And while atlanta had some Key Facilities itself, like the rolling mill depicted here as a result of the abandonment of the city of atlanta in Early September of 1864 in ruins, atlanta was primarily an Administrative Center for the Confederate Military production. Offices here in atlanta contracted with firms large and small throughout the region. And then receive the product of those operations, and then distributed them to the armies in the field as needed. But one of the most important facilities in all of the atlanta complex was the quartermaster clothing depot, run by that tennessee now confederate quartermaster George Washington cunningham. Which had been sherman headquarters in nashville in late 1863, and early 1864. Cunningham operated a facility in atlanta that was capable of producing 130,000 complete suits of uniforms in a 12month time period. And the he did this mostly by piecework. He had male tailors and other staff cutting out fabric in warehouses in atlanta, and then al
In may 1864, had hundreds and hundreds of trains moving down a rail system through kentucky and tennessee stockpiling supplies in nashville and chattanooga. In chattanooga alone between the months of march and may of 1864, there are 145 rail cars unloading on a daily basis there. So hes Building Supply bases that hell need as he advances into georgia. During the campaign, he had about 5,000 wagons that were constantly on the move from the railroad to the army in the field. As Richard Mcmurray, who is one of the foremost scholars of the Atlanta Campaign writes in one whats one of the best overviews of the campaign, and like some of the other speakers youve heard, ill throw out some book titles. If youre like me, you love books about the civil war. Mcmurrays atlanta 1864 is a very, very, very good overview. If youre looking for one book that gives you an overview, decision in the west by Albert Castel is also an outstanding book. Mcmurray points out that sherman had a couple of big advan
Libraries, and there are lots of things that you can dig out of that volume. But by the spring of 1862, the powder works quickly constructed by incorporating the industrial capacity of much of the south by having the individual parts of the factory produced in different places, including some of the incorporating wheels, the big what you can kind of think of as grinding wheels in nashville, the drive shaft in the incorporating House Building which was in segments, which is almost 300 feet long, was cast in segments in chattanooga, and then shipped by rail to augusta and assembled in the complex. There was a refinery for refining, removing impurities from the principal component of gunpowder at that time, potassium nitrate. And then large cooling magazines, and also storage magazines. And the complex was laid out essentially so that all the materiel progressed from downstream to upstream, and the finished product, and also the most dangerous part of the product was also located furthest
You can always find American History tv on the weekends with congress on recess throughout august, cspan3 is featuring highlights during the week. We focus on the civil war with the Atlanta Campaign. In may 1864, Union General William Sherman marched into georgia and after a series of battles on september 2nd, the union army seized the city. The march to the sea through georgia, and general Joseph E Johnston who led the confederates through atlanta. A look at confederate weapons manufacturing during and after the fall of atlanta. Friday night on American History tv, slavery and the cinema, beginning at 8 00 eastern with the look at depiction of slavery and films since the 1930s. And the passage of the 13th amendment in the movie lincoln. And the 1939 movie gone with the wind and its depiction of southern society, all starting friday night at 8 00 eastern friday night at 8 00 eastern here on cspan3. Captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 p. M. Eastern, a discussion about
To maintain tight control and lipity explains defined foraging parties and centralized distribution systems, chaos could ensue, and the army could really descend into a sort of armed mob engaging in pillage and so forth. So whats interesting is that you would have expected lipity to use shermans march as his examples as hes making this complicated case. He doesnt. He actually goes back to napoleons russian campaign. In fact, though, he doesnt ignore the march when hes talking about how an army can descend into chaos. Thats where he uses napoleon. He actually defends shermans march and he claims at first that when seizing Household Goods the men carefully discriminated between and this is actually the language from shermans orders, discriminated between the rich who were generally hostile to us meaning the union, and the poor and industrious who were usually friendly or at least neutral, and he describes sherman as having this very organized system with rules and receipts, and he explai