Atlanta Fulton Georgia United States

The closest Native American settlement to what is now Atlanta was Standing Peachtree, a Creek village where Peachtree Creek flows into the Chattahoochee River.

The indigenous Creek people and their ancestors have inhabited the area for thousands of years prior to the arrival of European settlers in north Georgia.

Through the early nineteenth century, European Americans have systematically encroached on the Creek of northern Georgia, forcing them out of the area from 1802 to 1825.

The Creek had been forced to leave the area in 1821, under Indian Removal by the federal government, and European American settlers had arrived the following year.

Atlanta, Georgia, is incorporated as a town December 29, 1847.

A decade earlier, the Georgia General Assembly had voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad in order to provide a link between the port of Savannah and the Midwest.

The initial route was to run southward from Chattanooga to a terminus east of the Chattahoochee River, which would be linked to Savannah.

fter engineers surveyed various possible locations for the terminus, the "zero milepost" was driven into the ground in what is now Foundry Street, Five Points.

When asked in 1837 about the future of the little village, Stephen H.Long, the railroad's chief engineer said the place would be good "for one tavern, a blacksmith shop, a grocery store, and nothing else".

A year later, the area around the milepost had developed into a settlement, first known as Terminus, and later Thrasherville, after a local merchant who built homes and a general store in the area.

By 1842, the town had six buildings and thirty residents and had been renamed Marthasville to honor Governor Wilson Lumpkin's daughter Martha.

Later, John Edgar Thomson, Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, suggested the town be renamed Atlanta; the residents had approved.

Both Grant and Sherman initially had objectives to engage with and destroy the two principal armies of the Confederacy, relegating the capture of important enemy cities to a secondary, supporting role.

This is a strategy that President Abraham Lincoln has emphasized throughout the war, but Grant is the first general who actively cooperates with it.

As their campaigns progress, however, the political importance of the cities of Richmond and Atlanta begins to dominate their strategy.

With Chattanooga and Vicksburg firmly under the control of the North by the end of 1863, Atlanta is now the logical point for Union forces to attack in their western campaign.

Distant from earlier fighting, Atlanta has become an important Confederate railroad, supply, and manufacturing center and a gateway to the lower South.

Atlanta has become a critical target.

The city of twenty thousand had been founded at the intersection of four important railroad lines that supply the Confederacy and is a military manufacturing arsenal in its own right.

Atlanta's nickname of "Gate City of the South" is apt—its capture would open virtually the entire Deep South to Union conquest.

Grant's orders to Sherman are to "move against Johnston's Army, to break it up and to get into the interior of the enemy's country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their War resources."

Sherman has besieged Atlanta throughout the month of August, but now sends almost his entire force swinging to the south to cut off the city's last remaining railroad connection.

Sherman's men, at the conclusion of his successful Atlanta Campaign, enter the city on September 2 and he telegraphs President Lincoln, "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won."

For almost a month, the normally aggressive Sherman takes little action while his men sit about idly, and many leave the army at the end of their enlistments.

Casualties for the campaign are roughly equal in absolute numbers: 31,687 Union (4,423 killed, 22,822 wounded, 4,442 missing/captured) and 34,979 Confederate (3,044 killed, 18,952 wounded, 12,983 missing/captured), but this represents a much higher Confederate proportional loss.

Hood's army leaves the area with approximately thirty thousand men, whereas Sherman retains eighty-one thousand.

Sherman's victory is qualified because it has not fulfilled the original mission of the campaign—to destroy the Army of Tennessee—and Sherman will be criticized for allowing his opponent to escape.

However, the capture of Atlanta makes an enormous contribution to Northern morale and is arguably one of the key factors enabling Lincoln's reelection in November.

The Atlanta Campaign will be followed by Federal initiatives in two directions: almost immediately, to the northwest, the pursuit of Hood in the Franklin–Nashville Campaign; and after the presidential election of 1864, to the east in Sherman's March to the Sea.

The Confederate strategy is working, because Sherman is being forced to disperse his strength to maintain his lines of communications, but he is not about to fall into Hood's trap completely.

Sherman intends to provide Thomas with sufficient strength to cope with Forrest and Hood, while he completes plans to strike out for Savannah.

On September 29, Hood had begun his advance across the Chattahoochee River, heading to the northwest with forty thousand men to threaten the Western & Atlantic Railroad, Sherman's supply line.

On October 1, Hood's cavalry had been intercepted by Union cavalry under Brigadier Generals

Judson Kilpatrick and Kenner Garrard in a raid on the railroad near Marietta, but Sherman is still uncertain of Hood's location.

For the past three weeks, Sherman has had difficulty keeping abreast of Hood's movements.

Hood has moves  rapidly, screens his march, and maintains the initiative.

The Union cavalry, which Sherman has neglected to train adequately, has a difficult time following Hood and reporting his movements.

Sherman, having received an indication from Grant that he is favorably considering the march to Savannah, sets his mind on the short-term goal of pursuing the swiftly moving Hood.

He directs Thomas to come forward from Nashville to block Hood's advance.

To bolster Thomas's effort, Sherman orders the IV Corps under Stanley to Chattanooga and the XXIII Corps under Schofield to Nashville, as well as Major General Andrew J. Smith's XVI Corps from Missouri to Nashville.

By November 10, the remainder of Sherman's troops are en route back to Atlanta.

Sherman begins his three hundred-mile (four hundred and eighty kilometer) march south to the sea on November 16.

He will ravage Georgia, his army causing extensive devastation to crops and mills and living off the land.

...Georgia, but Forrest orders the organization disbanded in 1869, largely as a result of the group's excessive violence.

Georgia, the last seceded state to be reincorporated, is readmitted into the Union on July 15, after being compelled by the federal government to reinstate expelled state legislators and to adopt the Fifteenth Amendment.