Sherman's March Through Atlanta

In the summer of 1864 Lincoln expected to lose. Grant was bleeding men in Virginia with nothing obvious to show for it, the Democratic platform called the war a failure and proposed to negotiate, and the President privately wrote a memorandum accepting that he would probably not be re-elected.

Then, on September 2, Atlanta fell. Sherman had spent four months manoeuvring Johnston back across north Georgia; Hood replaced him, attacked, and lost the army's ability to hold the city. The telegram north — Atlanta is ours, and fairly won — landed in a country that had almost given up. Two months later Lincoln carried every state but three.

What the painting shows came after. Atlanta was the Confederacy's rail hub and workshop, and before Sherman left in November his engineers systematically destroyed the depots, foundries, machine shops and warehouses that made it one. Fires got past them into the civilian districts. When the army marched out on November 15 the sky behind it was visible for miles, and the men could still see the glow that night.