Atlanta 1864 – Sherman’s Photographer

Originally published April 2016 · p. 21

Atlanta’s passenger depot called “the Car Shed”, was completed in 1854. The forty foot-tall, 100 yardlong brick building was at the very center of the city, the point at which all the railroads converged. It was of course marked for destruction. (Library of Congress)

Sherman’s quarters, and two downtown churches. Needless to say, Federal soldiers indiscriminately burning houses in the last days of the occupation avoided the one to the left. It was the home of John Neal, which Sherman used as quarters when he was in town, including the night of November 15. It was located across the street from City Hall (now the square occupied by the Georgia state capitol). Looking up Washington Street are the Second Baptist Church and Central Presbyterian Church. A local myth arose that Father Thomas O’Reilly, Catholic priest of the nearby Immaculate Conception cathedral, somehow saved these structures and his own church from burning by Federal soldiers on November 15. But the evidence does not support this “urban legend.” (Library of Congress) George Norman Barnard (1819-1902), was a photographer who traveled with General Sherman’s army during the March to the Sea. He captured these amazing photographs of Atlanta. Barnard was working for Mathew Brady at the outbreak of the Civil War and is best known for his 1866 masterpiece, Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign.

Camp of the 2nd Massachusetts, City Hall square. The 2nd was one of three XX Corps regiments assigned to provost guard duty downtown. Barnard photographed this view looking northeast from Mitchell near Washington Street. Wood for the men’s shanties came from unoccupied buildings downtown, which Sherman authorized to be wrecked for such use. Georgia militia general William P. Howard later stated that bricks for the huts’ chimneys came from the three-story Female Seminary, which Captain Poe’s engineers demolished on October 13 to make way for defensive fortifications in the city . Note that the hardwoods still have their leaves—even in north Georgia they don’t fall till later in the autumn.

General Sherman ordered his chief engineer, Capt. Orlando Poe, to avoid using fire in downtown destruction until the very last. Poe accordingly rigged up two tall battering rams, each with a 21-foot iron bar suspended by chains. Soldiers got these swinging against the walls on the morning of November 14. “In about three hours,” wrote Wisconsin Cpl. Harvey Reid, “that elegant structure was a mass of ruins.” The next day this wreckage was set on fire.

(Library of Congress)