George Barnard – War Was Here

Early September 1864

Upon entering Atlanta, Sherman established his headquarters and began to restore order to the town. He decided that it was a military outpost and ordered all civilians to evacuate. A truce was negotiated with Hood, who was not happy about civilians being forced from their homes, and the civilians were given a choice of taking a train north or one to the south. The ones that choose a train south, were sent to Rough and Ready, where they had to disembark and travel to Love Joy’s Station by wagon. About half the cities population went north and the other half went south. There were some civilians that were allowed to stay as they were given jobs by the Federals.

Poe, Sherman’s Chief Engineer, immediately started to rebuild and strengthen the defensive line around the city. He built artillery forts connected with infantry trenches. With much of the city in ruin, the soldiers started to use building materials from destroyed structures to begin building small shacks as living quarters. Sherman also began to rest and resupply his armies in preparation for his next sortie into the heart of the Confederacy.

Many of the period images that exist of Atlanta come from this time of the campaign. George Barnard entered the city to document the Federal occupation. There are many iconic images of the Federals and their forts in Atlanta.

_DSC0230.bw — After the Federal occupation of Atlanta, General Sherman forced all the civilians out of the city. Those that chose to go south were sent to Rough and Ready, a railroad way station just south of town. It is now called Mountain View sits east of the Atlanta Airport between I-75 and I-285. Here, civilian and their belongings were transferred from the wagons of Union soldiers to the wagons of the Confederates. The Confederates carried them south to the point where the railroad was usable and the civilians were transferred again to trains.

Note: All the images below are attributed to George Barnard. These images are all open source and were downloaded via wikicommons. They are all in the National Archives or the Library of Congress.

03350a — Whitehall Street, Atlanta Ga. 1864.

Landscape — After occupying Atlanta, the Federals began to strengthen the fortifications that were built by the Confederates to defend the city.

Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Pigeon Hill

With so many locations in connection with the battlefield at Kennesaw Mountain, I am going to make several more post over the next few days with more images. There were just too many to include in yesterdays post. Today’s images will focus on Pigeon Hill.

On the morning of June 27th, Federals under the command of General McPherson attacked the Confederate line in the area of Pigeon Hill and Little Kennesaw north east of Cheatham’s Hill. The Federals quickly overran some Confederate pickets and rifle pits located ahead of the main line, but were quickly stalled by the well entrenched Confederates of French’s Division, which held Little Kennesaw and Pigeon Hill. The Confederates well entrenched with plenty of large boulders and rocks used as cover in their earthworks. At one point the Confederates were even rolling boulders and large down on the attacking Federals. French’s Division also held the advantage of the higher ground thus forcing the Federals to attack up steep inclines that had been heavily covered with entanglements by the men of French’s Division. The attacking Federals were repulsed and forced to retreat to low valley between Little Kennesaw and Pigeon Hill where they were trapped by musket and cannon fire for hours. They were finally able to retreat back to their lines after darkness fell upon the battlefield.

_DSC0527.bw — A monument to fallen Federals stands in a field near starting point of the Federal assault on Pigeon Hill.

_DSC0507.bw — The hiking trail up to Pigeon Hill and Little Kennesaw follows the route that Federal soldiers took during the attack. Look to where the trail appears to end(but really turns left). You will the what are the remains of Confederate earthworks just as the attacking Federals would have seen.

_DSC0500.bw — Remnants of Confederate Earthworks on Pigeon Hill. These are some of the first entrenchments that were encountered by the Federal assault.

_DSC0464.bw — Remains of Confederate earthworks on Pigeon Hill near the spot where George Barnard made an image of the battlefield in the fall of 1864.

_DSC0245.bw — A line of Confederate works on top of Pigeon Hill near the lower portion of Little Kennesaw. Notice the large boulders further down the line and the slope as goes do to the right where the Federals were trapped until nightfall.

_DSC0252.bw — More Confederate works with large boulders included into the line.

_DSC0399.bw — Looking down the slope the Federals tried to make an attack from. During the battle the Federals were forced to retreat further down this small valley until the could make it back to their lines under the cover of darkness.

pigeon hill — This is a period image captured by photographer George Barnard in the early fall of 1864 as he traveled to Atlanta to photograph the campaign.

_DSC0473.bw — Here is the same location photographed by George Barnard only 150 years later. Notice the large oddly shaped stone in the foreground of each image.

