Both Grant and Sherman initially had objectives to engage with and destroy the two principal armies of the Confederacy, relegating the capture of important enemy cities to a secondary, supporting role.

This is a strategy that President Abraham Lincoln has emphasized throughout the war, but Grant is the first general who actively cooperates with it.

As their campaigns progress, however, the political importance of the cities of Richmond and Atlanta begins to dominate their strategy.

With Chattanooga and Vicksburg firmly under the control of the North by the end of 1863, Atlanta is now the logical point for Union forces to attack in their western campaign.

Distant from earlier fighting, Atlanta has become an important Confederate railroad, supply, and manufacturing center and a gateway to the lower South.

Atlanta has become a critical target.

The city of twenty thousand had been founded at the intersection of four important railroad lines that supply the Confederacy and is a military manufacturing arsenal in its own right.

Atlanta's nickname of "Gate City of the South" is apt—its capture would open virtually the entire Deep South to Union conquest.

Grant's orders to Sherman are to "move against Johnston's Army, to break it up and to get into the interior of the enemy's country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their War resources."