For those who don't know, I live in a converted campervan and am traveling around the country, posting photo diaries of places that I have visited. :)
In the spring of 1864, while Grant and Meade were hammering Lee’s army in Virginia, General William T Sherman had launched his campaign from Chattanooga towards Atlanta. Sherman’s March would become one of the most famous (or notorious) campaigns of the Civil War. It had two aims: to destroy the Confederate economic infrastructure, and to cripple General Joseph Johnston’s Army of Tennessee. Sherman declared that he would “make Georgia howl”.
Sherman had almost 100,000 men, far outnumbering Johnston’s 60,000. But Johnston had the advantage of terrain, which he used skillfully. In the hilly Georgia landscape, it was difficult for Sherman to concentrate his forces, while Johnston was able to gather his men on high ground where it would be costly and dangerous for Sherman to assault him. Sherman, in turn, would attempt to go around Johnston’s entrenched position, leading the Confederates to deftly retreat to a new hill and start the process again. Johnston’s tactics of avoiding combat were dubbed “Fabian” by the Southern press, after the famous campaign waged against Hannibal by the Roman General Fabius, “The Delayer”, who, like Johnston, hoped he could wear down a superior opponent through constant retreat, impeding the enemy by tiring his troops and using up his supplies. It was a strategy of giving up “ground” in exchange for “time”.
By May 7, Sherman had gotten only as far as the town of Dalton, in northern Georgia. Confederate troops set up a defensive line at nearby Resaca to once again block the Federal progress.
By now, Sherman was desperate to draw Johnston’s army into a pitched battle so it could be destroyed. But the Confederate position at Resaca was a strong one, so Sherman planned an action to draw the troops out into a more open area: he would hold the railroad and telegraph centers at Dalton, and send two detachments to try to surround the Confederates.
The battle began on May 13 when two cavalry scout units clashed. When the Confederate cavalry withdrew, Sherman launched an attack at Camp Creek, but was beaten back by an artillery battery. For the next two days, the Federals launched a series of assaults on the Confederate lines, but were not able to break through. Things were at a stalemate.
On May 15, realizing that he could not break through the Confederate lines, Sherman once again went around them. Using pontoon bridges, he sent a force over the Oostanaula River at Lay's Ferry and advanced towards the railroad tracks which were keeping Johnston’s troops supplied. The Confederates once again withdrew and retreated to a new position, where they once again blocked Sherman’s advance.
Johnston’s “Fabian” tactics were working. The fighting around Resaca had cost the Federals around 3,500 casualties and the Confederates 2,600, and it would take Sherman almost two full months to cross Georgia and approach Atlanta. In the meantime, Grant began to worry that Sherman’s seeming inability to bring Johnston’s army to bay would not only allow the Confederates to move more of their troops to Virginia, but might bring the entire Union thrust through Georgia to a grinding halt.
After the war, a Confederate cemetery was placed at the Resaca battle site, containing the graves of almost 500 Southerners who were killed in the Atlanta Campaign.
Over the decades, the suburbs of Atlanta grew to cover most of the place. Much of the remaining battleground was then destroyed when Interstate Highway I-75 was built through it. As a result, in 2001, the state of Georgia announced plans to obtain a 500-acre tract of the battlefield and convert it into a State Historic Site. A local nonprofit group, the Friends of Resaca Battlefield, was formed to help raise money. In 2002, several pieces of land were purchased, but state budget cuts meant that work did not begin on the park until 2008, which was then turned over to the local county government. The Resaca Battlefield Historic Site officially opened in May 2016. It consists of four pieces of the battleground totaling about 1100 acres. There is a walking trail about six miles long with interpretive signs, covering a part of the battlefield.
Some photos from a visit.
