Atlanta’s Civil War Monument, Minus the Pro-Confederate Bunkum

Atlanta’s Civil War Monument, Minus the Pro-Confederate Bunkum

In the city of Atlanta, whose leading Civil War monument is the enormous Atlanta Cyclorama, the strategy is novel: use history itself to strip a divisive object of its symbolic power. Cycloramas are panorama paintings designed for exhibition in rotundas. The Atlanta Cyclorama shows the 1864 Battle of Atlanta, a crucial turning point in the Civil War that launched General Sherman on his infamous march and sealed the South’s fate.