The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Joshua Hill House, one of the many antebellum homes in Madison, was built around 1840 for U.S. congressman Joshua Hill, who may have convinced Union general William T. Sherman to spare the town during his March to the Sea. Today it is part of the Madison Historic District.
Courtesy of Georgia Department of Economic Development.
Prior to her execution, Susan Eberhart was held in the old Webster County jail, shown here in 2019. Built in 1856, the jail is among the oldest wooden jails in Georgia.
Courtesy of Fay S. Burnett
In 1873 twenty-year-old Susan Eberhart was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by hanging in Preston. Eberhart's highly publicized execution had a significant influence on the administration of capital punishment in Georgia.
From The Atlanta Daily Sun
In 1873 Susan Eberhart was executed for the murder of Sarah Spann despite objections from a sympathetic public. Her gravestone, seen here in 2019, sits in Preston Cemetery in Webster County.
Courtesy of Fay S. Burnett
The fourth USS Savannah (CL-42) engaged in Atlantic and Meditteranean operations during World War II (1941-45), most notably Operation Torch, the allied invasion of North Africa.
Photograph by Naval History and Heritage Command
The second USS Savannah completed naval operations in the Mexican and Civil Wars. Â
From Old Naval Days: Sketches From the Life of Rear Admiral William Radford, U. S. N. by Sophie Radford De Meissner, Wikimedia
The third USS Savannah (AS-8) served as a submarine tender during World War I (1917-18).
Photograph by Naval History and Heritage Command
In this photograph, taken by George N. Barnard, Union general William T. Sherman sits astride his horse at Federal Fort No. 7 in Atlanta. Sherman's Atlanta campaign, which lasted through the spring and summer of 1864, resulted in the fall of the city on September 2.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Photograph by George N. Barnard, #LC-DIG-cwpb-03628.
Five enslaved people are pictured at Turnwold Plantation, the Eatonton estate of Joseph Addison Turner. Writer Joel Chandler Harris, who lived at Turnwold during the Civil War, drew upon his experiences there to write his Uncle Remus tales, as well as his autobiographical novel On the Plantation.
Margaret Mitchell's epic Civil War love story, Gone With the Wind, was published in June 1936. Mitchell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the novel in May 1937.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Philip Lee Williams, a native of Madison, won the 2004 Michael Shaara Prize for Civil War Fiction for his novel A Distant Flame (2004). The novel chronicles the experiences of protagonist Charlie Merrill before, during, and after the Atlanta campaign of 1864.
Sidney Root, a prominent Atlanta businessman, was an integral part of the Confederate war effort during the Civil War. He later served as the director of the International Cotton Exposition of 1881 in Atlanta and, as park commissioner for the city, was instrumental in the building of Grant Park.
Hunger on the Georgia home front became so serious during the Civil War that food riots, with women as the main participants, broke out all across the state beginning in 1863.
From Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
During the Civil War, Nancy Hill Morgan cofounded the Nancy Harts Militia, a female military unit organized in LaGrange to protect the home front. Morgan, the wife of a Confederate soldier, served as captain of the militia.
Courtesy of Troup County Archives
In 1957 the Georgia Historical Commission erected a marker in LaGrange commemorating the Nancy Harts Militia, a female military unit named for Revolutionary War heroine Nancy Hart and organized to guard the city during the Civil War.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
A conference of the United Confederate Veterans is pictured in Marietta, circa 1900. The UCV was founded in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1889 to unify the numerous Confederate veteran organizations across the South.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
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Company D of the 1st Regiment Georgia Volunteer Infantry, known as the Oglethorpe Infantry, are pictured in Augusta in April 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War. This unit was among the first to form a veterans' organization, the Oglethorpe Light Infantry Association in Savannah, at the war's end in 1865.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
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Charles C. Jones Jr. was the foremost Georgia historian of the nineteenth century. Beginning after the Civil War and continuing into the 1880s, Jones collected Confederate service records and reminiscences of former soliders.
Confederate Soldiers' Home, located at 410 Confederate Avenue in Atlanta, was built in 1902 to house aging Confederate veterans of the Civil War. The Inman family provided a portion of the funds necessary for the home's completion.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
John B. Gordon rose to prominence during the Civil War, entering as a captain and emerging as a major general. He later served as a U.S. senator and as the governor of Georgia.
