sherman’s Vandals Caught on Camera Wrecking the railroads in Atlanta
What’s going on this fascinating Barnard photo showing sherman’s men at work? Experts weigh in on this, other images
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I’m a fan of Garry Adelman’s Civil War Page on Facebook. The director of history and education for the American Battlefield Trust regularly posts photographs from the collection of the Library of Congress and other sources.
I love his descriptions of Federal soldiers posing for the camera. Among them:
“Blue-eyed dandy”
“Jaunty caps”
“Photobomber”
“A dude checking his iPad”
You get the idea. But an image he posted on January 4 of soldiers destroying Atlanta railroad in November 1864 especially got my attention. George Barnard, a contractor for the U.S. Army, took many photographs of the fallen city after he arrived two months earlier, but I had never seen this one, for some reason. While most of these fellas were just standing around, others were engaged in a flurry of activity before the end of occupation and the commencement of the March to the Sea.
Labeled “Gen. Sherman’s men destroying the Railroad, before the evacuation of Atlanta, Ga.”, the photograph was taken in downtown Atlanta not far from (today’s) skyscrapers, Underground Atlanta, Mercedes-Benz Stadium and the former CNN Center.
It shows two groups of men destroying railroad track and machinery, vital to Confederate transportation in the Deep South. The larger contingent gazes at…
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