Breaking the Confederacy

As the Civil War moved into 1864, people in the North expected newly appointed general-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant to roll over the Confederate armies and bring victory and peace by the end of the summer. With his friend William Tecumseh Sherman, Grant devised a strategy to defeat the Confederate Army of Tennessee and lay waste to the Deep South so that the area could no longer provide support for the Confederate war effort.
Making extensive use of materials both contemporary and modern, including letters, diaries, memoirs and histories, the author presents a detailed narrative of the locales, conditions, personnel, strategies, tactics, battles and skirmishes as Sherman’s forces fought their way from Chattanooga to Atlanta and then made their famous march to the sea, destroying all resources along the way. He also details Confederate general John Bell Hood’s ill-fated attempt to capture Nashville while Sherman was occupied elsewhere. The fighting and devastation in Georgia and Tennessee that summer of 1864 were indeed major factors in the final Union victory.

Jack H. Lepa, the author of several Civil War books, lives in Las Vegas, retired after almost forty years in the hotel industry.

Jack H. Lepa
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 244
Bibliographic Info: 18 photos, maps, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2011 [2005]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-6098-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0469-5
Imprint: McFarland

Preface      1

1. Still It Goes On      3

2. Planning the Campaign      12

3. Armies and Commanders      21

4. Opening Moves      32

5. The Bloodletting Begins      44

6. Slow Movement Through Northern Georgia      55

7. The Summer of Despair      66

8. New Tactics Outside Atlanta      76

9. Battle of Atlanta      87

10. A City Under Siege      99

11. Atlanta Is Taken      110

12. The Occupation of Atlanta      120

13. Chasing Hood and Planning the “March”      131

14. The Tide Turns      142

15. The March Through Georgia      151

16. Savannah      162

17. Hood Invades Tennessee      172

18. Slaughter at Franklin      183

19. Debacle at Nashville      193

20. The End in Sight      207

Notes      213

Bibliography      225

Index      233

“interesting, informative and very well written”—The Civil War Courier.