Sherman Marched Here

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One of the last big battlefields of the Civl War is also one of the last big battlefields I had yet to visit. I saw the sign to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield when I was coming home from Florida, but it was cold and raining then. That was no issue this time around. Wow, is that battlefield big. Not as large as Gettysburg, but still pretty darn big. And it was a pretty darn costly battle. General Sherman (in the photo, along with an appropriate quote of his found in the museum at the welcome center) knew that capturing Atlanta would more or less destroy what was left of the Confederacy, given the city was a major hub for manufacturing. After Chattanooga and Chickamauga fell, Sherman kept marching into Georgia, flanking the Confederate armies. As they had done in Chattanooga, the Rebels retreated to a mountain. This time, it was the 1,800-foot tall Kennesaw Mountain, which is on the outskirts of Atlanta. The fortification made Sherman realize he could only do a full-frontal assault, which was going to cost lives. And he did. And it did. The death toll was 3:1 (3,000 Union deaths to 1,000 Confederates), and the Yanks couldn’t move that fortress. But something happened that’s still not really explicable. Although they won the battle — handily — the Confederate army sneaked out of the fortress in the middle of the night, leaving Sherman’s men to take the area and continue to Atlanta. There are movies (one of the better National Park Service explanation films) that explain this in the museum, along with a detailed timeline of the battle itself (as well as the events before and after it). I’m so glad I got to add this battlefield to my list of Civil War history lessons! Here’s the video that plays at the welcome center theater: