Lemuel Grant was a native of Maine and worked on railroads in Pennsylvania before being hired by the Georgia Railroad in 1840. In an article in the summer 1980 Atlanta Historical Journal, John Robert Smith wrote, "more perhaps than any other person, Lemuel Grant sparked the development of the very rail system by which the City of Atlanta was launched into greatness." During the Civil War, Grant was chief engineer for the Georgia Militia, achieving the rank of colonel. He planned and oversaw construction of Atlanta's fortifications by slave labor in 1863 and 1864. Impressed by the strength of the defenses, Sherman chose not to assault them but to subdue Atlanta's defenders by cutting the city's rail lines. Back to Table of Contents -- ACW Newsletter # 3 Back to ACW Newsletter List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Marc Shefelton. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com