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| Palisades and Chevaux-de-frise guarding Atlanta At last Sherman is before Atlanta. The photograph shows one of the keypoints in the Confederate defense, the Fort at the head of Marietta Street, toward which the Federal lines were advancing from the northwest. The old Potter house in the background, once a quiet, handsome country seat, is now surrounded by bristling fortifications, palisades, and double lines of chevaux-de-frise. Atlanta was engaged in the final grapple with the force that was to overcome her. Sherman has fought his way past Kenesaw and across the Chattahoochee, through a country which he describes as “one vast fort,” saying that “Johnston must have at least fifty miles of connected trenches with abatis and finished batteries.” Anticipating that Sherman might drive him back upon Atlanta, Johnston had constructed, during the winter, heavily fortified positions all the way from Dalton. During his two months in retreat the fortifications at Atlanta had been strengthened to the utmost. What he might have done behind them was never to be known. |
