Leading his division over the enemy parapet during the battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Colonel Daniel McCook, Jr. was shot through the lungs and killed.  He became the third son of Daniel McCook Senior to die in battle. The father himself had also been killed in Kentucky as a 65 year old major of infantry the year before. Known as the "Fighting McCooks," eight sons of the senior Daniel served in the Union forces, along with five nephews. Promoted after his death to Brigadier General, Colonel McCook was twenty-nine years old.  (By John Osborne)

Confederate President Jefferson Davis tired of what he considered to be General Joe Johnston's caution in his defense of Georgia and replaced him with the thirty-three year old John Bell Hood.  Hood's reputation as a bold battlefield general signaled to all, Union and Confederate, that the defense of Atlanta would take on a more aggressive strategy.  This unfolded but resulted in losses the Confederates could not afford, and ultimately the Union capture of the city seven weeks later.  (By John Osborne) 

Relentless pressure from General Sherman's Army of the Tennessee over the previous weeks, with very heavy Confederate losses, had made Confederate General John Bell Hood's defence of Atlanta impossible.  He evacuated the city on the evening of September 1, 1864, burning military installations and supplies.  Union forces completed the capture the next day, giving not only a significant victory but a massive boost to Northern morale and President Lincoln's prospects of re-election in November.  (By John Osborne) 

Colonel John Wilson Sprague, a businessman before the war with no military experience, had risen to command a brigade in XVI Corps of the Army of the Tennessee. On the outskirts of the battle of Atlanta, near Decatur, he and his heavily outnumbered men fought off Confederate General Joseph Wheeler's bold flanking attack long enough to save practically all the ordinance and supply trains of the Army of the Tennessee.  He was awarded the Medal of Honor for this action just before he died in 1894. (By John Osborne)