150 Years Ago Today: September of 1864

     After the Battle of Jonesboro, Sherman’s Army followed the Confederates to Love Joy’s Station, where Hood rejoined Hardee with Stewart’s and Lee’s Corps. Sherman skirmished a day or so and then after learning that the XX Corps had entered Atlanta, he withdrew from Love Joy’s Station and marched back to Atlanta to claim his prize and losing what many consider to have been a prime opportunity to crush Hood and the Army of Tennessee once and for all. Having taken Atlanta, Sherman decided he had reached his objective and did not think it was worth the bloodshed to continue pressing his advantage.
     Upon entering Atlanta, Sherman established his headquarters and began to restore order to the town. He decided that it was a military outpost and ordered all civilians to evacuate. A truce was negotiated with Hood, who was not happy about civilians being forced from their homes, and the civilians were given a choice of taking a train north or one to the south. The ones that choose a train south, were sent to Rough and Ready, where they had to disembark and travel to Love Joy’s Station by wagon. About half the cities population went north and the other half went south. There were some civilians that were allowed to stay as they were given jobs by the Federals.
     Poe, Sherman’s Chief Engineer, immediately started to rebuild and strengthen the defensive line around the city. He built artillery forts connected with infantry trenches. With much of the city in ruin, the soldiers started to use building materials from destroyed structures to begin building small shacks as living quarters. Sherman also began to rest and resupply his armies in preparation for his next sortie into the heart of the Confederacy.
     Many of the period images that exist of Atlanta come from this time of the campaign. George Barnard entered the city to document the Federal occupation. There are many iconic images of the Federals and their forts in Atlanta.

It Starts Tomorrow!

Tomorrow will be my first day of principle photography for my War Was Here project. I will be heading up to the Dalton area to make some images and will be back up there to shoot at Tunnel Hill on Wednesday. I’m looking forward to this great weather we are having and hope to have some great images for show later this week or early next week. I’m going to try and shoot some video as well and if I get a chance tomorrow, I will post one here in the blog. Get ready folks, it’s going to get a little crazy around here for awhile.

Book review: Atlanta, A Portrait of the Civil War

Atlanta, A Portrait of the Civil War
by Michael Rose
Atlanta History Center
Arcadia Publishing 1999

If you love period images and local Atlanta history, then this book is for you. It is full of period images from the Civil War. The images are of prominent citizens, soldiers, officers, political figures, children, and of course the City of Atlanta. Most of the images are identified and have very descriptive captions. If you want to know what Atlanta looked like 150 years ago, this is the book to look at.

Allatoona Pass location scouting images

Yesterday my friend and I went to Allatoon Pass to scout the location for the shoot in October. While we were there I made an image from the same general location as a period image made in 1864 by George Barnard. Make note of the home on the left side of the images. It has a two story front porch and is still standing today. The angle is a little off, but the terrain has changed with the construction of the lake. The home has also been through some repairs or remodels over the years but is essentially the same. I hope to have similar comparisons in my book. First will be the period image and mine will be below.

The above image is by George Barnard, circa 1864

This image is one that I made yesterday.

I you have not had a chance yet, please check out my kickstarter campaign to help my fund the book. Here is the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/504639503/war-was-here?ref=live

Thanks again for all your support.

War Was Here, My new project

“War was here” is a documentary photography project that will be developed into a hard cover book, softcover book, an e-book, and hopefully a gallery show.

The purpose of this project is to document the Georgia Battlefields and other significant locations of General Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign and the March to the Sea. This year celebrates the 150th anniversary of his historic military campaign through Georgia. I plan on photographing each of the battlefields and locations on or as close to the actual anniversary date as logistics permit. So on May 7th, 2014 I will be at Tunnel Hill making photographs of the battlefield that is considered the start of the campaign and in December I will be in Savannah making photographs of the end of the campaign. My goal is to show the current conditions of the battlefields and locations as they are 150 years later. For some locations, I will include period images as a contrast to the changes that have occurred over the years.

Some of the locations have been fairly well preserved, while some are all but lost. Some are endanger of being lost and hopefully my images can be used to help document them and protect them. I have spent over a year doing research, planning and location scouting.

While the majority of the images will be captured with a digital camera, I still work in film and some alternative processes and Pinhole as well. While I am working I will be updating my blog http://www.warwashere.blogspot.com several times a week and adding images that have been made recently and hopefully some short video of the locations. After all the images are captured, I will be putting the “coffee table” book together as well as an e-book that will have additional images with more detailed descriptions and histories of locations and maps as well. I will also be planning a gallery show of some of the images and I will also be donating copies of the book, e-book, and digital files of the images to the Atlanta History Center, the Kennesaw State University Civil War Center, The Georgia Battlefields Association, and to several other smaller museums, historical societies, and research libraries.