Guide to the Atlanta Campaign: Rocky Face Ridge to Kennesaw Mountain (review)

In the spring and summer of 1864 one of the most crucial military operations of the American Civil War took place in North Georgia. The opponents were a Federal force commanded by Major General William T. Sherman and a Confederate army led first by General Joseph E. Johnston and, after mid-July, by General John Bell Hood. When that campaign ended in early September with the fall of Atlanta, the Union forces had won a major victory that dealt the Confederacy a mortal blow and assured the re-election of President Abraham Lincoln and, with it, the final national victory over secession.

Today much of the region across which that campaign took place has been swallowed up by the metastasizing city of Atlanta. Dedicated students, however, can still find enough preserved sites dating from the first two months of the campaign, when the armies maneuvered north of Atlanta, to make a visit to the area worthwhile. This book is intended to help them do so.

This guide—part of the Army War College series designed for "staf rides"— follows the format for similar volumes covering other campaign and battle sites. The editors provide a basic introduction to the campaign. They then offer a driving tour with maps to twenty important sites, give a (sometimes very) brief narrative of the events at each site, and reprint excerpts from the writings of soldiers who participated in those events. Most of these selections are from officers' reports in the Official Records. Editor Luvaas adds an appendix covering Sherman's logistics in the campaign.

The selected sites cover many of the events of May and June. The editors have wisely elected not to deal with the July-August part of the campaign when the armies were south of the Chattahoochee River. The few remaining sites in the built-up part of the Atlanta area are simply not worth the trouble that it takes to get to them through the city's obscene traffic.

The Guide will serve very well for its intended purpose, but serious students should supplement it with one or two of the modern general histories of the campaign. I also recommend making time to visit three sites omitted by the editors:

Snake Creek Gap: on Georgia Highway 136, northwest of Resaca;

Allatoona Pass, at Exit 283, off Interstate Highway 75; and

Pine Mountain, off Stilesboro Road near Marietta (on private property,

so check with the rangers at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield).

Those passing through Atlanta should also see the permanent Civil War exhibit at the Atlanta History Center, on West Pace's Ferry, and the Cyclorama of the Battle of Atlanta, in Grant Park, off Interstate 20, just east of the State Capitol area.