Sherman’s March Begins: Battlefield Archaeology on Three Civil War Sites in Northwestern Georgia LAMAR Institute Publication Series, Report Number 172 Adapted from F.S. Cultural Resource Report Number R2012-08-03-01-008 REDACTED VERSION

This report details a cooperative investigation of selected Civil War battlefields on U.S.D.A. Forest Service lands in northwestern Georgia. The battlefields under study are associated with Major General William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to Atlanta Campaign in May, 1864 and events following the capture of Atlanta in October, 1864. The military engagements surrounding Ringgold, Dalton, and Resaca were the beginnings of what was to be a protracted trek across the entire state of Georgia by a large Union force. The outmanned Confederates, commanded by Major General Joseph P. Johnston, were forced into a strategy of defend and retreat, as the best that they could hope for was to slow the movement of Sherman’s forces and desire for their retreat.  

As the Union troops neared Atlanta, Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered a change in command, replacing General Johnston with Major General John Bell Hood. Hoping to lure Sherman to Tennessee, Major General John Bell Hood took a large portion of the Confederate troops and moved north into Tennessee. That move by the Confederates proved disastrous for the Confederates as they suffered defeat after defeat. A Union retreat never came and Sherman’s army conquered Atlanta and the rest of the State of Georgia. By Christmas of 1864, General Sherman telegraphed President Lincoln announcing the capture of Savannah. Meanwhile, interior Georgia was even less well defended by the Confederates with General Hood’s absence. 

During the winter of 2011 archaeologists, historians and volunteers braved freezing conditions to follow in the footsteps of Sherman’s army. The battlefield archaeology study described in this report investigates three locations that were part of the 1864 military action in northwestern Georgia. This study helps to establish a benchmark for the beginning of Sherman’s March through Georgia. The three sites chosen for study were Dug Gap (9WD5), Chestnut Mountain entrenchments (9GO326), and Ships Gap (also known as Maddox Gap) (9WA201) (Figure 1).  

A fourth site, suspected cannon emplacements at Snake Creek Gap (9WA335) was selected for potential study, but time and resources were exhausted and no fieldwork was conducted there. The collaboration was comprised by U.S. Forest Service archaeologists, The LAMAR Institute, Inc., a North Georgia College and State University graduate student and U.S.F.S. intern (Jonathan Harton), and 14 volunteer participants in the U.S.F.S.’s Passport in Time program. 

The LAMAR Institute was retained by the U.S.F.S. to direct the project under Challenge Cost Share Agreement Number 10-CS-11080300-017. The report is organized in the following manner. Chapter 2 provides background information on the three study sites. Chapter 3 details the methods employed in the research project, including the historical research, fieldwork, laboratory analysis, reporting and collection curation. Chapter 4 contains a discussion of the previous archaeological research in the project vicinity. Chapter 5 presents a discussion of the Dug Gap battlefield and the wider action on Rocky Face Ridge. Chapter 6 presents a short discussion of military resources at Snake Creek Gap. Chapter 7 presents a discussion of the military resources at Chestnut Mountain entrenchments. Chapter 9 presents a discussion of the military resources at Ship’s Gap battlefield. Chapter 10 contains a series of GIS distribution maps of battlefield resources at Dug Gap. Chapter 11 contains an interpretation of the military engagements in the study areas. It also includes a discussion of the eligibility of these cultural resources for listing in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). This is followed by a complete bibliography of references cited or consulted for the project. Appendix 1 contains a complete artifact inventory.