a month later, the gate city guard left service in florida, where the confederates plan to surround, if not capture a u.s. military installations, including fort pickens, pensacola, the atlanta and the trout hotel. two of the main hotels in the city were with excitement as thousands of atlantans cheered and, gathered celebrations, the rebels, as they went off to war. the city was ready to support white southern nationalism with force. in 1861, scores of cities from hapeville, maine, to quincy, illinois, including more than a dozen southern, were more populist than atlanta. despite a small, small population atlanta was an important cog in the confederate war machine. by 1863, the york times reported that the city was an important network, quote, furnished and it furnished half of war material to entire confederacy from the rappahannock to the rio grande, unquote, that the war was in. its third year surprised many people and people on both sides that the war would have been over by then. so so at point, the new york times is very clear that. atlanta is important to the machine. and i w