However skilful and meritorious may have been the retreat into which Johnston had been forced, it was so unwelcome to the Richmond authorities, and damaging to the Confederate cause, that about the middle of July, Jefferson Davis relieved him, and appointed one of his corps commanders, General J.B.  Hood, in his place; whose personal qualities and free criticism of his superior led them to expect a change from a defensive to an aggressive campaign.  Responding to this expectation, Hood almost immediately took the offensive, and made vigorous attacks on the Union positions, but met disastrous repulse, and found himself fully occupied in guarding the defenses of Atlanta.  For some weeks each army tried ineffectual methods to seize the other’s railroad communications.  But toward the end of August, Sherman’s flank movements gained such a hold of the Macon railroad at Jonesboro, twenty-five miles south of Atlanta, as to endanger Hood’s security; and when, in addition, a detachment sent to dislodge Sherman was defeated, Hood had no alternative but to order an evacuation.  On September 3, Sherman telegraphed to Washington: 

“Atlanta is ours, and fairly won....  Since May 5 we have been in one constant battle or skirmish, and need rest.”

The fall of Atlanta was a heavy blow to the Confederates.  They had, during the war, transformed it into a city of mills, foundries, and workshops, from which they drew supplies, ammunition, and equipments, and upon which they depended largely for the manufacture and repair of arms.  But perhaps even more important than the military damage to the South resulting from its capture, was its effect upon Northern politics.  Until then the presidential campaign in progress throughout the free States was thought by many to involve fluctuating chances under the heavy losses and apparently slow progress of both eastern and western armies.  But the capture of Atlanta instantly infused new zeal and confidence among the Union voters, and from that time onward, the reelection of Mr. Lincoln was placed beyond reasonable doubt.

Sherman personally entered the city on September 8, and took prompt measures to turn it into a purely military post.  He occupied only the inner line of its formidable defenses, but so strengthened them as to make the place practically impregnable.  He proceeded at once to remove all its non-combatant inhabitants with their effects, arranging a truce with Hood under which he furnished transportation to the south for all those whose sympathies were with the Confederate cause, and sent to the north those who preferred that destination.  Hood raised a great outcry against what he called such barbarity and cruelty, but Sherman replied that war is war, and if the rebel families wanted peace they and their relatives must stop fighting.

“God will judge us in due time, and he will pronounce whether it be more humane to fight with a town full of women, and the families of a brave people at our back, or to remove them in time to places of safety among their own friends and people.”