All the Fighting They Want: The Atlanta Campaign from Peachtree Creek to the City's Surrender, July 18-September 2, 1864

by Stephen Davis

Overview

John Bell Hood brought a hang-dog look and a hard-fighting spirit to the Army of Tennessee. Once one of the ablest division commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia, he found himself, by the spring of 1864, in the war’s Western Theater. Recently recovered from grievous wounds sustained at Chickamauga, he suddenly found himself thrust into command of the Confederacy’s ill-starred army even as Federals pounded on the door of the Deep South’s greatest untouched city, Atlanta.

His predecessor, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, had failed to stop the advance of armies under Federal commander William T. Sherman, who had pushed and maneuvered his way from Chattanooga, Tennessee, right to Atlanta’s very doorstep. Johnston had been able to do little to stop him.

The crisis could not have been more acute.

Hood, an aggressive risk-taker, threw his men into the fray with unprecedented vigor. Sherman welcomed it.

“We’ll give them all the fighting they want,” Sherman said.

He proved a man of his word.

In All the Fighting They Want, Georgia native Steve Davis, the world’s foremost authority on the Atlanta campaign, tells the tale of the last great struggle for the city. His Southern sensibility and his knowledge of the battle, accumulated over a lifetime of living on the ground, make this an indispensable addition to the acclaimed Emerging Civil War Series.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611213195
Publisher:	Savas Beatie
Publication date:	05/10/2017
Series:	Emerging Civil War Series
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	1,105,626
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Stephen Davis, longtime Atlantan, has been a Civil Warrior since the fourth grade. He served as Book Review Editor for Blue & Gray magazine for more than twenty years, and is the author of more than a hundred articles on the Civil War in both scholarly and popular journals. His book Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, Joe Johnston and the Yankee Heavy Battalions, was published in 2001. He is also the author of What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman’s Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta (2012).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Prologue: John Bell Hood at Gaines's Mill xiii

Chapter 1 The Summer of '64 1

Chapter 2 Hood Takes Command 7

Chapter 3 The Battle of Peachtree Creek 19

Chapter 4 The Fight for the Bald Hill 31

Chapter 5 Hood's Flank Attack of July 22 35

Chapter 6 Sherman's Bombardment and "General Issues 51

Chapter 7 Ezra Church 59

Chapter 8 The McCook-Stone Man Cavalry Raid 67

Chapter 9 Hood's Railroad Defense Line and the Fight at Utoy Creek 75

Chapter 10 "Too Hot to Be Endured" 81

Chapter 11 Wheeler's Raid and Kilpatrick's Raid 87

Chapter 12 Hood Tries to Make Good his Losses 93

Chapter 13 Sherman's "Grand Movement by the Right Flank" 101

Chapter 14 "Atlanta is Ours and Fairly Won" 109

Epilogue: Measuring Sherman's Achievement 117

Driving Tour 125

Appendix A Confederate Monuments in and mound Atlanta Gould Hagler 137

Appendix B Civil War Collections at the Atlanta History Center Gordon Jones 145

Appendix C The Battle of Atlanta on Canvas: A Brief History of the Atlanta Gyclorama Gordon Jones 151

Order of Battle 156

Suggested Reading 174

About the Author 176

List of Maps

Maps Hat Jespersen

Grant-Presstman Perimeter 8

Battle of Peachtree Creek 20

Hardee's Flank Attark 36

Battle of Ezra Church 60

McCook-Stoneman Union Cavalry Raid 68

Confederate Railway Defense Line 76

March to the Macon & Western 102

Driving Route 124

Editorial Reviews

Davis's narrative style is well-suited to the popularly-focused ECW series. It's masterfully succinct (only a handful of pages can be devoted to each battle), expertly zeroing in on the most salient points of interest associated with each event. It's also lively, with occasional charming moments of cheek… Representing the condensed knowledge of a noted authority, A Long and Bloody Task and All the Fighting They Want together offer readers a fine introduction to the Atlanta Campaign. Given the status of the Atlanta battlefields as some of the foremost victims of urban sprawl and missed preservation opportunities, the second volume also serves as a useful record of surviving landmarks and monuments.

Civil War Books and Authors

In "All the Fighting They Want: The Atlanta Campaign from Peachtree Creek to the City's Surrender, July 18-September 2, 1864 ", military historian Steve Davis, (who is perhaps the world's foremost authority on the Atlanta campaign) vividly presents the last great struggle for the city. Davis' Southern sensibility and his knowledge of the battle, accumulated over a lifetime of living on the ground, make this "All the Fighting They Want" indispensable addition to the acclaimed Savis Beatie 'Emerging Civil War Series'. Impressively informative and exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "All the Fighting They Want" is very highly recommended for both community and academic library American Civil War History collections and supplemental studies reading lists.

Midwest Book Review