About the Book
By the time Albert Castel’s Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864 appeared in 1992, Savas Woodbury Publishers had already made important contributions to the campaign scholarship by publishing a collection of original essays by some of the field’s most noted authors, including Steven Woodworth, writing about the Confederacy’s command options in the Winter of 1863-64. Editors Theodore P. Savas and David A. Woodbury next assembled another group of articles that included such luminaries as Richard McMurry and William R. Scaife. The pair of paperbacks were published together in 1994 in a special hardcover edition with fold-out maps entitled The Campaign for Atlanta & Sherman’s March to the Sea, Volumes I and II.
Now, almost three decades later, Savas Beatie proudly announces the publication of its third volume in the series. Once again, cutting-edge scholarship is presented in such essays as Brian Wills’ “Forrest and Atlanta” and Larry Daniel’s “The Adairsville Affair.” Stephen Davis wonders why the battle of Jonesboro (August 31-September 1) still draws so much attention when Federal troops had already cut Hood’s last railroad line into Atlanta, sealing the fate of the city even before the battle had begun.
Additional essays address the impact of Sherman’s campaigns on Georgia women, Joe Johnston’s self-aggrandizing campaign accounts, and more.
Like its predecessors, The Campaign for Atlanta and Sherman’s March to the Sea, Volume 3 will be highly sought by students of the campaign, and western theatrists in general.
Stephen Davis of Cumming, Georgia, is author or editor of ten books on the Civil War, mostly centered on the Atlanta Campaign. His two-volume study of Confederate General John B. Hood (2019-20) has won several prizes, including the Fletcher Pratt Award of the New York Civil War Round Table. His most recent work is I Thank the Lord I Am Not a Yankee: Selections from Fanny Andrews’s Wartime and Postwar Journals (Mercer, 2023).
Theodore Savas, a graduate of the University of Iowa College of Law (1986, with Distinction), is the director of Savas Beatie, one of the country’s leading independent publishers. He is the author, editor, or co-author of numerous books and articles including Never for Want of Powder: The Confederate Powder Works in Augusta, Georgia (Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2007), Brady’s Civil War Journal: Photographing the War, 1861-1865 (Skyhorse, 2012), A Guide to the Battles of the American Revolution (Spellmount and SBLLC, 2006), Hunt and Kill: U-505 and the U-Boat War in the Atlantic (Spellmount, SBLLC, 2004), and many others. He lives with his wife and three dogs in Myrtle Beach, SC.
