Sept. 28, 2009
BOOK REVIEW: 'The Bonfire': Finally! A Comprehensive Study of the Siege and Burning of Atlanta in 1864
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Civil War buffs whose knowledge of the burning of Atlanta in 1864 has been essentially limited to the cinematic portrayal in "Gone With the Wind" are in for a treat with Marc Wortman's "The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta" (PublicAffairs, 432 pages, illustrations, maps, notes, index, $27.95).
Wortman not only gives a very readable and comprehensive look at the 44-day siege of the vital rail and manufacturing center by the forces of Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, he provides a history of the city that in less than two decades -- from the arrival in 1845 of the first railroad line in a muddy village named Terminus -- had become second only to Richmond as a war manufacturing city.
Wortman says that Atlanta is the only American city to be besieged and destroyed, although many would include Richmond, VA in that category. The city was surrendered to Sherman on Sept. 2, 1864 by a pro-Union mayor, James Calhoun, a cousin of the famous defender of Southern rights John C. Calhoun, accompanied by a slave named Bob Yancey, who claimed that his father was the famous Daniel Webster. Yancey, a barber who managed to become one of the wealthiest residents of either race in Atlanta, later insisted that he be called Robert Webster.
Mayor Calhoun managed to walk a tightrope with his Unionist views -- views held by a surprisingly large number of the city's movers and shakers. This paradox, a number of Unionists in the heart of Dixie is just one of the revelations in "The Bonfire."
The commercial success of Atlanta from its start in the Cherokee Country wilderness west of Decatur evoked comparisons to New York City by boosters and visitors alike, although Gotham's newspapers initially derided the comparison of their great city with a town that wasn't even on the map a few years before the boom years in the "Gate City."
Slave owners in Atlanta hired out their skilled slaves to businesses and industries, arousing rage among white workman. The narrative of "The Bonfire" draws on many first-hand accounts by participants in the siege. One I recognized immediately was Tennessee soldier Sam Watkins, whose accounts of the horrors of war was part of Ken Burns's famous PBS documentary "The Civil War." Watkins served under Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood, who had replaced Gen. Joseph Johnston as commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.
Hood was severely wounded at Chickamauga, when a round shattered his right leg, leading to its amputation. It took three aides to strap Hood into the saddle, Wortman writes. His army's defense of the city generated large numbers of Union casualties, until Sherman decided on a surprise move that led to the first "bonfire", the one started in the city's railroad yards by the Confederates.
Yes, there were two "bonfires" in Atlanta, with the second ordered by Sherman as part of his total war strategy. He wanted to make Atlanta "howl," and he did. By the way, Sherman didn't say "War is hell," a statement famously attributed to him, Wortman says. The hyperactive, racist Sherman told Mayor Calhoun, who had appealed to him to rescind the order that civilians had to leave the city, did tell the mayor that "War is cruelty and you cannot refine it."
A racist Union general? Yes, after his graduation from West Point in 1840 Lancaster, Ohio native Sherman (1820-1891) served in the South during the Seminole Wars in Florida and later running a military academy in Pineville, Louisiana. He was also stationed in Georgia and South Carolina, with his Georgia stay ironically devoted to surveying the route his army would later follow from Chattanooga, Tenn. to Atlanta. He refused to allow black soldiers in his ranks and was as racist as any Confederate, Wortman says.
In addition to a detailed look at life in wartime Atlanta, Wortman gives a fairly comprehensive look at the brutal Indian removal policies in the state, which began with the removal of the Creeks in 1790 and ended with the "Trail of Tears" removal of the Cherokees to what later became the state of Oklahoma in the 1830s. Atlanta couldn't have existed without driving out the Cherokee Nation from Northwest Georgia and the policy was handled with extreme cruelty and many deaths.
I've read and reviewed many books of Civil War history down through the years and "The Bonfire" reminded me of one in particular, Ernest B. Furgurson's "Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War" (Knopf, 1996). There were many eerie similarities between the Confederate capital and Atlanta. Furgurson describes two of them: clandestine Unionism and the importance of blacks to the economy.
Wortman equals Furgurson in his narrative, high praise indeed. Every Civil War history buff should read "The Bonfire."
About the author: Marc Wortman, a native of St. Louis, MO, is the author of "The Millionaires' Unit: The Aristocratic Flyboys Who Fought the Great War and Invented American Air Power." He has a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton University and is an independent scholar and free-lance writer. He and his family live in New Haven, CT.