Photograph by Wikimedia
Lumpkin is best known for her autobiographical novel, The Making of a Southerner (1947), which describes her transition from passive inheritance of white supremacy to conscious rejection of the racial values of a segregated South.
From The Making of a Southerner, by K. D. Lumpkin
Attendees of the 1912 national United Confederate Veterans reunion are pictured in Macon, which hosted the event that year. Macon was the only Georgia city besides Atlanta to host the general reunion of the UCV.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
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Four Confederate veterans attend a reunion in Thomasville in October 1924.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
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Kennesaw Mountain, pictured after Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston's retreat from the area in July 1864, was the site of an important battle on June 27, 1864. Although Johnston's troops won the battle, they continued to retreat as Union general William T. Sherman advanced toward Atlanta, located about twenty miles to the southeast.
From Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign, by G. N. Barnard
The Old Stone Church in Ringgold was built in 1849 and served as a hospital during the Civil War for troops on both sides of the conflict. The original altar and pews of the church, which today houses a Civil War museum, are still intact.
Courtesy of Catoosa County News
Macon City Hall, constructed in 1837, was used as a field hospital during the Civil War and served as the temporary state capitol during the final months of the war. This photograph of the building was taken in 1894.
Courtesy of Middle Georgia Archives, Washington Memorial Library.
In 1857 Joseph Ruggles Wilson, father of Woodrow Wilson, accepted the pastorate of First Presbyterian Church, located at 642 Telfair Street in Augusta. The church was used as a Confederate hospital during the Civil War.
A cannon stands at the Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site in Paulding County, the site of a battle in May 1864 in which Confederate forces prevented Union general William T. Sherman's troops from moving on Atlanta.
Courtesy of Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site
Reenactors of the Battle of Pickett's Mill examine weaponry. The battle, which prevented the Union advance on Atlanta during the Civil War, took place in Paulding County in May 1864.
Courtesy of Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site
The site of the Battle of Pickett's Mill, covering 765 acres in Paulding County, was gradually acquired by the state from 1973 until 1981. In 1990 the park opened to the public as the Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site, commemorating the Civil War battle that took place there in May 1864.
Courtesy of Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site
Earthworks built during the Battle of Pickett's Mill, a Civil War engagement that occurred in May 1864, are still evident at the Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site in Paulding County.
Courtesy of Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site
Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta is the final resting place for 6,900 Confederate soliders, including 5 generals, as well as 16 Union soldiers.
Ren and Helen Davis
Around 500 Confederate soldiers and 1 Union soldier are buried at the Stonewall Confederate Cemetery in Griffin.
Photograph by Melinda Smith Mullikin, New Georgia Encyclopedia
The Confederate section of Linwood Cemetery in Columbus holds around 200 Confederate soldiers killed during the Civil War.
Courtesy of Historic Linwood Foundation, Inc.
The Marietta National Cemetery is located at 500 Washington Avenue in Marietta. There are more than 10,000 Union soldiers buried here, with approximately 3,000 of them unknown. Confederate soldiers were interred at a separate Confederate cemetery in Marietta.
Image from Ron Zanoni
Andersonville National Cemetery in Macon County holds approximately 13,000 Union soldiers who died while imprisoned at Andersonville Prison in 1864-65. It was designated a national cemetery in 1866 and is managed today by the National Park Service.
Image from Bubba73 (talk), Jud McCranie
Grandsons of Union and Confederate Civil War veterans are pictured in 1965 at the "Blue and Gray Days" event in Fitzgerald during the Civil War Centennial. Centennial events, held from 1961 to 1965, commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Civil War.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
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Peter Zack Geer served as the first chairman of the Georgia Civil War Centennial Commission, beginning in 1959. In 1963 he was elected lieutenant governor of Georgia.
Confederate reenactors crew a half-scale cannon at the Civil War centennial reenactment of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June 1964.
From Centennial Commemoration, Battle of Kennesaw Mountain--June 27, 1864-1964: Official Souvenir Program
The Civil War Centennial in Georgia ended in 1965 with the mayor of Fitzgerald stamping a letter with a cancellation stamp reading "Georgia's Grand Finale Civil War Centennial."
