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Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, Joe Johnston, and the Yankee Heavy Battalions
Military Review, July-August, 2003 by Jon White
Stephen Davis, SR Books, Wilmington, DE, 2001, 215 pages, $55.00.
An Atlanta native and book review editor for Blue & Gray magazine, Stephen Davis has written an excellent short history of the decisive Georgia campaign of 1864. Davis covers a large amount of detail in his 214 pages. The result, however, is a readable, concise history of the campaign.
Davis does not let brevity keep him from controversy. He thoroughly reproaches Confederate General Joe Johnston for Johnson's seemingly endless retreating. Davis praises Union General William T. Sherman's actions. Davis also gives a sympathetic treatment of Johnston's successor, Confederate General John Bell Hood and the strategic dilemma he inherited on assuming command of the Army of Tennessee.
On assuming command, Hood was outnumbered three to two; Sherman's armies were within 8 miles of Atlanta and across the last natural obstacle before Atlanta, the Chattahoochee River. Despite these disadvantages, Hood held Atlanta for 6 weeks and did not give up the town without a fight. Davis states that when Hood took command, the fall of the city was inevitable. I believe Davis underestimated the vulnerability of Sherman's logistics. This vulnerability was not exploited, but it could have been.
The book's downside is its price. At $55 for the hardback, the book seems expensive; the paperback, at $17.95, is more reasonably priced. For a balanced treatment of an important and decisive campaign, Atlanta Will Fall is well worth reading.
LTC D. Jon White, USA, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
COPYRIGHT 2003 U.S. Army CGSC
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
