The expedition Kilpatrick led to Lovejoy was not some random raid roving far behind the Rebel lines. It was one of six daring raids General William T. Sherman mounted in the summer of 1864, the last desperate act in a concerted cavalry offensive aimed at cutting the railroads that fed and supplied the Confederate army defending Atlanta.
Despite what you may have seen in "Gone With the Wind," William T. Sherman did not want to lay siege to Atlanta. He did not want to move his army to the south side of the city. If Kilpatrick had succeeded in crippling Atlanta's last remaining supply line, as Sherman hoped, the Confederates would have had to abandon the city, retreating southward or risking everything on the outcome of a pitched battle. Because he failed, largely because of events at Lovejoy and Nash Farm, Sherman became convinced "that cavalry could not or would not work hard enough to disable a railroad properly."
This compelled him to change his tactics. In order to cut the single remaining railroad that was Atlanta's sole source of supply, Sherman now turned to his infantry. While this did not change the ultimate outcome of the campaign, it took longer, involved greater risk, and resulted in much heavier casualties. In other words, Kilpatrick's raid and the struggle at Lovejoy and Nash Farm changed the way the Atlanta campaign was fought. That makes them significant.
All of this is documented in the
OFFICAL RECORDS, if you read them carefully. If Kilpatrick had succeeded in crippling the Macon railroad, as Sherman had planned, there would have been no battle of Jonesboro.
Dr. David Evans,
Author of "
Sherman's Horsemen"
