The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta

Long before Sherman and his firebugs enter the city limits, Marc Wortman has the reader following the fortunes of a family of Ulster farmers whose offspring would include John C. Calhoun, vice president to Andrew Jackson, and the Great Nullifier's cousin, James M. Calhoun, mayor of the upstart up-country Georgia railroad town of Atlanta, née Terminus. [...] when the war came, the rowdy, burton-bursting ciry of railroad men, commerciai travelers, and gamblers became even rowdier as it filled up with speculators, schemers, grifters, prostitutes, and Rhett Buders - all seeking to cash in.