- Joined
- Oct 4, 2013
- Location
- Cobb's Legion Country - Bowdon, Ga.
George Barnard accompanied Sherman during the Atlanta Campaign and took all of the images we know of the Atlanta area during the war. He has pictures starting at Rocky Face Ridge down to Savannah. A glaring area of omission however is the time between Kennesaw Mountain and the fighting at Peachtree Creek.
We all know the following picture. I was taken of earthworks in front of Kennesaw Mountain. It is unknown if it was taken before or after the fall of Atlanta but the siege ended on September 2 and that is the beginning of fall. The leaves on the trees look for and the picture appears to be around July to me which would have been right after the battle.
If you go in chronological order the next image was of the Peachtree Creek battlefield:
The battle of Kennesaw was on June 27 and Peachtree Creek was on July 20. You had an entire month of operations from the Smyrna-Ruff's Mill line down the Chattahoochee then action on the Atlanta outer defense line before the AoT fell back to the inner defenses, Johnston was replaced, and Hood took command launching the Peachtree Creek battle.
My point for this post is that there is only 1 single picture of the Chattahoochee River along the Confederate river line defenses. If you are a student of the Atlanta campaign you know the river line was one of the most ingenius and revolutionary battle line perhaps in the entire war. Sherman commented on the strength of the line and another federal (Poe?) stated it was the strongest works he had ever come across. The "shoupades" were a curiosity which had to have attracted the photographer's eye. The river was fought over and a milestone of the campaign. Why did he not take pictures of that area? I have a theory. It rained and rained and rained that summer. Could a box of his images have been damaged? We will never know. Maybe they are stuck in an attic somewhere waiting to be rediscovered?
I suggest someone resurrect Barnard and tell him to get his act together.
Here is the single solitary and terribly lonesome picture of "sort of" the Chattahoochee and the river defenses. It is taken from the south bank to the north. The actual River Line would have been out of view past the far ridge, about a mile away.
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