Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren
Speaker 1: Vogelbaum here. In eighteen sixty four, during the Civil War,
Speaker 1: General William Sherman stomped through the United States South, marching
Speaker 1: his Union army across Georgia to the Atlantic Ocean. He
Speaker 1: demoralized the Confederation and wreaked havoc on their supply chain
Speaker 1: in one of the most decisive campaigns of the war.
Speaker 1: But in the late eighteen hundreds, a businessman from Georgia
Speaker 1: wanted people to believe that Sherman had lost the Battle
Speaker 1: of Atlanta, and he used a spectacular piece of artwork
Speaker 1: to try to spin the story into a Confederate win.
Speaker 1: His name was Paul Atkinson. Atkinson was something of a
Speaker 1: marketing maven and the son of a Confederate soldier. He
Speaker 1: purchased this artwork, a cyclorama called the Battle of Atlanta
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety one, and reinterpreted several scenes to then
Speaker 1: promote the painting as a win for the Confederates. Cycloramas
Speaker 1: were hugely popular in the eighteen hundreds. These massive pieces
Speaker 1: of art were typically housed in big buildings so that
Speaker 1: viewers could stand on platforms and be completely surrounded by it.
Speaker 1: The painting's horizons were at eye level and skylines were
Speaker 1: painted to achieve depth of field, while lower portions sometimes
Speaker 1: incorporated physical figurines and other items as part of ground
Speaker 1: floor dioramas. This helped to achieve an overall three dimensional effect.
Speaker 1: Atkinson took out an advertisement in an Atlanta newspaper in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety two urging people to buy tickets to come
Speaker 1: see the painting that proved the valor of the Confederate
Speaker 1: soldiers in their victory. This historic battle was not a
Speaker 1: Confederate victory, of course, A Sherman and the Union practically
Speaker 1: burned Atlanta to the ground. To this day, our city's
Speaker 1: seal features of Phoenix rising from the ashes. But Atkinson
Speaker 1: got away with his ideological spin for decades with the
Speaker 1: help of bitter Southerners clinging to the Lost Cause, which
Speaker 1: is an ideology that permeated the South, saying that the
Speaker 1: Civil War was fought to preserve its culture in general,
Speaker 1: and not slavery in particular. The story of the Battle
Speaker 1: of Atlanta cyclorama began when the American Panorama Company commissioned
Speaker 1: a team of seventeen German and Austrian painters in Milwaukee
Speaker 1: to create this massive painting as a tribute to Union veterans.
Speaker 1: The painters traveled to Atlanta, made sketches of the landscape
Speaker 1: where the center of the Battle of Atlanta took place,
Speaker 1: and interviewed Union survivors. The cyclorama was painted in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty five and premiered in eighteen eighty six. It attracted
Speaker 1: adoring crowds in Minneapolis and then Indianapolis. It is hugh
Speaker 1: It measures forty nine feet tall by three hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy one feet long, and weighs some ten thousand pounds
Speaker 1: in metric that's about twenty by one hundred and thirteen
Speaker 1: meters and over forty five hundred kilos. The painters were
Speaker 1: instructed to take the battle on July twenty second of
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four and freeze it for history. This part
Speaker 1: of the painting shows a fierce fight on the rail
Speaker 1: line just outside of Atlanta that hadn't yet turned into
Speaker 1: victory for the Union. The Union had set up a
Speaker 1: trench line, but the Confederates had broken through. There were
Speaker 1: skirmishes with bayonets flashing and horses mortally wounded. There were
Speaker 1: heroic figures on both sides The painting was purposefully created
Speaker 1: in a way that showed drama a fight yet to
Speaker 1: be decided. But by eighteen ninety the entertainment value of
Speaker 1: the Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama had worn off in the North,
Speaker 1: and the owners declared bankruptcy. In stepped Atkinson, whose four
Speaker 1: brothers had fought in the Battle of Atlanta along with
Speaker 1: their father. Atkinson had been too young to fight, but
Speaker 1: in the painting he saw a way to memorialize his
Speaker 1: family and the South. He bought the cyclorama at a
Speaker 1: low price and moved it to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and began
Speaker 1: to rewrite history. As we said, the original creators didn't
Speaker 1: paint the battle in a way that showed a decisive win,
Speaker 1: and Atkinson was able to use that to his advantage.
Speaker 1: He hired his own team of painters to make a
Speaker 1: few simple changes that turned the entire narrative around. In
Speaker 1: one scene that depicts captured Confederates in gray being taken
Speaker 1: prisoner by Union soldiers in blue, and a Union soldier
Speaker 1: holding a crumpled Confederate flag, his team simply repainted the
Speaker 1: soldier's uniforms. The imprisoned soldiers were now in Union blue
Speaker 1: and being herded by Confederate rebels, and that Confederate a
Speaker 1: flag in the hands of the Union was simply painted over.
