Just as Gettysburg had been a significant turning point of the war in July of 1863, so was the month of September in 1864. After a scorching August, as the deaths of both Union and Confederate soldiers continued to increase, the month of September became a welcome respite – at least for the Union. The weather turned temperate, and Union victories began to consistently take place. On September 2, 1864, Atlanta officially fell into Union hands, although it took John Bell Hood’s broken troops a few more days to evacuate the Georgia capital. 

As Hood’s army vacated Atlanta, General Sherman followed the Confederates briefly, then turned southward, beginning his infamous March to the Sea, where his army burned and pillaged almost everything in their path. On September 3, Sherman sent a telegram to President Lincoln, with the words, “Atlanta is ours, and fairly won.”1

It was tremendous news for the people of the North, who were excessively tired of the toll taken by the war. “I have never seen such a sudden lighting of public mind,” claimed one Lincoln detractor. Along with General Grant’s victory at Weldon Railroad and Admiral David Farragut’s capture of Mobile Bay in August, it appeared that continuous victories – leading up to a final one – were progressing for the Union at long last.2

The same probability of eventual Federal victory pervaded the minds of the Southerners, whose only hope lay in the fading possibility that Abraham Lincoln would lose reelection. When Lincoln’s opponent, the former commander of the Army of the Potomac George McClellan, learned of the fall of Atlanta, he suddenly changed his tactics, insisting that “No peace can be permanent without union.”3

When news of Sherman’s March to the Sea reached the phalanx of Union prisoners of war in the South, they were elated – particularly those suffering at the notorious Andersonville Prison in southwestern Georgia. The men, believing they would soon be paroled, were “wild with joy.”4

The men were not to be paroled: it was a ruse to keep the overcrowded prison camp at bay. The summer of 1864 had been particularly difficult in the overcrowded conditions at Andersonville. Over 33,000 Union prisoners were kept there at one time, and with the deplorable conditions, many died of disease, starvation, and illness. On September 7, the prisoners who were able to walk were placed on trains and taken to other prisoner-of-war camps, as the fear of Sherman’s arrival would not only free the men, it would show to the world the ghastly conditions in which they were kept.5

One of the Union prisoners, who reached Savannah in September, remarked, “Everything is clean here. But then any place is clean after summering in Andersonville.”6

Sadly, almost eight thousand sufferers of Andersonville were too weak to make the journey and were forced to stay behind. Of those thousands, only 1,359 survived the notorious Andersonville when it finally closed in December. Of those who succumbed, one was a Gettysburg farmer, Hiram Gilbert, who had enlisted in the 138th Pennsylvania infantry. Captured at the Wilderness in May of 1864, he managed to stay alive for only a few months before dying of illness and starvation. At age 23, the young soldier was buried at the graveyard in Andersonville.7

Although the sudden reversal of Federal fortunes daunted the people of the South, they did not show it. They continued to fight against the equally determined Union soldiers. One of the brutal assaults occurred on September 19, 1864 in the Third Battle of Winchester, Virginia. General Lee, still keeping his army in Petersburg in the middle of a Union siege, knew about the Federal movements, but he could not leave Petersburg to rescue General Jubal Early at Winchester. “I fear that this force is intended to operate against General Early,” he wrote to Jefferson Davis. As a result, Early was outnumbered by troops led by Phil Sheridan, by three to one.8

Sheridan’s troops forcefully attacked Early near Opequon Creek. Although Early’s men put up a stiff defense, they were unable to prevail, and many slain Confederates lay in the wake of the battle. Sheridan took out one-fourth of Early’s division at Winchester. One of the fallen was Confederate division commander General Robert Rodes, a veteran of Gettysburg, who was shot while attempting to counter-charge against the Union forces.9

Jefferson Davis, learning of Hood’s devastating loss in Atlanta and the disaster at Winchester, left Richmond to address Hood’s men in their camp south of Atlanta. With his speech on September 25, he hoped to bolster their sagging spirits. The army, dejected at the turn of events and realizing that the end was near, stayed ominously silent as their president spoke. Davis attempted to rally the troops, insisting that they find Sherman and stop him on his pillaging march. His ruse utterly failed.10

In Washington, President Lincoln was optimistic. He believed now that his reelection was probable.

That same month, a sullen actor turned Confederate conspirator was in Pennsylvania. John Wilkes Booth was in the Keystone State to secure an oil field to aid the South, and put the property in the name of his brother Junius. Still determined in his quest to kidnap President Lincoln and hold him for ransom, he was canny enough to realize that, should he be captured in the attempt, that his worldly goods would be confiscated. During the transaction, he confided to a friend that he was “anxious to return to the stage.”11

His most famed performance was only months away, at Ford’s Theater.

Sources: Andersonville Prison Records, Andersonville, Georgia. Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. Vol. 3 “Red River to Appomattox”. New York: Random House, 1974.  Hiram Gilbert Obituary, Gilbert Family File, Adams County Historical Society (hereafter ACHS). Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. Kauffman, Michael W. American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies. New York: Random House, 2004. Ransom, John. John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary. New York: Berkeley Books, 1994 (reprint, first published in 1881). Speer, Lonnie. Portals to Hell: Military Prisons of the Civil War. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997. Wagner, Margaret E. The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2011. Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge & London: Louisiana State University Press, 1959.

End Notes: 

1. Foote, p. 552. Wagner, p. 204. 

2. Goodwin, p. 656. 

3. Foote, p. 552. 

4. Ransom, p. 141. 

5. Andersonville Prison Records, Andersonville, GA.

6. Ransom, p. 141. 

7. Speer, p. 262. Hiram Gilbert Obituary, ACHS. 

8. Foote, p. 539. 

9. Warner, p. 263. 

10. Wagner, p. 204. Foote, p. 555. 

11. Kauffman, p. 136.