If Sherman attacked Atlanta today…

A man on a horse sat in the middle of 12 lanes of suburban Atlanta interstate traffic. General Sherman pulled into the fast lane of  I-75 and cursed under his breath.  “Thanks for this disaster, Grant” he thought as his horse eased into the left lane. He looked for the Kennesaw Mountain exit.  “Who the hell would order an invasion in the middle of rush hour?!”  Three hours of traffic was getting on his nerves.  He and his horse had barely moved. And it was making him mad. Really mad. Mad enough to burn something down.  Atlanta would pay for their traffic. They’d pay with flames….

A black Suburban with tinted windows honked his horn at Sherman’s horse.  “GET THE #$%#$ off the #$%#$% interstate, soldier boy!”  The driver flipped the General off. No invasion was worth this.  Savannah be damned. Sherman looked up at the WSB 750 AM billboard. “Who is Neal Boortz?” Sherman thought.

A honking horn brought his attention back to the road. He could see Kennesaw Mountain in the distance.  And between his horse’s nose and the mountain was 10,000,000 cars.  He signaled to his artillery to open fire on the traffic jam ahead of them. But they were caught up in a 45-car pile up three miles behind him on I-75.  Sherman cursed the sky. “Son of General Lee’s mom!”

A 1989 Honda Civic whipped in front of him. Its University of Georgia license plate said, “GO DAWGS.”  “Dawgs?” Sherman thought. “What the heck?” He reached for his sword and knocked the plate off the car.  The lady also flipped him off and threw hot coffee out her window onto his horse.  Another car whipped in front of him. This one was a 2008 Lincoln.  A Lincoln? What had the President done to deserve having a car named after him.  Sherman’s hair hurt.  He looked behind him. A couple of his men had been clipped by an 18-wheeler. A leather-clad  trucker was hitting one of his captains with a tire tool.

Great.  Casualties were mounting.

The information sign above him told him the bad news: A wreck was blocking the Kennesaw Mountain exit.  Forget it.  He looked at his map.  Atlanta’s most formidable fortification was just ahead. I-285 — the loop road around Atlanta.  Sherman merged his forces off I-75 and onto I-285.  Technically he should have taken the connector into downtown (he did have a fire to set after-all.)  But a truck wouldn’t allow them to get over and he got stuck having to merge onto the by-pass. Sherman faced his most frustrating defeat ever.  He ended up in Birmingham instead.

Headlines from the papers the next day:

The New York Times: “INVASION OF ATLANTA OFF.”

The Boston Globe: “SHERMAN’S FORCES THWARTED BY ATLANTA TRAFFIC.”

The Washington Post: “FAMOUS GENERAL STUCK on ATLANTA FREEWAY”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “YET ANOTHER YANKEE WHO CAN’T DRIVE ON OUR ROADS.”