The Battle of Atlanta took place during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War on July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia. Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply hub of Atlanta, Union forces commanded by William Tecumseh Sherman overwhelmed and defeated Confederate forces defending the city under John Bell Hood. Union Major General James B. McPherson was killed during the battle, the second-highest-ranking Union officer killed in action during the war. Despite the implication of finality in its name, the battle occurred midway through the Atlanta campaign, and the city did not fall until September 2, 1864, after a Union siege and various attempts to seize railroads and supply lines leading to Atlanta. After taking the city, Sherman's troops headed south-southeastward toward Milledgeville, the state capital, and on to Savannah with the March to the Sea.
William Joseph Hardee was a career U.S. Army and Confederate States Army officer. For the U.S. Army, he served in the Second Seminole War and in the Mexican–American War, where he was captured and exchanged. In the American Civil War, he sided with the South and became a general. Hardee served in the Western Theater and quarreled sharply with two of his commanding officers, Braxton Bragg and John Bell Hood. He served in the Atlanta Campaign of 1864 and the Carolinas Campaign of 1865, where he surrendered with General Joseph E. Johnston to William Tecumseh Sherman in April. Hardee's writings about military tactics were widely used on both sides in the conflict.
The Army of Tennessee was the principal Confederate army operating between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River during the American Civil War. Named for the State of Tennessee, It was formed in the same state in late 1862 and fought until the end of the war in 1865, participating in most of the significant battles in the Western Theater.
The Battle of Nashville was a two-day battle in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign that represented the end of large-scale fighting west of the coastal states in the American Civil War. It was fought at Nashville, Tennessee, on December 15–16, 1864, between the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Lieutenant General John Bell Hood and the Union Army of the Cumberland (AoC) under Major General George H. Thomas. In one of the largest victories achieved by the Union Army during the war, Thomas attacked and routed Hood's army, largely destroying it as an effective fighting force.
The Battle of Resaca, from May 13 to 15, 1864, formed part of the Atlanta Campaign during the American Civil War, when a Union force under William Tecumseh Sherman engaged the Confederate Army of Tennessee led by Joseph E. Johnston. The battle was fought in Gordon and Whitfield Counties, Georgia, and is generally viewed as inconclusive.
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 Tecumseh Sherman invaded Georgia from the vicinity of Chattanooga, Tennessee, beginning in May 1864, opposed by the Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston.
The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain was fought on June 27, 1864, during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War. The most significant frontal assault launched by Union Major General William T. Sherman against the Confederate Army of Tennessee under General Joseph E. Johnston, it produced a tactical defeat for the Union forces but failed to deliver the result that the Confederacy desperately needed: a halt to Sherman's advance on Atlanta, Georgia.
The Battle of Ezra Church, also known as the Battle of Ezra Chapel and the Battle of the Poor House saw Union Army forces under Major General William T. Sherman fight Confederate States Army troops led by Lieutenant General John B. Hood in Fulton County, Georgia during the Atlanta campaign in the American Civil War. Sherman sent Oliver Otis Howard's Union Army of the Tennessee circling around the west side of Atlanta with the purpose of cutting the Macon and Western Railroad. Hood countered the move by sending two corps commanded by Stephen D. Lee and Alexander P. Stewart to block the move. Before Howard's troops reached the railroad, the Confederates launched several attacks on them that were repulsed with heavy losses. Despite the tactical defeat, the Confederates prevented their foes from blocking the railroad.
The Battle of Columbia was a series of military actions that took place November 24–29, 1864, in Maury County, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It concluded the movement of Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's Confederate Army of Tennessee from the Tennessee River in northern Alabama to Columbia, Tennessee, and across the Duck River. A Union force under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield skirmished with Hood's cavalry, commanded by Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, and fortified a defensive line south of Columbia, but soon withdrew north across the Duck River, abandoning the town. Hood's invasion of Tennessee continued as he attempted to intercept Schofield's retreating army at Spring Hill.
The Battle of Jonesborough was fought between Union Army forces led by William Tecumseh Sherman and Confederate forces under William J. Hardee during the Atlanta Campaign in the American Civil War. On the first day, on orders from Army of Tennessee commander John Bell Hood, Hardee's troops attacked the Federals and were repulsed with heavy losses. That evening, Hood ordered Hardee to send half his troops back to Atlanta. On the second day, five Union corps converged on Jonesborough. For the only time during the Atlanta Campaign, a major Federal frontal assault succeeded in breaching the Confederate defenses. The attack took 900 prisoners, but the defenders were able to halt the breakthrough and improvise new defenses. Despite facing overwhelming odds, Hardee's corps escaped undetected to the south that evening.
