In the summer of 1864, general sherman marched south from chattanooga into georgia with the goal of capturing atlanta. After a series of battles andity siege of the city, atlanta fell to the yun i know on september 2nd, 1864. Setting up shermans march to the sea later in the year. This was part of the Gettysburg College civil war institutes annual summer conference. Its about an hour. Before we get started, the map you see up here is a campaign map on the left side insert there is are the smaller maps indicate the main battles. I know its probably difficult for those of you in the back of the room to see the small details and maybe read the print and so, what we did or actually what petes staff did was included in this your so hopefully, most of you have this. If you turn the page 9, youll see this map in there. You might waptd to refer to this. This is probably a little easier to read. But well be making frequent or ill be making frequent reference to the campaign map that will help u
Than 200,000 complete suits of uniforms to its soldiers in the field just in that time period. I do have to note a few qualifications. It was not always the most perfect system. The Southern Railroad network as it deteriorated often meant that Raw Materials and finished products would be delayed in either reaching the factories or reaching the destination points. It also meant that some alternate materials had to be used instead of the preferred all woollen outer garments, the confederates had to reply very extensively all on what was commonly called jean cloth, a mixture of wool and cotton, what was often called negro cloth. In the antebellum cloth this cloth was used to produce clothing for slaves in the south. In the production of shoes, teen agricultural south had a shortage of leather and could not make two standard infantry footwear that jefferson brogan or jefferson booty. That had been developed in the United States army in the 1850s. The southern style shoe had to produced a l
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