This is what a person would see in early November 1864 if they were standing at what is now the intersection of Alabama and Peachtree streets, looking north into Five Points. Most of the street you see (which was then Whitehall Street) has since been covered over by the viaduct system that is part of Underground Atlanta. None of the buildings in the picture still exist; most were destroyed in the days after this photo was taken.

Shortly after Federal troops occupied Atlanta on Sept. 2, 1864, George Barnard - a photographer doing contract work for the U.S. Army - was summoned from Nashville to document fortifications the Confederates had built to defend the city. In the process, he took a series of photos and stereographs of the city itself. It is the almost the only record we have of what the city looked like before it's destruction on Nov. 14, 1864.

This presentation is the result of an intense study of those photographs and an ongoing quest to recreate what was lost. I have uncovered many details in these photographs, including a few things either have never been before noticed or explained in sufficient detail.

This panoramic view from Whitehall Street represents one of those efforts. After studying some of Barnard's stereographs of Atlanta, it became clear to me that many of them could be stitched together using modern Photoshop methods to recreate views which had not been seen since before the Civil War.

The current presentation represents everything that I have learned over several months. I am still researching, but have frankly come to an end of what limited resources can produce. By publishing this information on the web, I hope to hear from other scholars who can answer the unanswered questions and provide new information.