The Battle of Dallas was an engagement during the Atlanta Campaign in the American Civil War. The Union army of William Tecumseh Sherman and the Confederate army led by Joseph E. Johnston fought a series of battles between May 25 and June 3 along a front stretching northeast from Dallas toward Acworth, Georgia. At Dallas a probe launched by William B. Bate's and William Hicks Jackson's Confederate divisions accidentally turned into a full-scale assault against the defenses of John A. Logan's XV Corps. The attack was driven off with heavy Confederate losses. The previous Union defeats at New Hope Church and the Pickett's Mill are sometimes considered with Dallas as part of one battle.
The Carolinas campaign, also known as the campaign of the Carolinas, was the final campaign conducted by the Union Army against the Confederate Army in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. On January 1, Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman advanced north from Savannah, Georgia, through the Carolinas, with the intention of linking up with Union forces in Virginia. The campaign culminated in the defeat of Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army at the Battle of Bentonville, and its unconditional surrender to Union forces on April 26, 1865. Coming just two weeks after the defeat of Robert E. Lee's army at the Battle of Appomattox Court House, it signaled that the war was effectively over.
Alexander Peter Stewart was a career United States Army officer, college professor, and a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He fought in many of the most significant battles in the Western Theater of the war and briefly took command of the Army of Tennessee in 1865.
Benjamin Franklin Cheatham was a Confederate general during the American Civil War. He served in the Army of Tennessee, inflicting many casualties on Gen. Sherman at Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, but took the blame for General Schofield's escape at Spring Hill – a major factor in the Confederate defeat at Franklin, Tennessee in 1864. Later in life, he became a gold miner in California and a plantation owner in his home state of Tennessee.
The western theater of the American Civil War encompassed major military operations in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee, as well as Louisiana east of the Mississippi River. Operations on the coasts of these states, except for Mobile Bay, are considered part of the Lower Seaboard Theater. Most other operations east of the Appalachian Mountains are part of the eastern theater. Operations west of the Mississippi River took place in the trans-Mississippi theater.
The Battle of Pickett's Mill was fought in Paulding County, Georgia, between Union forces under Major General William Tecumseh Sherman and Confederate forces led by General Joseph E. Johnston during the Atlanta Campaign in the American Civil War. Sherman sent Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood's division, supported by other formations, to turn Johnston's right flank, but the Federals were repulsed with heavy casualties when they ran into tenacious Confederate opposition. Author Ambrose Bierce, an eyewitness, later wrote an account of the battle titled The Crime at Pickett's Mill.
The Battle of Kolb's Farm saw a Confederate corps under Lieutenant General John B. Hood attack parts of two Union corps under Major Generals Joseph Hooker and John Schofield. This action was part of the Atlanta campaign of the American Civil War fought between the Confederate Army of Tennessee led by General Joseph E. Johnston and Union forces commanded by Major General William Tecumseh Sherman. Hood believed that he had an opportunity to inflict a defeat on the Union forces in front of his corps and ordered an assault. However, Hooker's and Schofield's troops were deployed in good positions and they repulsed Hood's soldiers with serious losses.
The Battle of Cassville was a clash between the Union Army under Major General William T. Sherman and the Confederate Army of Tennessee led by General Joseph E. Johnston during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War. Johnston attempted to strike a fraction of Sherman's forces with two of his three infantry corps, but the plan miscarried when a Union force appeared from an unexpected direction. Later in the day, Johnston withdrew to a line of field works on a ridge to await attack. However, two of his corps commanders reported that their defenses were enfiladed by Federal artillery fire and that the position could not be held. That night, Johnston decided to withdraw his army south of the Etowah River to a new defense line.
Hiram Bledsoe's Missouri Battery was an artillery battery that served in the Missouri State Guard and the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. The battery was formed when the Missouri State Guard was formed as a pro-secession state militia unit in response to the Camp Jackson affair. As part of the Missouri State Guard, the unit was engaged in the Engagement near Carthage and the Battle of Wilson's Creek during mid-1861, before fighting at the Battle of Dry Wood Creek and the Siege of Lexington later that year when Major General Sterling Price led the Guard northwards towards the Missouri River. After the Missouri State Guard retreated into Arkansas in early 1862, Bledsoe's Battery served during the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge in March. The battery, as part of the Army of the West, transferred across the Mississippi River into Tennessee in April, where it left the Guard to enter Confederate service on April 21.
The Battle of Gilgal Church was an action during the Atlanta Campaign in the American Civil War. The Union army of William Tecumseh Sherman and the Confederate army led by Joseph E. Johnston fought a series of battles between June 10 and 19 along a front stretching northeast from Lost Mountain to Pine Mountain to Brushy Mountain. At Gilgal Church, attacks by the divisions of John W. Geary and Daniel Butterfield from Joseph Hooker's XX Corps were repulsed with about 700 casualties by Confederates from William J. Hardee's corps. That day in a separate action, other Union troops overran a Confederate skirmish line, capturing about 300 men. Gilgal Church was part of a series of minor actions that included the Battle of Latimer's Farm on June 17–18.
United States (Union)
Confederate States 
John B. Hood 
