First however, it is perhaps worth while to remind the reader of the bare circumstances preceding the fall of Atlanta.  After the defeat of the Confederate forces at Chattanooga, General Joseph E. Johnston’s army fell back slowly on Atlanta, much as the French fell back on Paris at the beginning of the European War, shortening their own lines of communication while those of the advancing Germans were being continually attenuated.  As the Germans kept after the French, Sherman kept after Johnston; and as Joffre was beginning to be criticized for failing to make a stand against the enemy, so was Johnston criticized as he continued to retire without giving battle.  One of the chief differences between Joffre’s retirement and Johnston’s lies, however, in the length of time consumed; for whereas the French retreat on Paris covered a few days only, the Confederate retreat on Atlanta covered weeks and months, giving the Confederate Government time to become impatient with Johnston and finally to remove him from command before the time arrived when, in his judgment, the stand against Sherman should be made.  Nor is it inconceivable that, had the French retreat lasted as long as Johnston’s, Joffre would have been removed and would have lost the opportunity to justify his Fabian policy, as he did so gloriously at the Battle of the Marne.

Though Atlanta was, at the time of the war, a city of less than 10,000 inhabitants, it was the chief base of supply for men and munitions in the Far South.

“When my father asked him why all his effort and power had been centered, after Chickamauga, on the capture of Atlanta,” said Clark Howell, “I remember that General Sherman extended one hand with the fingers spread apart, explaining the strategic situation by imagining Atlanta as occupying a position where the wrist joins the hand, while the thumb and fingers represented, successively, New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk.  ‘If I held Atlanta,’ he said, ’I was only one day’s journey from these chief cities of the South.’”

In spite, therefore, of the assertion, which I have heard made, that the prosperity of Atlanta is “founded on insurance premiums, coca-cola, and hot air,” it seems to me that it is founded on something very much more solid.  Nor do I refer to the layer of granite which underlies the city.  The prosperity of Atlanta is based upon the very feature which made its capture seem to Sherman so desirable:  its strategic position as a central point in the Far South.

Neither in Atlanta nor in any other part of Georgia is General Sherman remembered with a feeling that can properly be described as affectionate, though it may be added that Atlanta has good reason for remembering him warmly.  The burning of Atlanta by Sherman did not, however, prove an unalloyed disaster, for the war came to an end soon after, and the rebuilding of the city supplied work for thousands of former Confederate soldiers, and also drew to Atlanta many