Battle of Atlanta The Battle of Atlanta was a battle of the Atlanta Campaign fought during the American Civil War on July 22 , 1864 , just southeast of Atlanta , Georgia . Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply center of Atlanta , Union forces commanded by William T . Sherman overwhelmed and defeated Confederate forces defending the city under John B . Hood . Union Maj . Gen . James B . McPherson was killed during the battle . Despite the implication of finality in its name , the battle occurred midway through the 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 . The fall of Atlanta was especially noteworthy for its political ramifications . In the 1864 election , former Union General George B . McClellan , a Democrat , ran against President Lincoln on a peace platform calling for truce with the Confederacy . The capture of Atlanta and Hood ' s burning of military facilities as he evacuated were extensively covered by Northern newspapers , significantly boosting Northern morale , and Lincoln was reelected by a large margin . Background . In the Atlanta Campaign , Maj . Gen . William Tecumseh Sherman commanded the Union forces of the Western Theater . The main Union force in this battle was the Army of the Tennessee , under Maj . Gen . James B . McPherson . He was one of Sherman ' s and Grant ' s favorite commanders , as he was very quick and aggressive . Within Sherman ' s army , the XV Corps was commanded by Maj . Gen . John A . Logan , the XVI Corps was commanded by Maj . Gen . Grenville M . Dodge , and Maj . Gen . Frank P . Blair Jr . commanded the XVII Corps . During the months leading up to the battle , Confederate General Joseph E . Johnston had repeatedly retreated from Sherman ' s superior force . All along the railroad line from Chattanooga , Tennessee , to Marietta , Georgia , a pattern was played and replayed : Johnston took up a defensive position , Sherman marched to outflank the Confederate defenses , and Johnston retreated again . After Johnston ' s withdrawal following the Battle of Resaca , the two armies clashed again at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain , but the Confederate senior leadership in Richmond was unhappy with Johnston ' s perceived reluctance to fight the Union army , even though he had little chance of winning . Thus , on July 17 , 1864 , as he was preparing for the Battle of Peachtree Creek , Johnston was relieved of his command and replaced by Lt . Gen . John Bell Hood . The dismissal and replacement of Johnston was one of the most controversial decisions of the Civil War . Hood , who was fond of taking risks , lashed out at Sherman ' s army at Peachtree Creek , but the attack failed with more than two thousand five hundred Confederate casualties . Hood needed to defend the city of Atlanta , which was an important rail hub and industrial center for the Confederacy , but his army was small in comparison to the armies that Sherman commanded . He decided to withdraw , enticing the Union troops to come forward . McPherson ' s army closed in from Decatur , Georgia , to the east side of Atlanta . Battle . Meanwhile , Hood ordered Lt . Gen . William J . Hardee ' s corps on a march around the Union left flank , had Maj . Gen . Joseph Wheeler ' s cavalry march near Sherman ' s supply line , and had Maj . Gen . Benjamin Cheatham ' s corps attack the Union front . However , it took longer than expected for Hardee to get his men in position , and during that time , McPherson had correctly deduced a possible threat to his left flank , and sent XVI Corps , his reserve , to help strengthen it . Hardee ' s force met this other force , and the battle began . Although the initial Confederate attack was repulsed , the Union left flank began to retreat . About this time , McPherson , who had ridden to the front to observe the battle , was shot and killed by Confederate infantry . Near Decatur , Brig . Gen . John W . Sprague , in command of the 2nd Brigade , 4th Division of the XVI Corps , were attacked by Wheeler ' s calvalry . Wheeler had taken the Fayetteville Road while Hardee ' s column took the Flat Shoals Road toward McPherson ' s position . The Federals fled the town in a stampede but managed to save the ordnance and supply trains of the XV , XVI , XVII , and XX Corps . With the failure of Hardee ' s assault , Wheeler was in no position to hold Decatur and fell back into Atlanta that night . Sprague was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions . The main lines of battle now formed an " L " shape , with Hardee ' s attack forming the lower part of the " L " and Cheatham ' s attack on the Union front as the vertical member of the " L " . Hood intended to attack the Union troops from both east and west . The fighting centered around a hill east of the city known as Bald Hill . The Federals had arrived two days earlier and began to shell the city proper , killing several civilians . A savage struggle , sometimes hand - to - hand , developed around the hill , lasting until just after dark . The Federals held the hill while the Confederates retired to a point just south of there . Meanwhile , two miles to the north , Cheatham ' s troops had broken through the Union lines at the Georgia railroad . In response , twenty artillery pieces were positioned