The Cyclorama Building - Grant Park - Atlanta, GA - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

One of several points found within (25) Grant Park, S Boulevard and Atlanta Ave.
"The Cyclorama Building (open 8 am-10 pm daily, childres 25 cents, adults 50 cents; lectures according to attendance; no cameras allowed), facing the Augusta Ave entrance to the park, houses the colossal Cyclorama of the Battle of Atlanta. This battle was fought July 22, 1864, in the territory around Moreland Avenue for control of the Georgia Railroad.
The building, situated on a high terrace, is approached by doublestairways leading up to a broad esplanade. The front half of the building is constructed of white stone-flecked terra cotta, while the circular rear section, especially erected to house the great canvas, is of stucco. The facade is dominated by a loggia, two stories high, featuring Ionic columns and pilasters.
From the entrance hallway a short flight of stairs leads downward into a tunnel; at the opposite end a double stairway leads upward into the center of the rotunda where the huge circular picture is displayed. Visitors may view the canvas from two levels, circling to follow the lecturer who speaks from a catwalk on the lower level.
The time of the scene depicted is the crucial moment at 4:30 pm, when General Cheatham's troops made a counteratack in an effort to restore their line. Beyond the charging soldiers, the exploding shells, and the rising smoke of the fields lise the small city of Atlanta, which at that time had a population of approximately 15,000. Stone Mountain and Kennesaw Mountain are seen in the distance. Above the confusion of the battle, 'Abe,' the eagle mascot of Union Company C, flies high to avoid the shells. This eagle has since been memorialized on the silver dollar.
The painting is approximately 400 feet in circumfrance and 50 feet in height, and weighs 18,000 pounds. Suspended from a circular rail, the canvas creates an illusion of a continuous landscape. a striking three-dimensional effect is achieved by continuing the action of the picture into the space (about forty feet) between the cnvas and the central platform. The irregular terrain of the battlefield is reproduced with 1,500 tons of Georgia clay, ranging in color from white to red. Tree trunks, dynamited and treated to appear shell-torn, green-tinted excelsior simulating grass, and bushes made of wire and plaster add to the realistic effect. Scores of plaster soldiers--fighting, woulded, and dead--are spread over the battlefield. The figures vary in size from twenty-two inches to slightly under four feet, but they are placed with such precision that in perspective that appear lifesize. Canvas and forground are so well merged that only the keenest scrutiny can determine where one leaves off and the other begins. The ambulance is partly painted and partly executed in plaster; the railroad tracks start as painting on the hanging canvas and extend with actual rails across the field to the opposite side of the picture.
The Cyclorama was painted about 1886 in Milwalkee, Wisconsin, by a staff of German artists, who executed similar cycloramas of the battles of Gettysburg and Missionary Ridge, both of which were accidentally destroyed. In the early 1890's the Battle of Atlanta was brought to this city and lodged in a n Edgewood Avenue building, where it remained until 1898, when it was purchased for $1,000 by G.V. Gress, an Atlanta lumber merchant, and presented to the city.
The work of projecting the picture into the third dimension was carried out by a staff of professional painters and sculptors in 1937 with the assistance of Federal funds under the Emergency Relief Program.
On the upper floor is a room in which are displayed enlargements of eight pictures of Atlanta and the trenches and breastworks surrounding the city at the time of the Federal siege. The original photographs were taken by General Sherman's official photographer.
The Texas, the engine which participated in one of the most dramatic episodes in the War between the Sttes, is in the basement of the Cyclorama Building. At Marietta, Georgia, on April 11, 1862, James J Andrews and twenty-one Union men, disguised as Confederates, boarded the train drawn by the locomotive General. When the crew and passengers detrained at Big Shanty (now Kennesaw) for breakfast, Andrews and his raiders seized the General and directed it toward Chattanooga, Tennessee. The conductor and crew ran after it on foot until they found a handcar at Moon's Station. At the bridge across the Etowah River they took the Yonah, an engine used on the spur track to the Cooper Iron Works, and continued the chase. Blocked at Kingston by freight cars that had delayed the General, they changed to the Willim R Smith. A few miles north of Kingston a broken track forced them to abandon this last engine and again proceed on foot. Near Adairsville they commandeered the Texasm reputedly the finest and swiftest engine on the road. Andrews and his men attempted to block the path of the Texas by hurling obstructions across the railroad tracks, but the pursuing engine, running backward, contunues to shorten the distance between them. Within five miles of Chattanooga the General, out of fuel and water, was overtaken, and Andrews and most of his men were captured. A trial was held in Chattanooga, after which Andrews and seven of his raiders were brought to Atlanta and executed by hanging, June, 1862.
The Texas, a Danforth and Cook engine, was put on the road in 1856, running in freight service before and after Andrews' Raid. Prior to 1895 it was equipped for buringi coal. In 1907 it was sent to the Atlanta railroad yards for scrapping, but the pressure of public opinion caused it to be preserved as a historic relic, and in 1911 the City of Atlanta formally accepted the Texas. In 1927 the locomotive was removed to the Cyclorama Building and later was completely renovated by employees of the Emergency Relief Administration. The General is on display in the Union Station in Chattanooga (see Tennessee Guide)"
--Georgia A Guide To Its Towns And Countryside, 1940
----------
The building, artwork and museum collection have been renovated (several time possibly) over the years. Tour now costs more, and the lecture is given on a stationary seating platform, while the piece spins around you.

This Civil War Heritage Site has been crosslisted in several categories.

Book: Georgia Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 180 Year Originally Published: 1940

Visit Instructions:
To log a Visit, please supply an original image of the Waymark.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   12/24/2021 hzoi visited it 03/15/2013 xptwo visited it 04/16/2012 Blue Man visited it 02/10/2007 ChapterhouseInc visited it 05/12/2001 ckirbee visited it

View all visits/logs