http://www.civilwarhome.com/atlantaevacuation.htm
Thanks for providing that source material link regarding the evacuation of Atlanta. Reading the written exchanges between Gen. Sherman USA and Gen. Hood CSA as well as the mayor of the city, provides a much more accurate picture than relying on whatever the local newsrags had to say.
Sherman lays some good wood on General Hood, the "Confederacy" and the Atlanta mayor Calhoun for their hypocracy regarding civilians. From their hyperbolic repsonses you can tell they know it and aren't happy about it either.
I sought to satisfy my curiosity since two opponents made the same claim about the other side. My threadbare history taught me that Sherman had set the torch to Atlanta so I wanted to verify claims that Hood had done so as well.
Most of the references I discovered made much of the more infamous Sherman burning, but several did acknowledge that Hood set fires on his way out of town.
There are some who wish to apply some sort of relativism here, I suppose in order to make some sort of political hay regarding the mutual actions of combatants. I reject those comparisons. Sherman said, “War is hell”. Don’t hide behind the citizenry and shoot at me and then complain when civilians get shot.