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
Accounts of the horrors within the prison. This is part of the Gettysburg Institute annual summer conference. It is about an hour. [applause] the conference last year, you know, i circumstances conspired so that i was a fleeting head on the screen and im very pleased this morning to actually be present and projecting images of prisoner of war camps and military prisons on the screen instead of me. I dont think i represent well that big. Im going to negotiate a very, very dangerous set of rapids this morning. The professor at georgia southwestern state university, who is married, in fact, to one of my employees, dr. Glen robins, he says and i agree completely, generally, you can either talk about andersonville or the other military prisons of war. It becomes emotionally difficult to try to do both. And i will explore that. And i am going to weave in between the two a little bit. A note on semantics before i start any further. I hesitate to use the acronym p. O. W. In a civil war context
Said that or not, but if he did, that alone should take his reputation down many notches. Because among other things, johnston almost never commanded troops in front of grants army. Only for a few weeks in january and february 1864 did johnston command troops in front of grant and those troops that time sat in their Winter Quarters and had snowball battles with each other. I dont know why grant was so worried. Johnstons men are attacking with snowballs. We have to worry about that. Johnston benefited from a lot of the early writing about the war. One of the early prolific historians was edward a. Pollard, a richmond journalist who absolutely hated Jefferson Davis and pollard was writing books almost by the month i mean almost as furiously as brian does here. Just books vomiting out of edward a. Pollard. In which he denounced Jefferson Davis in very harsh terms especially for his treatment of joe johnston and its interesting to sit down with pollards books because a lot of it sounds an
If the British Forces simply sailed up the potomac, everybody would know that washington was the ultimate party. Coburn recommends that the force be split up, one squadron sail up the Potomac River and threaten the capitol and the city of alexandria, the main force is going to go up the Pawtuxet River into southern maryland. The advantage was that it would shield the ultimate british intention it might mean an attack on washington, it could also mean the british were simply chasing after Commodore Joshua Barney who was the american commander of the chess peak flotilla, who had a flotilla of barges and the rivers flowing into it. He had been trapped in the Pawtuxet River, he was further up river than the british, and the british could use barneys presence. Its what the british commanders, general ross and admiral alexander dock run agree to do. This weekend a panel of historians as they discuss the bu burning of washington. Thats sunday at 6 00 and 10 00 p. M. Eastern, all right here on
Rebuild these huge wooden spans. So thats where the real mastery logistics comes into play. One more question over here. General hood has been undergoing a bit of a reevaluation recently. It seemed to me that his plans. Once he took over as commander of the army of tennessee were fairly good plans on paper, its just that his army couldnt execute them for one reason or another. Could you comment briefly on hoods generalship as the commander of the army of tennessee . Sure. Hood is doesnt certainly doesnt have the mastery of logistics that sherman does. That becomes painfully evident during the Tennessee Campaign in 1864. But hoods operating under some pretty severe handicaps. Not only his own physical handicaps, he also has the command structure with a lot of generals who are woefully inexperienced at their division and core level of command. They just they dont execute hoods orders, and dont carry out his plans the way he had envisioned them. I think the other important factor is that