Battle of Atlanta: McPherson's Death, Bald Hill and Lincoln's Reelection

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By spring 1864 the North was war-weary and Abraham Lincoln's reelection looked doubtful. Ulysses S. Grant, made lieutenant general in March, planned simultaneous campaigns, and William T. Sherman moved into Georgia in May with about 112,000 men against Joseph E. Johnston's 60,000 to 70,000. Atlanta mattered because four major rail lines met there. Johnston kept falling back to entrenched positions through Resaca and Kennesaw Mountain until Richmond replaced him on July 17 with John B. Hood, who had lost the use of an arm at Gettysburg and a leg after Chickamauga. Hood's attack at Peachtree Creek failed, so he planned a night march around the exposed Union left flank for July 22.

The march ran hours late, and Union commander James B. McPherson had already moved reserves to cover the gap. Riding toward the gunfire, McPherson ran into Confederate infantry, refused to surrender and was killed, the second highest ranking Union officer to die in action in the war. Hand-to-hand fighting at Bald Hill lasted until dark, and a breakthrough at the Georgia Railroad was thrown back after 20 guns fired at point-blank range. Sherman later cut the Macon line at Jonesboro, Hood blew up 81 ammunition cars on September 1, and Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city on September 2. Sherman's telegram, Atlanta is ours, and fairly won, undercut the Copperhead peace platform, and Lincoln beat George B. McClellan 212 to 21 in the Electoral College.

• Union losses on July 22 topped 3,700, and Confederate losses were estimated at about 5,500.
• Sherman's cavalry raids failed because Confederate engineers repaired the torn rails the next day.
• Union artillery destroyed the Ponder House, used by Confederate sharpshooters, whose owner Ephraim Ponder had enslaved 65 people.
• Henry Ossian Flipper, son of Festus Flipper, who had been enslaved by Ponder, became West Point's first African American graduate in 1877.
• The Atlanta Cyclorama was repainted in the 1890s to flatter Southern audiences and restored after its 2019 move to the Atlanta History Center.