2016 The Burning of Atlanta, Part Two!
Ain't nothing Mike and Bone likes more than History (except beer, hot dogs, pizza, etc.) ! Civil War History, which tended to be pretty dang uncivil! Being Wolverines, they have always supported the Blue, but in this case it was the Union blue! One of the most important Civil War Campaigns is one that recaptured Atlanta!
While the Atlanta Campaign is not as iconic as Gettysburg, it was instrumental in saving the Union. Sherman winning Atlanta gave Lincoln what he needed to win re-election, crippled Southern industry, and setup Sherman's March through the South. The Atlanta Campaign was a series of battles fought in the Western Theater of the American Civil War throughout northwest Georgia and the area around Atlanta during the summer of 1864. Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman invaded Georgia from the vicinity of Chattanooga, Tennessee, beginning in May 1864, opposed by the Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston. Johnston's Army of Tennessee withdrew toward Atlanta in the face of successive flanking maneuvers by Sherman's group of armies.
In July, the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, replaced Johnston with the more aggressive John Bell Hood, who began challenging the Union Army in a series of damaging frontal assaults. Hood's army was eventually besieged in Atlanta and the city fell on September 2, setting the stage for Sherman's March to the Sea and hastening the end of the war. The Atlanta Campaign followed the Union victory in the Battles for Chattanooga in November 1863; Chattanooga was known as the "Gateway to the South", and its capture opened that gateway. After Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to general-in-chief of all Union armies, he left his favorite lieutenant, Sherman, in charge of the Western armies. Grant's strategy was to apply pressure against the Confederacy in several coordinated offensives. While he, George G. Meade, Benjamin Butler, Franz Sigel, George Crook, and William W. Averell advanced in Virginia against Robert E. Lee, and Nathaniel Banks attempted to capture Mobile, Alabama, Sherman was assigned the mission of defeating Johnston's army, capturing Atlanta, and striking through Georgia and the Confederate heartland.
The Boy's plan was to drive the very route that Sherman first chased Old Joe Johnston, then Crazy-Assed Hood from Tennessee to final victory below the ATL, with unexpected but cool stops at De Soto visited Indian Mounds, and MLK's Hood, Mike and Bone totally burned out the liquor provisions of the old Georgia Confederacy!