Symposium Spotlight: The Road to Atlanta

Welcome back to our spotlight series, highlighting speakers and topics for our upcoming symposium. Over the coming weeks, we will continue previewing of our speaker’s presentations for the 2025 Emerging Civil War Symposium. This week we feature Dave Powell’s topic.

Atlanta in Ruins

On the Road to Atlanta: Living in War’s Wake

The impact of the American Civil War on the City of Atlanta is well-known, from pre-war commerce and transport hub to rapid wartime expansion, and ultimately, devastation. Less well known is the impact of the Atlanta Campaign on a number of smaller towns in northern Georgia, such as Dalton, LaFayette, Rome, Dallas, and Marietta. Each of these cities experienced war, occupation, and depredation. Civilians suffered, refugeed away, or endured; some even prospered. Formerly enslaved people experienced freedom for the first time. Guerillas and irregulars of all stripes were commonly seen. Between May and July 1864, as Sherman’s forces advanced ever closer to Atlanta, the counties and towns left in his wake dealt with this new wartime reality: a combination of occupation and lawlessness that made life exceedingly difficult for those who remained.

Find more information and tickets for our 2025 Symposium by clicking here.