[Atlanta, Ga. Federal soldiers relaxing by guns of captured fort]

Photograph of the War in the West. These photographs are of Sherman in Atlanta, September-November, 1864. After three and a half months of incessant maneuvering and much hard fighting, Sherman forced Hood to abandon the munitions center of the Confederacy. Sherman remained there, resting his war-worn men and accumulating supplies, for nearly two and a half months. During the occupation, George N. Barnard, official photographer of the Chief Engineer's Office, made the best documentary record of the war in the West; but much of what he photographed was destroyed in the fire that spread from the military facilities blown up at Sherman's departure on November 15.