Atlanta Campaign: Resaca
Gordon County, Gordon County, Georgia
Marker Inscription
Atlanta Campaign. National Historic Site. Atlanta Campaign Resaca. May 13-15, 1864. In this vicinity the Confederate lines North and West of Resaca held firm against Federal attack. Sherman then executed a successful flank movement to the West and South around Johnston's position thus making the Confederate line untenable and compelling the troops of the Confederacy to move deeper into Georgia. National Park Service United States Department of the Interior.
Erected by National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior
The Story
On May 13–15, 1864, the opening major clash of the Atlanta Campaign unfolded near Resaca, where Confederate lines north and west of town held firm against Federal attacks. Unable to break the position by assault, Sherman executed a flanking movement to the west and south that rendered Johnston's line untenable. The Confederates were compelled to fall back deeper into Georgia, setting the campaign's pattern.
Why it matters
Resaca opened the campaign that would capture Atlanta and split the Confederacy, a turning point that reverberated all the way to the Northern home front.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In May of 1864 the Civil War entered a phase of coordinated, unrelenting pressure. While one great Union army pressed the Confederacy in Virginia, another set out from the Chattanooga area to drive south into Georgia. Its target was Atlanta—the railroad city whose factories, depots, and converging lines made it one of the beating hearts of the Confederate war effort.
The country around Resaca, in northwest Georgia, was made for defense: wooded ridges, a river at the town's back, and high ground north and west that a determined army could line with earthworks. Whoever held these hills controlled the railroad running south, and so this modest crossroads became the place where the long campaign for Atlanta would open in earnest.
For the region's civilians, the arrival of tens of thousands of soldiers meant fields turned into fortifications and familiar hills suddenly bristling with rifle pits—the war no longer a distant rumor but a thing unfolding at the edge of town.
People & events
From May 13 to 15, 1864, the armies collided here in the first major clash of the Atlanta Campaign. Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston had placed his troops in strong lines north and west of Resaca, and when Union forces under General William T. Sherman came on and attacked, those lines held. Assault after assault failed to break the defenders' grip on the high ground.
But holding a position is not the same as winning a campaign, and Sherman knew it. Unable to shatter the Confederate line by direct attack, he looked instead for a way around it. He set a movement in motion to the west and south—reaching for the ground beyond Johnston's flank, toward the river crossings that fed the army's line of retreat and supply.
Once that flanking movement took hold, Johnston's strong position lost its value. A line that cannot be stormed can still be made useless if the enemy simply gets behind it. With his position rendered untenable, Johnston had no choice but to give up the ground his men had successfully defended and fall back, drawing the war deeper into Georgia.
Its place in the American story
Resaca set the pattern for everything that followed. The campaign it opened would become a months-long chess match in which Sherman repeatedly declined to trade lives for ground he could take by maneuver, sliding around fortified lines and forcing his opponent backward, step by step, toward Atlanta.
That approach was more than a battlefield tactic; it was a strategy with national stakes. The fall of Atlanta later that year would send a jolt of encouragement across the war-weary North, help steady public will at a crucial moment, and strike a heavy blow at the Confederacy's ability to keep fighting. The road to that outcome began in these hills.
Resaca is a reminder that the turning points of a war are not always the bloodiest single days. Sometimes they are the openings—the first move that reveals how the whole contest will be played, and that quietly makes the later, more famous victories possible.
If you visit
Come to Resaca to read terrain. The ridges north and west of town are the heart of the story: stand where you can see them and you can understand at once why a defending army felt secure here, and why an attacker who couldn't break that line would go looking for a way around it instead.
The landscape does much of the interpreting for you. Notice how the high ground and the river work together—the same features that made this a strong position also made it a trap once the flank was turned. That interplay of ridge and river is the lesson the marker points to, and it is still legible in the land.
If you're following the Atlanta Campaign as a road trip, Resaca is the natural first chapter, the place to begin before tracing the armies' long southward course. Give yourself a moment to look toward the distant hills and imagine the lines of earthworks that once crowned them; the quiet fields make the scale of what happened here easier to feel, not harder.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · William T. Sherman
- · Joseph E. Johnston
Related events
- · Battle of Resaca
- · Atlanta Campaign
- · American Civil War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Battle of Resaca
Resaca, GA
On May 16, 1864, Gen. Johnston's Confederate army slipped across the Oostanaula River on pontoon and railroad bridges, ending the Battle of Resaca. Union forces rebuilt the burned bridges and pursued southward while other columns fanned out toward Rome and the Coosawattee crossings, and the Army of the Tennessee forded the river downstream at Lay's Ferry.
Battle of Resaca
Gordon County, GA
During the Battle of Resaca on May 13–14, 1864, Union corps deployed along ridges west of Camp Creek opposite Leonidas Polk's Confederate corps. On May 14 the Federals drove Polk's men across the creek and, by evening, carried and held his new position on the hills beyond, forcing Polk to fall back toward the Dalton–Resaca road.
Battle of Resaca
Gordon County, GA
On May 13, 1864, Union Gen. McPherson's corps emerged from Snake Creek Gap to open the Battle of Resaca, with Judson Kilpatrick's cavalry leading the advance until he was wounded by Confederate skirmishers. Over the next day Federal forces deployed along ridges overlooking Camp Creek as the battle opened in earnest against Hood's and Hardee's lines.
Battles of Tilton
Whitfield County, GA
In 1864 the rail towns of northwest Georgia became a battleground during Sherman's drive on Atlanta. This spot saw a May delaying action as Confederates withdrew toward Resaca, and an October assault in which part of French's Division shelled a blockhouse held by some 300 men of the 17th Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry, forcing their surrender after a fight of several hours.