USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Given Atlanta’s position south of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, capturing the city would severely threaten the stability of the Confederacy. If Atlanta fell, Union leadership hoped that it would bring the already bloody war to a swift end.

Detailed explanation-2: -Through October, Sherman built up a massive cache of supplies in Atlanta. He then ordered a systematic destruction of the city to prevent the Confederates from recovering anything once the Yankees had abandoned it.

Detailed explanation-3: -The impact of the fall of Atlanta was instrumental in the eventual victory for the Federal forces. It boosted morale in the North and insured the reelection of President Abraham Lincoln which meant that the war would continue to the South’s capitulation.

Detailed explanation-4: -Atlanta’s Roundhouse On November 15, 1864, U.S. forces led by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman burned nearly all of the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia. This event occurred near the end of the U.S. Civil War during which 11 states in the American South seceded from the rest of the nation.