The Hell-Hole in Georgia

May 21, 1864 -- two weeks have elapsed since the Atlanta Campaign began. It has been an operation of surprise and maneuver, of exhaustion and hunger, and of ceaseless combat. Now, fifty miles closer to the crucial city of Atlanta, the two armies confront each other again in the Allatoona Mountains. General Joseph E. Johnston's Confederate army has occupied a strong defensive line protected by the Etowah River. As he has done before, General W.T. Sherman avoids a head-on conflict and plunges his Union army into a Georgia "wilderness." He hopes to flank the Confederates with his whole army, cut their supply line, and bring the struggle to a victorious end.When the Union army crosses the Etowah River, the fourth cycle in the Atlanta Campaign begins. In three major battles the two sides vicious attack and defend, attempting to achieve the ultimate victory. Few open areas afford a view of the opponents; many die and are never found in the dense thickets. No grand assaults, no massed artillery bombardments occur here, yet, to most of the combatants, it is remembered as the most desperate fighting of the entire war -- a veritable "Hell-Hole."