Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, Joe Johnston, and the Yankee Heavy Battalions

by Stephen Davis

General John Bell Hood tried everything he could: Surprise attack. Flanking march. Cavalry raid into the enemy's rear lines. Simply enduring his opponent's semi-siege of the city. But nothing he tried worked. Because by the time he assumed command of Confederate forces protecting Atlanta, his predecessor Joe Johnston's chronic, characteristic strategy of gradual withdrawal had doomed the city to fall to William T. Sherman's Union troops. Joe Johnston lost Atlanta and John Bell Hood has gotten a bum rap, Stephen Davis argues in his new book, Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, Joe Johnston, and the Yankee Heavy Battalions. The fall of the city was inevitable because Johnston pursued a strategy that was typical of his career: he fell back. Again and again. To the point where he allowed Sherman's army to within five miles of the city. Against a weaker opponent, Johnston's strategy might have succeeded. But Sherman commanded superior numbers, and he was a bold, imaginative strategist who pressed the enemy daily and used his artillery to pound their lines. Against this combination, Johnston didn't have a chance. And by the time Hood took over the Confederate command, neither did he. Atlanta Will Fall provides a lively, fast-paced overview of the entire Atlanta campaign from Dalton to Jonesboro. Davis describes the battles and analyzes the strategies. He evaluates the three generals, examining their plans of action, their tactics, and their leadership ability. In doing so, he challenges the commonly held perceptions of the two Confederate leaders and provides a new perspective on one of the most decisive battles of the Civil War. An excellent supplemental text for courses on the Civil War and American nineteenth-century history, Atlanta Will Fall will engage students with its brisk, concise examination of the fight for Atlanta.

Genres: Civil War, Civil War Western Theater, American Civil War

215 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

Stephen Davis is the author of more than a hundred articles in such scholarly and popular publications as Civil War Times Illustrated and the Georgia Historical Quarterly, and writes a regular column, “Critic’s Corner,” on Civil War bibliography, for Civil War News.

Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Hale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Davis's "Atlanta Will Fall" is a good discussion of the Civil War's Atlanta Campaign (1864), in my opinion the decisive campaign of that war, which did the most to doom the Confederate State's bid for independence. As 1864 opened, the Union had made some progress, but was in general stymied. The Confederates held most of their major cities and could still maintain armies in the field. The Union had to show progress before November's Presidential Elections.

Lee held in Virginia, but it was in Georgia where the Confederates collapsed. Davis, mostly covering events from the Southern side of the campaign, doesn't quite rehabilitate the reputation of John Bell Hood, but he makes an excellent case for Joseph Johnston’s basic unsuitability for command of the Army of Tennessee after its defeat at Chattanooga. When the Yankees came in the spring, he was always going to be outnumbered and outmatched logistically, and Johnston simply lacked the mental fortitude for this situation.

Davis makes it clear that Johnston should have been relieved a good deal sooner. His replacement Hood gave the Confederate government what it wanted -- a battle for Atlanta -- but his newness to the job, the numbers against him, and the lack of mistakes by Sherman made his odds of success quite small.

If you're looking for an introduction to this decisive campaign, this is the book for you.

[Mark Harden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent concise but thorough coverage of the Atlanta campaign. Davis makes a solid case that the passivity of Joe Johnston meant that by the time Hood took over, with the Army of Tennessee only five miles from Atlanta, any opportunity of saving the city had already been lost. Davis tears down any defense of Johnston’s supposed “Fabian tactics” while also showing that Hood’s aggressive actions after taking command were not only well planned, but exactly what was expected of him by Jefferson Davis. Even the culminating battle at Jonesboro, which has been used by generations of historians to excoriate Hood, is shown by Davis to be analogous to the fog of war endured by Lee a month previously when Grant crossed the James River without Lee’s knowledge. But Lee held Petersburg, and Hood lost Atlanta. Hood has been unfairly maligned by history ever since

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author does an excellent job covering the overall strategy of the Atlanta Campaign; he makes a compelling case that by the time Joe Johnston was replaced, defeat for the Confederates was almost guaranteed. However, the individual battles were covered with a bare minimum of detail.