February 14, 1865---"The Little Rust Belt"

FEBRUARY 14, 1865:    

    

Having had him destroy John Bell Hood’s Confederate Army of Tennessee, Ulysses S. Grant today orders Major General George Thomas of the now relatively inactive Army of The Cumberland to strike south from Tennessee into Alabama. Grant’s ultimate goal is to wreck the industrial base of Columbus, Georgia. 

The little river town on the eastern bank of the Chattahoochee River, powered by the waters of Coweta Falls, has become a major center of Confederate industry. 

Columbus is the prime city of what is newly known as “the industrial heartland of the Confederacy,” what we would call today a “Little Rust Belt” area stretching across central Georgia, Alabama and eastern Mississippi.  Built up just since the onset of the war, this area is rich with natural resources, holds many factories, and has a local population extremely loyal to the Confederate cause. It is also one of the last remaining areas of the South that has not been ruined by the war.

The Army of The Cumberland cuts this heartland right down the middle, destroying what is left of the South’s small industrial base. The devastation wrought causes the local economy to collapse for decades, but in the short term what was left of the Southern war machine seized up, dealing yet another fatal blow to the Old South.