One of the Most Dramatic and decisive episodes of the Civil War, the Atlanta Campaign was carried out on a grand scale across a spectacular landscape that pitted some of the war's best (and worst) generals against each other. Albert Castel provides the first detailed history of the campaign published since Jacob D. Cox's version appeared in 1882. Unlike Cox, a general in Sherman's army, Castel provides an objective perspective and a comprehensive account based on primary and secondary sources that have become available in the past 110 years. Castel sweeps away past misinterpretations and tells the reader what actually happened on the battlefields of Georgia in 1864. He gives a full and balanced treatment to the operations of the Union and Confederate armies from the perspective of the common soldiers as well as the top generals and offers new accounts and analyses of many of the major events of the campaign. In particular, he challenges the standard view of Sherman's performance. Written in the present tense to give a sense of immediacy and greater realism, this book demonstrates definitively how the capture of Atlanta by Sherman's army occurred and why it assured Northern victory in the Civil War.