US 41: Dixie Highway & the Atlanta Campaign

the General's road

Drive: Chattanooga → Atlanta
Distance: ~120 miles
Time: 1–2 days
Highways: US 41
Avoids: I-75
Region: Deep South

Two great pursuits share this corridor: the 1862 Great Locomotive Chase, when Andrews' Raiders stole the General and ran it north with the Texas chasing in reverse, and the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, when Sherman and Johnston fought down every ridge US 41 now crosses. The old Dixie Highway stitches it together: Tunnel Hill's walkable bore, Resaca's fields, the actual General in Kennesaw, and a 56-foot steel chicken in Marietta, because Georgia.

📍 WPA-era Atlanta Campaign pavilion markers line US 41 the whole way; collect them like stamps.

The drive, segment by segment

Rocky Face to Resaca

Chattanooga → Resaca · ~45 mi

Ringgold Gap, the tunnel at Tunnel Hill, Dalton's winter camps and the campaign's first full battle.

🏛️Tunnel Hill — Tunnel Hill
The 1850 Western & Atlantic tunnel, first through the southern Appalachians; the General steamed through it in the 1862 chase and you can walk the bore.
⚔️Resaca Battlefield — Resaca
The Atlanta Campaign's first pitched battle, May 1864; a new state historic site finally protects the trench lines.

The Locomotive Chase

Resaca → Kennesaw · ~45 mi

Adairsville, where the Texas took up the chase in reverse, down to the General's museum home.

🏛️Adairsville — Adairsville
The 1847 depot town where the Texas joined the Great Locomotive Chase, famously running backward at full steam.
🎬Southern Museum & the General — Kennesaw
The actual General locomotive of the 1862 raid, star of Buster Keaton's and Disney's versions both, enshrined blocks from where it was stolen.

The Kennesaw Line

Kennesaw → Atlanta · ~30 mi

The mountain's earthworks, Marietta's square, the Big Chicken, and the city both armies wanted.

⚔️Kennesaw Mountain NBP — Kennesaw
Johnston's mountain line and Sherman's costly June assault; earthworks on top, Atlanta's skyline on the horizon.
🛸The Big Chicken — Marietta
A 56-foot steel chicken with rolling eyes and a moving beak, Marietta's true navigational aid since 1963. Locals give directions by it; so do pilots, the claim goes.
🏘️Marietta Square — Marietta
Glover Park's bandstand ringed by diners and bookshops; the campaign museums sit a block off the green.

Worth a detour

Barnsley Gardens ruins — An Italianate manor's romantic ruin, now the centerpiece of a resort near Adairsville; the gardens outlived the house.
Etowah Indian Mounds — A Mississippian mound city on the Etowah at Cartersville; the marble birdman figures came out of Mound C.