The Atlanta Campaign had an importance reaching beyond the immediate military and political consequences. It was conducted in a manner that helped establish a new mode of warfare. From beginning to end, it was a railroad campaign, in that a major transportation center was the prize for which the contestants vied, and both sides used rail lines to marshal, shift, and sustain their forces. Yanks and Rebs made some use of repeating rifles, and Confederate references to shooting down “moving bushes” indicate resort to camouflage by Sherman’s soldiers. The Union commander maintained a command post under “signal tree” at Kennesaw Mountain and directed the movement of his forces through a net of telegraph lines running out to subordinate headquarters. Men of both armies who early in the war had looked askance at the employment of pick and shovel, now, as a matter of course, promptly scooped out protective ditches at each change of position. The campaign was also tremendously important as a human endeavor, and one of the most impressive features of Richard McMurry’s account is the insight—much of it gleaned from unpublished letters and diaries—into the motivations, experiences, and reactions of the participants. The officers and men who endured the heat and the mud of what must have been one of the wettest seasons in the history of Georgia and who lived in the shadow of death day after day for 4 months of as arduous campaigning as occurred during the whole conflict, stand out as flesh and blood human beings. This time of severe testing led to the undoing of some of the generals, including Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood. Others, notably William Tecumseh Sherman, capitalized on the opportunities afforded by the campaign to prove their worth and carve for themselves lasting niches in the military hall of fame. Still others had their careers cut short by hostile bullets, among them Leonidas Polk, a leader whose Civil War experience makes inescapable the conclusion that he should never have swapped his clerical robes for a general’s stars. In marked contrast stood James B. McPherson, great both as a man and a combat commander, whose premature passing elicited moving statements of grief from leaders on both sides.