Atlanta has fallen. On September 4, 1864, the Chicago Tribune's front page erupts with the news that General William Tecumseh Sherman has captured Atlanta—a victory the paper calls "as important as it is cheering." The Confederate city, described as "the granary and workshop of the whole South," with its foundries, machine shops, and five radiating railroads, is now in Union hands. The Tribune's analysis is unflinching: Atlanta supplied ordnance, ammunition, clothing, and war materials in "immense quantities" to rebel armies. Now that supply is cut off. The paper argues this victory is strategically more important than capturing Richmond itself. Sherman's armies now control Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia—two-thirds of the rebellion's territory. One-third remains, "and that, Grant will secure as sure as the sun will rise to-morrow morning." The editorial voice trembles with conviction: "The Republic is safe!" The page also covers the political implications—this is "the second gun in the political campaign," following Farragut's capture of Fort Morgan, and the Tribune predicts it will shake the peace movement and McClellan's candidacy.

September 1864 was America's hinge moment. The Civil War had ground on for three grueling years. Northern morale was collapsing—casualty lists were devastating, and many Northerners wanted an armistice, even one that preserved slavery. The Democratic Party's Chicago Convention, held just days before this edition, had nominated General George McClellan on a "peace platform." Lincoln's reelection seemed uncertain. But Sherman's capture of Atlanta changed everything. It proved the Union could win decisively. It energized the North's will to fight. This single victory likely saved Lincoln's political life and guaranteed the war would continue until the Confederacy's complete defeat—and thus until slavery itself was destroyed. The Tribune's triumphalism wasn't mere cheerleading; it was recognition that the rebellion's fate was now sealed.

• The Tribune was actively selling a 16-page pamphlet titled 'Gems of the Late Copperhead Convention in Chicago'—featuring 'treasonable and seditious utterances' from Democratic speakers like Vallandigham and Cox—for two dollars per hundred copies. This was partisan opposition research as a commercial product.
• One unnamed Chicago firm paid $370,878.68 in direct taxes to the federal government in a single year (ending July 1, 1864). The Tribune challenges readers to find a heavier tax burden from any individual firm in the United States—a staggering sum for the era.
• The paper mentions that Cook County's draft enrollment contained 15,000 more names than there were actual voters in the county, including exempt aliens, dead soldiers, the wounded, and transient residents—an administrative chaos that nearly conscripted ghost voters.
• A detailed wood engraving from Harper's Weekly, titled 'Compromise with the South,' depicted a Union soldier on crutches shaking hands with a rebel officer standing on a grave marked 'In Memory of our Unreturned Heroes, who fell in a Useless War'—published specifically to mock the Democratic peace platform.
• The Tribune reports that John E. Hisloy, law partner of Indiana Congressman Daniel Voorhees, wrote anxiously from New York to the secret organization's Grand Commander asking whether the recent exposure of the O.A.K. (Order of American Knights) conspiracy had implicated 'our friends'—revealing panic in Copperhead circles.

• General William Hardee, who commanded Hood's army and was 'defeated and shattered' near Atlanta, is called out by name as an officer who 'treasonably turned against the flag which he had sworn to defend'—he would indeed survive the war and attempt to rebuild his life in obscurity, dying in 1873, his legacy permanently stained.
• The Tribune's subscription rates reveal the economics of Civil War journalism: a year's daily delivery cost $12, while a single copy of their anti-Copperhead pamphlet sold for just 2 cents when bought in bulk. Information warfare was already monetized.
• The public debt is listed at $1.878 billion with $77.4 million in accumulated interest—yet the Treasury held over seventeen million dollars in cash despite this massive debt, a sign of Union financial capacity that the Confederacy could never match.
• Farragut's recent capture of Fort Morgan (mentioned as the 'first gun' of the political campaign) occurred on August 5, 1864—just weeks before this edition, proving how rapidly Union victories were accumulating and creating political momentum.
• The paper notes that 'the wires between here and New York are down,' explaining the 'dearth of telegraph news'—in an era when telegraph infrastructure was literally the internet, a broken wire meant Chicago was almost completely isolated from East Coast information for that day.