Atlanta: A Portrait of the Civil War

By Michael Rose and Atlanta History Center

When the public envisions Atlanta during the Civil War, two primary images of two unparalleled individuals dominate: William Tecumseh Sherman and Scarlett O Hara; however, there is more to the city s Civil War heritage than a frowning general and a wily gentlewoman. Within the pages of Atlanta: A Portrait of the Civil War, discover the old city streets, period homes, and military fortifications of Atlanta in a number of rarely reproduced Civil War photographs. Taken from the Atlanta History Center s visual arts collection, the images in this volume tell the story of the city as it was up to and during the Civil War. View the ruins of the Ponder House, the destruction of the rail lines, and the demolition of General Hood s ordnance train. Informative captions complement this engaging collection of images, and include excerpts from diaries, letters, and memoirs regarding life in Atlanta during the war. Many of the photographs were taken by George N. Barnard and his staff during the Federal occupation of Atlanta in the fall of 1864, and again in 1866 as he planned a publication of war views. Atlanta: A Portrait of the Civil War offers a comprehensive view of the city during a war that continues to fascinate both professional and amateur historians alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jul 27, 1999
• ISBN: 9781439610138

Michael Rose

Michael Rose was raised on a small family dairy farm in Upstate New York. He retired after serving in executive positions for several global multinational enterprises. He has been a non-executive director for three public companies headquartered in the US. He lives and writes in San Francisco.

Book preview

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INTRODUCTION

Images and Icons

Atlanta is unique in Civil War history. Whereas most Civil War battles were fought in country fields and woods, the battles for Atlanta were fought in what was then, like now, an urban area. Unlike the rural battlefields commemorated today with parks, monuments, and reenactments, 130 years of development and urban sprawl have largely overtaken old city streets, period homes, and military fortifications. In Atlanta, only the pictures remain.

When the public envisions Atlanta during the Civil War, two primary images—of two unparalleled individuals—dominate: William Tecumseh Sherman and Scarlett O’Hara. The visual imagery of both characters is powerful. The scowling, haggard features of Sherman, the war is Hell commander who leveled the city and is hated by some to this day, is an effective icon for the depiction of the Atlanta campaign. Perhaps only representations of Robert E. Lee (the Southern icon) and Ulysses S. Grant come close to achieving Sherman’s symbolic significance.

Scarlett O’Hara is something else altogether. The pervading presence of Gone with the Wind is everywhere in the mass culture concept of Civil War Atlanta. The motion picture version of the novel supplied a concrete visual element: graceful Southern mansions, war-weary Scarlett racing along Peachtree Street, and Rhett battling the fires of Sherman’s destruction. Gone with the Wind created a legendary image of Atlanta—one readers and movie viewers believe in only too well.

This popular perception of 1860s Atlanta is incomplete. There is more to the city’s Civil War heritage than a frowning general and a wily gentlewoman. Atlanta: A Portrait of the Civil War completes the story, presenting images of the city as it was up to and during the Civil War. These are views of Atlanta placed within the context of the war experience and portraits of Atlanta’s residents that reinforce the human component of the conflict. The book includes images familiar to Civil War enthusiasts as well: the ruins of the Ponder House, the destruction of the rail lines, and the demolition of General Hood’s ordnance train—all frequently used to illustrate the Civil War as a whole. Taken together, these images create a picture of Civil War Atlanta.

Martha Lumpkin was the youngest daughter of Georgia Governor Wilson Lumpkin (served 1831–35). In December 1843, the settlement of Terminus was officially named Marthasville in her honor. But residents soon considered the name too provincial for their growing city, and officials of the Western & Atlantic Railroad began calling their local depot Atlanta. By coincidence, Martha’s middle name was Atalanta, the powerful huntress of Greek legend, so many residents still believed the town to be named for her.

One

THE CITY IN THE FOREST

Atlanta was, and still is, a transportation town. In 1837, long before the city was the arsenal of the Civil War, a cotton capital, or the harbinger of the New South, it was a small community in the southern wilderness. Terminus, the nickname applied to the original settlement, described its location at the literal end of the rail line—a yet-to-be-built railroad running north through the Georgia Piedmont. But with the arrival of the first railroad in 1845 came a change in the town, from terminal to junction—stimulating commerce, capital, and immigration in the region.

In 1843, upon the receipt of a U.S. post office and the community’s incorporation, the town once known as Terminus obtained the hopelessly rustic and decidedly un-picturesque designation of Marthasville. It was almost too much for the locals to stand. By late 1845, the Western & Atlantic Railroad began using the made-up moniker, Atlanta (the so-called feminine derivation of the word Atlantic) on its station sign board—and the title stuck.

Despite growth and diversification, Atlanta remained defined by the railroads. By the close of the 1850s, there were four major lines serving the city and linking the Southeast—the Western & Atlantic, the Georgia Railroad, the Macon & Western, and the Atlanta & West Point. The passenger depot, considered the largest and finest in the South, sat in the very heart of the city, actually straddling the community’s public space. (During the Civil War, all Confederate troops from the region would pass through this depot on their way to the front.) The volume of comings and goings through