The Daily History Chronicle

On September 1, 1864, Confederate forces evacuated Atlanta after Sherman severed its last rail line, and the city's fall became a Union political triumph, a humanitarian catastrophe for its white civilians, and a moment of liberation for the enslaved people still living there. This episode holds all three realities together through the words of the people who lived them, from Sherman's own telegram to a mayor's plea to a formerly enslaved woman's one recorded sentence of joy.