Speaker 1: Atkinson's skill as a promoter did the rest to spin
Speaker 1: this new narrative. He moved the painting to Atlanta in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety two, upon which local newspaper, The Atlanta Constitution,
Speaker 1: proclaimed it the only Confederate victory ever painted. However, some
Speaker 1: Southerners embraced Atkinson's painting because it proved the South had
Speaker 1: fought valiantly to preserve its way of life. The Cyclorama
Speaker 1: became a monument to revered Confederate leaders, just like the
Speaker 1: statues popping up around the South, but eventually crowds thinned
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, just as they had in the North. On
Speaker 1: November fifteenth of eighteen ninety two, in a last desperate
Speaker 1: attempt to make some money, Atkinson ran another advertisement in
Speaker 1: the newspaper, again proclaiming a Southern win, but his show
Speaker 1: had gone bankrupt by the end of the year. For decades,
Speaker 1: the Cyclorama continued to remain a symbol of the lost Cause,
Speaker 1: but that was also part of its downfall. Many' souther
Speaker 1: nurse did not embrace this ideology. Eventually Atkinson sold the
Speaker 1: painting to Ernest Woodruff, another local businessman, who immediately resold
Speaker 1: it for a small profit. The piece was finally moved
Speaker 1: to Atlanta's Grant Park, where it remained until twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: But meanwhile, in nineteen thirty four, then Atlanta Mayor William
Speaker 1: Hartsfield co opted the epic painting for his own use.
Speaker 1: He commissioned historian and painter Wilburg Kurtz to restore the
Speaker 1: painting to its original form as part of a branding
Speaker 1: campaign for the city. Hartsfield's message was here's how we suffered,
Speaker 1: Here's how we have risen from the ashes. The mayor
Speaker 1: declared that the painting shows the valor of both sides,
Speaker 1: the North and the South, and that it was time
Speaker 1: to come together. A Kertz researched original drawings from the
Speaker 1: eighteen eighth and discovered Atkinson's edits. He repainted the Union
Speaker 1: soldiers back in command of the captured Confederates and returned
Speaker 1: the captured Confederate flag, and just like that, the North
Speaker 1: won the Battle of Atlanta again. Kurtz's work also included
Speaker 1: creating plaster figurines like the ones that would have originally
Speaker 1: been displayed with the work at ground level. I bring
Speaker 1: this up because when the film Gone with the Wind
Speaker 1: premiered in Atlanta, Mayor Hartsfield took actor Clark Gable on
Speaker 1: a tour of the cyclorama, and soon after, at Gable's request,
Speaker 1: there was a diaryma figurine of his character, a dying
Speaker 1: reht Butler added to the scene at the base of
Speaker 1: the painting. Anyway, in twenty fourteen, the Atlanta History Center
Speaker 1: undertook another monumental restoration effort to bring the painting back
Speaker 1: to display. For the article this episode is based on,
Speaker 1: has Stuff Work spoke with Gordon Jones, the senior military
Speaker 1: historian and curator at the Atlanta History Center. He said,
Speaker 1: You've got this wonderful artifact, with this wonderful, rich, deep
Speaker 1: history that can tell you a whole lot about the
Speaker 1: nation's history and Atlanta's history and the history of race,
Speaker 1: and those stories are not being told. Let's treat it
Speaker 1: as an artifact and learn from it. We don't have
Speaker 1: to make up stuff. Let's be honest and tell people
Speaker 1: the truth. That's what they expect out of a museum.
Speaker 1: The thirty five million dollar restoration campaign included moving the
Speaker 1: painting from Grant Park to its own specially built rotunda
Speaker 1: at the Atlanta History Center. The History Center used a
Speaker 1: multitude of resources to interpret the painting in the context
Speaker 1: of the battle itself, the Civil War as a whole,
Speaker 1: the role of slavery within it, the reconstruction era, and
Speaker 1: how the country was divided Today. The Battle of Atlanta
Speaker 1: is one of only two cycloramas from that era on
Speaker 1: display in North America. The other is the Battle of Gettysburg,
Speaker 1: located in Pennsylvania. But the value of the Battle of
Speaker 1: Atlanta cyclorama goes well beyond money and its pull on crowds.
Speaker 1: The real value may be a lesson in how Americans
Speaker 1: can interpret and freestyle with facts to satisfy their own
Speaker 1: view of the world. Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: article how Atlanta's cyclorama was used to spin the Civil
Speaker 1: War on how Stuffworks dot Com, written by Ray Glear.
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