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
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Originally published in 1902, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp, by Susie King Taylor, is the only surviving description of the Civil War written by an African American woman.
Samuel Pearce Richards, a prominent nineteenth-century merchant in Atlanta, kept a diary for sixty-seven years. In 2009 the University of Georgia Press published the portions of his diary covering the Civil War as Sam Richards's Civil War Diary.
On the Plantation: A Story of a Georgia Boy's Adventures during the War (1892) is a fictionalized account of author Joel Chandler Harris's experiences of the Civil War at Turnwold, the Putnam County plantation of Joseph Addison Turner.
Ohio native and Union general William T. Sherman lost the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June 1864. In September of that same year his army captured Atlanta before embarking on its March to the Sea, from Atlanta to Savannah, in November. Sherman later chronicled his wartime experiences in a memoir, published in 1875.
Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration.
Unionist Louisa Fletcher ran a hotel with her husband in Marietta during the Civil War. During that time she kept a diary, which was published in 1995 as Journal of a Landlady.
John Ransom, a Union prisoner at Andersonville Prison during the Civil War, first published his journal, Andersonville Diary, in 1881. One of the best-known Civil War narratives, the diary includes graphic descriptions of the camp's deplorable conditions.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
A drawing published in October 1863 depicts Confederate guerrillas destroying rail lines used to supply Union forces during the Civil War. In Georgia, Confederate guerrillas worked to dismantle the Western and Atlantic Railroad, vital to supplying Union general William T. Sherman's troops.
From Harper's Weekly
The rescue of a wounded Union officer from an attack by Confederate guerrillas is depicted in a Harper's Weekly drawing from December 1863. Guerrilla warfare in Georgia during the Civil War occurred primarily in the northern mountains and the southern swamp and wiregrass regions.
From Harper's Weekly
Joseph E. Brown served as governor of Georgia during the Civil War. After the war, Brown left the Democratic Party for a time to join the Republican Party, which was in power throughout the Reconstruction era. In 1868 he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia by Republican governor Rufus Bullock.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
General Joseph Wheeler, born near Augusta, commanded U.S. volunteers in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Wheeler also served during the Civil War and the Philippine Insurrection, and authored several books on military and civil subjects. Wheeler County, in central Georgia, is named in his honor.
From The Conflict with Spain and Conquest of the Philippines, by H. F. Keenan
Union general William T. Sherman devastated the Georgia countryside during his march to the sea. His men destroyed all sources of food and forage, often in retaliation for the activities of local Confederate guerrillas.
From Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol 4., edited by R. U. Johnson and C. C. Clough Buel
W. T. Wofford, pictured on a postcard distributed in 1881 during the International Cotton Exposition in Atlanta, was a military leader and state legislator. A native of Habersham County, Wofford served in both the Mexican War and Civil War.
Union general Henry M. Judah negotiated the surrender of Confederate forces in north Georgia with Confederate general W. T. Wofford on May 12, 1865.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
On January 21, 1861, the ordinance of secession was publicly signed in a ceremony by Georgia politicians. Two days earlier, delegates to a convention in Milledgeville voted 208 to 89 for the state to secede from the Union.
Wilkes County native Robert Toombs, pictured circa 1865, served briefly as the Confederate government's secretary of state and as a brigadier general during the Civil War.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
A sketch, published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper on March 18, 1865, depicts newly emancipated African Americans following Union general William T. Sherman's march to the sea at the end of 1864. As many as 7,000 freedmen and freedwomen may have joined in the march.
From Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
Marching through Georgia, one of the best-known songs of the Civil War, was composed in 1865 by Henry Clay Work. The song celebrates the success of Union general William T. Sherman's march to the sea in 1864.
Members of the Margaret Jones Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy are pictured in Waynesboro, circa 1900. Lillian W. Neely (center of top row in white dress) was president of the chapter at this time. The Georgia Division of the UDC was formed in 1895.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
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Mildred Lewis Rutherford taught at the Lucy Cobb Institute in Athens from 1880 to 1928, serving as principal of the school for twenty-two of those years. A prominent member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and an advocate for the "Lost Cause" interpretation of the Civil War, Rutherford also published a number of books on southern history.
