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| The end of the railroad depot The crumpled wreck is hardly recognizable as the same spacious train-shed that sheltered such human activities as those pictured opposite, yet this is the Atlanta depot. But such destruction was far from the wanton outrage that it naturally seemed to those whose careers it rudely upset. As early as September, Sherman, with Atlanta on his hands, had deemed it essential for the prosecutions of his movements and the end of the war that the city should be turned into a military post. So he determined “to remove the entire civil population, and to deny to all civilians from the rear the expected profits of civil trade. This was to avoid the necessity of a heavy garrison to hold the position, and prevent the crippling of the armies in the fields as heretofore by ‘detachments’ to guard and protect the interests of a hostile population.” The railroad station, as the heart of the modern artery of business, was second in importance only to the buildings and institutions of the Confederate government itself, as a subject for elimination. |
