every important city in Alabama and Georgia. On his right, Selma, Montgomery, Opelika, Columbus, lie at his mercy. Should his columns be directed toward the ocean, as is probable, cavalry would be dispatched to do all that is essential in the occupation of the former points. In his front are the important cities of Macon and Milledgeville, and on his left the City of Athens. Against these towns, now, his operations will be directed, and even Augusta will not be safe. Three hundred miles away to the southeast, almost equidistant from Atlanta, lie Charleston and Savannah. In good time, even their distance from Atlanta will not preserve them from cooperative attack by land and sea. In effect, this successful General breaks the rebellious territory in twain, and has already severed the railroad communication of its eastern and western sections. The fall of Atlanta, and the southeasterly retreat of HOOD uncovers the Atlanta, West Point and Montgomery Railroad, which connects the former city and all the region east and south of it with Mobile, with Montgomery and the great Mississippi Valley. The occupation of one little town will throw us effectually across this road between Macon and Montgomery -- the town of Opelika, which the rebel General has now been forced to leave to its fate. Of the other three railroads which converge at Atlanta, the Western and Atlantic, which runs to Chattanooga and Memphis, is of course ours. Two roads remain to the enemy -- the Georgia Central, running via. Macon to Savannah, and the other road to Savannah and thence to Charleston via Augusta. But these two roads, forming an apex at Atlanta, thence constantly diverge. It follows that it will soon be impossible for the enemy to extend himself far enough to occupy them both. One or the other will be surrendered, with the towns through which it takes its course. Such, then, are the immediate military re-results which will flow from this crowning success of the Georgia campaign. But its effect on our arms in Virginia cannot fail to be most fortunate. The news has already spread throughout the camps along the Appomattox, and the enthusiasm of our cities upon its reception is tame and commonplace to that of the Army of the Potomac. That confidence in the future, based on past triumphs, which we call prestige, will surely spread its infection to the gallant army on the James, and ere long Virginia will echo the note of victory back to Georgia.
My Source: Book: The New York Times Complete Civil War 1861 - 1864