Confederate forces returned to Big Shanty, Georgia, the railroad settlement now known as Kennesaw, during General John Bell Hood’s campaign against Major General William T. Sherman’s communications north of Atlanta. The action was relatively small when measured against the major battles fought around Atlanta during the preceding summer, but its importance rested in its location and purpose. Big Shanty stood directly on the Western & Atlantic Railroad, the transportation line connecting Atlanta with Chattanooga and the principal logistical artery upon which Sherman’s armies had depended throughout the Atlanta Campaign. Hood’s attack therefore represented an attempt to transform the strategic situation after the Confederate loss of Atlanta by attacking the infrastructure sustaining the Union occupation.
Atlanta had fallen to Sherman’s forces in early September 1864. Hood, commanding the Confederate Army of Tennessee, could not retake the city through a direct assault with reasonable prospects of success. Instead, his army moved west and north of Atlanta with the purpose of threatening Sherman’s railroad communications. By late September, Hood had crossed the Chattahoochee River and moved toward the Western & Atlantic Railroad. Sherman understood that the railroad remained essential to maintaining his large force at Atlanta. Union troops consequently guarded bridges, stations, blockhouses, and other vulnerable points along the route between Atlanta and Chattanooga.
Big Shanty was already deeply associated with the 1864 campaign. During Sherman’s advance on Atlanta, the settlement had served Union forces as a railroad supply point and hospital station. The surrounding area had also formed part of the battlefield landscape during operations against Confederate positions at Kennesaw Mountain in June. Library of Congress drawings from the period document Big Shanty, its railroad facilities, and its water tanks, while National Park Service records emphasize the importance of the Western & Atlantic Railroad to Cobb County and to military operations. Thus, when Confederate troops approached Big Shanty in October, they were attacking a location that had already become an important component of Sherman’s logistical system.
Hood dispatched Lieutenant General Alexander P. Stewart’s corps from the vicinity of Lost Mountain toward the railroad on October 3. According to the Georgia Historical Commission marker preserved by the Digital Library of Georgia, Confederate troops under Brigadier General Winfield Scott Featherston captured the Federal garrison at Big Shanty. The Union defenders included detachments associated with the 14th and 15th Illinois infantry regiments. Confederate Major General Samuel G. French later recorded that Featherston captured prisoners at Big Shanty while other elements of Stewart’s corps moved against Moon’s Station and Acworth. Hood subsequently reported that Stewart had struck the Western & Atlantic Railroad at Big Shanty on the evening of October 3 and captured approximately 350 prisoners at Big Shanty and Acworth combined.
The railroad itself was a principal target. French recorded that Stewart’s three divisions worked through the night destroying track between the Kennesaw area and Acworth. By the following day, Confederate soldiers had torn up several miles of railroad and damaged rails sufficiently to interrupt traffic. Hood reported approximately ten miles destroyed; French’s account described about eight miles completed by noon. The difference reflects separate contemporary measurements rather than uncertainty over the operation itself. Both accounts confirm that destruction of Sherman’s transportation system was the central objective.
The attack immediately affected Union operations. Brigadier General William Vandever reported from Marietta that Confederate forces had driven his men from Big Shanty. Sherman responded to the growing threat by moving most of his available field forces north from Atlanta while Major General Henry W. Slocum’s XX Corps remained responsible for the city and the Chattahoochee crossings. Sherman’s October 3 orders directed the remainder of his army toward Smyrna and the Marietta area. Hood had therefore succeeded temporarily in forcing Sherman to respond to an attack upon the railroad behind the principal Union position at Atlanta.
Big Shanty was also the opening stage of a larger Confederate operation along the railroad. On October 4, Hood directed Stewart to continue operations farther north, and French’s division advanced toward Allatoona. The resulting Battle of Allatoona on October 5 became a much larger and bloodier engagement. Confederate forces failed to capture the strongly defended Union position there, limiting the lasting military effect of Hood’s railroad campaign. Sherman’s forces also possessed extensive experience repairing damaged railroad track, reducing the permanence of the destruction around Big Shanty.
The October 3 action nevertheless illustrates the strategic importance of Cobb County’s railroad communities during the final months of the Civil War in Georgia. Big Shanty was more than a small station beside the Western & Atlantic Railroad. Its capture demonstrated how closely military operations depended upon rail transportation, communications, fortified stations, and supply depots. The fighting returned war to the Kennesaw landscape three months after the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain and placed Big Shanty at the center of Hood’s attempt to challenge Sherman after the fall of Atlanta. The engagement marked one stage in the final contest for control of the railroad corridor that had shaped military operations across north Georgia throughout 1864.
References / More Knowledge:
Candler, Allen D., and Clement A. Evans, eds. Georgia: Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons Arranged in Cyclopedic Form. Atlanta: State Historical Association, 1906. Digital Library of Georgia.
https://dlg.usg.edu/record/dlg_zlgb_gb0030a
Digital Library of Georgia. “Stewart’s Corps at Big Shanty Historical Marker.” Georgia Historical Markers Collection.
https://dlg.usg.edu/record/dlg_ghm_stewarts-corps-at-big-shanty
French, Samuel G. Two Wars: An Autobiography of General Samuel G. French. Nashville: Confederate Veteran, 1901.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45603/45603-h/45603-h.htm
Library of Congress. “Kenesaw from Big Shanty.” Theodore R. Davis, 1864.
https://www.loc.gov/item/2004660210/
Library of Congress. “Water Tanks. Big Shanty. W. & A.R.R.” Alfred R. Waud, 1864.
https://www.loc.gov/item/2004661045/