150 years ago Tuesday, Georgians woke up to news that southern troops had fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. The American Civil War was underway.

Three and a half years later, Union General William T. Sherman ordered Atlanta’s military resources burned as he set off on his “March to the Sea.”

But at the start of the war, most southerners never predicted catastrophe.

At an unveiling of a historical marker commemorating the “Burning of Atlanta,” Rickey Bevington spoke with the Georgia Historical Society’s Todd Groce about Georgia’s evolution during the conflict, starting with Georgians’ initial elation.

Tags: the American Civil War, The Burning of Atlanta