On November 15, 1864, U.S. forces led by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman burned nearly all of the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia.

This event occurred near the end of the U.S. Civil War during which 11 states in the American South seceded from the rest of the nation. The Confederate States of America was formed to maintain the institution of enslaving people of African descent.

More than 3,000 buildings (including businesses, hospitals, homes, and schools) were destroyed. The Atlanta Campaign aimed to cut off Atlanta’s vital supply lines that provided Confederate troops with reinforcements, ammunition, and goods such as clothes, first-aid medicines, and equipment. As Atlanta lay smoldering, Sherman and his troops began their audacious, infamous “March to the Sea,” a massive scorched-earth campaign that ended in the port city of Savannah, Georgia, on December 21.