Publisher's web site: www.publicaffairsbooks.com
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BOOK REVIEW: 'The Bonfire': Finally! A Comprehensive Study of the Siege and Burning of Atlanta in 1864
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Civil War buffs whose knowledge of the burning of Atlanta in 1864 has been essentially limited to the cinematic portrayal in "Gone With the Wind" are in for a treat with Marc Wortman's "The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta" (PublicAffairs, 432 pages, illustrations, maps, notes, index, $27.95).
Wortman not only gives a very readable and comprehensive look at the 44-day siege of the vital rail and manufacturing center by the forces of Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, he provides a history of the city that in less than two decades -- from the arrival in 1845 of the first railroad line in a muddy village named Terminus -- had become second only to Richmond as a war manufacturing city.
Wortman says that Atlanta is the only American city to be besieged and destroyed, although many would include Richmond, VA in that category. The city was surrendered to Sherman on Sept. 2, 1864 by a pro-Union mayor, James Calhoun, a cousin of the famous defender of Southern rights John C. Calhoun, accompanied by a slave named Bob Yancey, who claimed that his father was the famous Daniel Webster. Yancey, a barber who managed to become one of the wealthiest residents of either race in Atlanta, later insisted that he be called Robert Webster.
Mayor Calhoun managed to walk a tightrope with his Unionist views -- views held by a surprisingly large number of the city's movers and shakers. This paradox, a number of Unionists in the heart of Dixie is just one of the revelations in "The Bonfire."
The commercial success of Atlanta from its start in the Cherokee Country wilderness west of Decatur evoked comparisons to New York City by boosters and visitors alike, although Gotham's newspapers initially derided the comparison of their great city with a town that wasn't even on the map a few years before the boom years in the "Gate City."
Slave owners in Atlanta hired out their skilled slaves to businesses and industries, arousing rage among white workman. The narrative of "The Bonfire" draws on many first-hand accounts by participants in the siege. One I recognized immediately was Tennessee soldier Sam Watkins, whose accounts of the horrors of war was part of Ken Burns's famous PBS documentary "The Civil War." Watkins served under Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood, who had replaced Gen. Joseph Johnston as commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.
Hood was severely wounded at Chickamauga, when a round shattered his right leg, leading to its amputation. It took three aides to strap Hood into the saddle, Wortman writes. His army's defense of the city generated large numbers of Union casualties, until Sherman decided on a surprise move that led to the first "bonfire", the one started in the city's railroad yards by the Confederates.
Yes, there were two "bonfires" in Atlanta, with the second ordered by Sherman as part of his total war strategy. He wanted to make Atlanta "howl," and he did. By the way, Sherman didn't say "War is hell," a statement famously attributed to him, Wortman says. The hyperactive, racist Sherman told Mayor Calhoun, who had appealed to him to rescind the order that civilians had to leave the city, did tell the mayor that "War is cruelty and you cannot refine it."
A racist Union general? Yes, after his graduation from West Point in 1840 Lancaster, Ohio native Sherman (1820-1891) served in the South during the Seminole Wars in Florida and later running a military academy in Pineville, Louisiana. He was also stationed in Georgia and South Carolina, with his Georgia stay ironically devoted to surveying the route his army would later follow from Chattanooga, Tenn. to Atlanta. He refused to allow black soldiers in his ranks and was as racist as any Confederate, Wortman says.
In addition to a detailed look at life in wartime Atlanta, Wortman gives a fairly comprehensive look at the brutal Indian removal policies in the state, which began with the removal of the Creeks in 1790 and ended with the "Trail of Tears" removal of the Cherokees to what later became the state of Oklahoma in the 1830s. Atlanta couldn't have existed without driving out the Cherokee Nation from Northwest Georgia and the policy was handled with extreme cruelty and many deaths.
I've read and reviewed many books of Civil War history down through the years and "The Bonfire" reminded me of one in particular, Ernest B. Furgurson's "Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War" (Knopf, 1996). There were many eerie similarities between the Confederate capital and Atlanta. Furgurson describes two of them: clandestine Unionism and the importance of blacks to the economy.
Wortman equals Furgurson in his narrative, high praise indeed. Every Civil War history buff should read "The Bonfire."
About the author: Marc Wortman, a native of St. Louis, MO, is the author of "The Millionaires' Unit: The Aristocratic Flyboys Who Fought the Great War and Invented American Air Power." He has a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton University and is an independent scholar and free-lance writer. He and his family live in New Haven, CT.
Publisher's web site: www.publicaffairsbooks.com
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