Mr. Russ Bonds will present “The Battle and Burning of Atlanta” to the Washington Civil War Round Table 1t 6 p.m. on Monday evening, March 22 at the Jockey Club restaurant on The Square in Washington, GA.

Claibourne Darden, Round Table President, says that the public is invited and welcomed. The cost of the meeting is $10 per person and includes a very nice dinner. Please make reservations, as soon as possible, by e-mail at claibourne@dardenatlanta. net or by calling (404)210- 5811 and leaving a message. After 12:00pm Friday, make reservations only by calling (404) 210-5811 and leaving a message.

In the summer of 1864, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s army (US) closed in on Atlanta. His army faced a formidable defense of a 12 mile ring of earthworks bristling with artillery batteries and rifle pits around Atlanta. Slaves had been hired from their owners at $25 per month to dig trenches, build parapets, and to cut thousands of trees to open fields of fire. They built palisades (wood fences), fraises (pointed logs put in the ground at an angle), chevaux-defrise (portable pointed logs assembled in an “X” fashion), cannon embrasures (earthworks for cannons) and head logs to protect riflemen in the trenches. Still suffering from the loss of Vicksburg in the summer of 1863, the Confederate government dug deep into its treasury to defend Atlanta. As the chief engineer, Samuel Grant (CSA), stated, defending Atlanta was “second only to the defense of Richmond.”

As one Texas flag bearer wrote home from Atlanta in August of 1864, “I have heard repeatedly that the Yankee Gents can’t get their men to charge our works.” But it never crossed Gen. Sherman’s mind to charge these impenetrable and deadly works. Instead he turned his efforts to severing the railroads feeding the city. When this was successfully done after a number of fierce battles, Gen. John Hood (CSA) had to withdraw from his fortifications and Atlanta fell into Federal hands.

Mr. Bonds is an honor graduate of Georgia Tech and a graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law. He is currently an in-house lawyer at the Coca-Cola Company. He is the author of Stealing the General, which is about “The Great Locomotive Chase”/Andrew’s raid. This book received the Richard Barksdale Harwell Award for the best Civil War book of the year. His new book, War Like the Thunderbolt: The Battle and Burning of Atlanta, is just recently out. He plans to have some available at the meeting for those who would like a personalized copy.

Membership in the Washington Civil War Round Table is open to everyone and new members can join at the meeting.