Civil War Lecture Series | Atlanta and Columbia Remember Sherman: Monuments and Ruins

Presented by Thomas Brown, PhD, University of South Carolina. The burning of Atlanta in November 1864 during Union occupation under the command of William T. Sherman and the burning of Columbia in February 1865 during Union occupation under the command of William T. Sherman were parallel crises for what were then similarly sized southern towns. As the fortunes of the cities diverged dramatically after the Civil War, however, civic memories of the events also took different shapes. This talk will explore Atlanta’s remembrance of its fire as a crucible of maturation, culminating in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, and Columbia’s remembrance of its fire as a claim to traumatic victimhood, asserted on historical markers as well as local literature.