near Sherman ' s headquarters at Copen Hill and shelled the Confederates , while Logan ' s XV Corps regrouped and repulsed the Southern troops . The Union had suffered 3 , 641 casualties , including Maj . Gen . McPherson , to the Confederate ' s 5 , 500 . This was a devastating loss for the already reduced Confederate Army , but they still held the city . One notable establishment destroyed by Union soldiers was the Potter ( or Ponder ) House , built in 1857 and owned by Ephraim G . Ponder , a holder of 65 slaves before the war . In the battle , it was used by Confederate sharpshooters until Union artillery inflicted heavy damage . It was never rebuilt . One of Ponder ' s slaves , Festus Flipper , was the father of Henry Ossian Flipper , who later became the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point . Siege and closure . Sherman settled into a siege of Atlanta , shelling the city and sending raids west and south of the city to cut off the supply lines from Macon , Georgia . Both of Sherman ' s cavalry raids were defeated by superior southern horsemen . Following the failure to break the Confederates ' hold on the city , Sherman began to employ a new strategy . He swung his entire army in a broad flanking maneuver to the west . Finally , on August 31 at Jonesborough , Georgia , Sherman ' s army captured the railroad track from Macon , pushing the Confederates to Lovejoy ' s Station . With his supply lines fully severed , Hood pulled his troops out of Atlanta the next day , September 1 , destroying supply depots as he left to prevent them from falling into Union hands . He also set fire to eighty - one loaded ammunition cars , which led to a conflagration watched by hundreds . On September 2 , Mayor James Calhoun , along with a committee of Union - leaning citizens including William Markham , Jonathan Norcross , and Edward Rawson , met a captain on the staff of Maj . Gen . Henry W . Slocum and surrendered the city , asking for " protection to non - combatants and private property " . Sherman , who was in Jonesborough at the time of surrender , sent a telegram to Washington on September 3 reading , " Atlanta is ours , and fairly won " . He then established his headquarters there on September 7 , where he stayed for over two months before Sherman ordered the evacuation of all citizens . On November 14 , Sherman ' s army burned all but about 400 buildings , including homes and businesses ; estimates of the number of buildings destroyed range from 3 , 200 to 5 , 000 . The next day , the army departed east toward Savannah on what became known as Sherman ' s March to the Sea . Aftermath . The fall of Atlanta and the success of the overall Atlanta Campaign were extensively covered by Northern newspapers , and were a boon to Northern morale and to President Lincoln ' s political standing . The 1864 election was between former Union General George B . McClellan , a Democrat , and Abraham Lincoln . McClellan ran a conflicted campaign - McClellan was a Unionist who advocated continuing the war until the defeat of the Confederacy , but the Democratic platform included calls for negotiations with the Confederacy on the subject of a potential truce . The capture of Atlanta and Hood ' s burning of military facilities as he evacuated showed that a successful conclusion of the war was in sight , weakening support for a truce . Lincoln was reelected by a comfortable margin , with 212 out of 233 electoral vote s . Maj . Gen . James B . McPherson , who was one of the highest - ranking Union officers killed in action during the Civil War , was mourned and honored by Sherman , who declared in his official report : His public enemies , even the men who directed the fatal shot , ne ' er spoke or wrote of him without expressions of marked respect ; those whom he commanded loved him even to idolatry ; and I , his associate and commander , fail in words adequate to express my opinion of his great worth . I feel assured that every patriot in America , on hearing this sad news , will feel a sense of personal loss , and the country generally will realize that we have lost , not only an able military leader , but a man who , had he survived , was qualified to heal the national strife which has been raised by designing and ambitious men . Despite the damage caused by the war , Atlanta recovered from its downfall relatively quickly ; as one observer noted as early as November 1865 , " A new city is springing up with marvelous rapidity " . In 1880 , Atlanta ranked among the fifty largest cities in the United States . The battlefield is now urban residential and commercial land , with many markers memorializing notable events of the battle , including McPherson ' s place of death . The marker was erected in 1956 by the Georgia Historical Commission . To commemorate the 140th anniversary of the battle in 2004 , two new markers were erected in the Inman Park neighborhood . The Atlanta Cyclorama building , built in 1921 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places , is a museum located in Grant Park containing a panoramic painting of the battle . In 1962 , two years short of the centennial of the battle , the country music singer / songwriter Claude King of Shreveport , Louisiana , released the hit song , " The Burning of Atlanta " .