It was one of the most audacious military movements in history—and one of the most controversial. U.S. General William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta in September 1864 and two months later was ready to move. He sent General George Thomas to deal with the Confederate Army moving toward Nashville, while he took the rest of his […]
The threat of secession hung heavy over the land eight days after Abraham Lincoln’s election. Alexander Stephens, who had known Lincoln from his days in Congress, addressed the Georgia General Assembly on this day in 1860. He told the legislature secession was premature. Alexander Hamilton Stephens, born in 1812 near Crawfordville, had been a dominant […]
With fires burning brightly, this day was still one of the darkest in Atlanta’s history. Atlanta was the gateway through which most of the traffic passed between the south Atlantic seaboard and the regions to the west, and the city became a major prize during the Civil War. Sherman captured the city in September after […]
He is the only person in the United States ever executed for war crimes. Hartmann Heinrich Wirz –“Henry”—was born in Switzerland in 1823. He was practicing medicine in Louisiana when the Civil War began. Wirz was eventually assigned to the staff of General John Winder, who was in charge of Confederate prisoner of war camps. […]
War can make or break a man. The Civil War made John Brown Gordon. Born in Upson County in 1832, he was managing his father’s coalmines in northwest Georgia when the war began. Although he lacked any military experience, Gordon was elected captain of the Raccoon Roughs, a company of mountain men, and he rose […]
Only Gettysburg was bloodier than the Battle of Chickamauga that ended in northwest Georgia on this day in 1863. Three months earlier, the United States Army had begun a strategy to capture Chattanooga, a major railroad hub and gateway to the Deep South. General William Rosecrans’ U.S. Army of the Cumberland, and General Braxton Bragg’s […]
He would serve under the Stars and Stripes and the Stars and Bars in major wars. Born in Augusta, Joseph Wheeler graduated near the bottom of his class at West Point. He earned the nickname “Fighting Joe” in the U.S. Army on the western frontier. But his courage and skill as a Confederate cavalry commander […]
