On November 15th, 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman, head of the Military Division of the Mississippi for the armies of the Union, ordered the burning of the city of Atlanta.

Atlanta, Georgia, was not as important city at that time as it is today, but it was the focal point of the Atlanta Campaign. General Hood, the commander of the Confederate forces, had been forced to abandon the city on September 1st. General Sherman, after ordering the civilian population out of the city, ordered that depots, arsenals, machine shops and public buildings should be burned to the ground; something that characterised his campaigns.

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