"The Battle of Atlanta, also known as the Battle of July 22 [1864] (the only engagement of the Civil War widely referred to by the date of its occurrence), was the largest and most prominent engagement of the four-month-long Atlanta Campaign for control of Atlanta. The Battle of Atlanta was the second engagement of the campaign, fought just east of the city. Confederate commander John Bell Hood's forces flanked William T. Sherman's line and crushed the end of it, they could go no further. Yet the Confederates came closer to achieving a major tactical victory on July 22 than on any other day of the Atlanta campaign. One scholar commented that Hess is "taking fresh and interesting approaches and looking at aspects of the battle, the personalities that fought it, the terrain and other factors that shaped its course and outcome, and analyzing and assessing events and people in ways that make a truly unique contribution to scholarship.""--

Earl J. Hess is emeritus professor, Lincoln Memorial University and author of The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth and The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat, both from Kansas.