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The Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 502 of our Civil War podcast. I'm Rich.

And I'm Tracy. Hello, y'all. Thanks for tuning into the podcast. With the last episode, we finished up the Overland campaign. So with this show, as promised, we're starting a new major story arc as we leave Virginia and head down to Georgia

for the Atlanta campaign. We're very excited to be starting this story arc. The struggle for

Atlanta was one of the most significant campaigns of the Civil War. It's not going too far out on a limb to say it was one of the pivotal events of the Civil War. It's not going too far out on a limb to say it was one of the pivotal events of the

Civil War. It not only led to the federal's capture of the city, but Sherman's success also helped

decide the outcome of the 1864 presidential contest, with Lincoln's re-election that November.

From our coverage of the Overland campaign, y'all know that, like the several federal expeditions

in Virginia that spring, the fighting through the North Georgia Mountains in mid-1864 was also the result of a strategy initiated by Ulysses S. Grant

soon after his promotion to General and Chief of the Union armies. Exactly. And Grant's plan was

simple. With the commencement of the spring campaigns, the federal armies would advance simultaneously

to prevent the Confederates from shifting reinforcements between theaters, as had happened

the previous year when James Longstreet and his rebel troops had been sent south from Virginia

to aid Braxton Bragg, arriving just in time to take part in the

Battle of Chickamauga. And so, as part of Grant's grand strategy from May to September 1864,

William Tecumseh Sherman maneuvered the federal force under his command down through North Georgia,

...