Members of the Lanier of Glynn Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, pictured in 1979, decorate a monument in Brantley County dedicated to Confederate soldiers who died of yellow fever during the Civil War.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
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The carving on Stone Mountain depicts the Confederate icons Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and Jefferson Davis. Commissioned by the president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the sculptor Gutzon Borglum began work on the relief in 1915. He was fired in 1925, and Augustus Lukeman completed the carving.
Photograph by Mark Griffin, Wikimedia
Descendants of Confederate veterans who served in World War I received the Cross of Honor from the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Thomasville, circa 1920.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
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The Confederate monument in downtown Augusta, erected in 1878, honors generals Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, William H. T. Walker, and Thomas R. R. Cobb, whose figures surround the base. A statue of Augusta native Berry Benson, who served in the Confederate army, is perched atop the monument to represent an anonymous soldier.
Photograph by Melinda Smith Mullikin, New Georgia Encyclopedia
A soldier stands atop the Confederate monument at Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Rome. The original monument, dedicated in 1887, featured a large funeral urn on top of the monument. In 1910 the soldier replaced the urn, and the monument was rededicated. Its pedestal, shaft, and soldier configuration is representative of the most common type of Confederate monument in Georgia.
Photograph by David N. Wiggins
The Confederate monument at Chickamauga National Park, the first military park in the country, was dedicated on May 4, 1899. The eighty-six-foot-tall granite monument features four large bronze figures and honors the men from Georgia who fought at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863. The monument has the only figure of an artilleryman in the state.
Photograph by David N. Wiggins
The original Confederate monument in Savannah, pictured circa 1875, was dedicated in 1875 and located in Forsyth Park. The ornate sandstone monument featured two Greek goddesses, Judgement and Silence. In 1879 the goddesses were removed, and a soldier was added to the top.
Courtesy of David N. Wiggins
The dedication ceremony for a new Confederate monument in LaFayette took place in April 2002. The monument features a twelve-foot-wide tablet listing the names of Walker County citizens who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Photograph by David N. Wiggins
Fort McAllister, situated on the Ogeechee River in Bryan County, played a key role in the defense of Savannah from Union forces during the Civil War. The fort is pictured circa 1864, the year in which it was captured by Union general William T. Sherman's forces.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
The Fingal was employed in November 1861 by blockade-runner Edward C. Anderson to bring much-needed supplies for the Confederacy into Savannah during the Civil War. The Fingal's success in breaking the blockade alerted Union forces to secure waters off the Georgia coast. While built as a British merchant ship, the blockade-running Fingal was converted to an ironclad in 1862 and renamed the Atlanta.
Courtesy of U.S. Naval Historical Center
Union captain Quincy Gillmore of the Engineer Corps, in charge of preparing the siege on Fort Pulaski, ordered his engineers to construct a series of eleven artillery batteries along the north shore of Tybee Island.
Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society.
During 1862 and 1863, Fort McAllister repelled seven Union naval attacks. Fort McAllister never fell to Union naval forces because of its unique earthen construction. In 1864 Union general William T. Sherman's army captured the fort from the landward side.
Photograph from Wikimedia
A signal station on the Ogeechee River, at Fort McAllister. After General William T. Sherman's Union troops occupied Fort McAllister on December 13, 1864, personnel were ordered to dismantle the stronghold in preparation for Sherman's march northward.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
The USS Water Witch, a wooden-hulled side-wheel gunboat, was used by the Union navy during the Civil War to blockade the Georgia coast. In June 1864 the ship was captured by Confederate raiders, who burned it six months later to prevent its recapture by Union general William T. Sherman's troops.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Naval reenactors are pictured on board the replica of the USS during its commissioning in 2009 at the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus.
Courtesy of National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus
A replica of the USS Water Witch, completed in 2009, sits outside the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus.
Courtesy of the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus
The Battle of Chickamauga, the largest battle fought in Georgia during the Civil War, took place in Walker County on September 18-20, 1863. Confederate troops under Braxton Bragg prevented Union troops under William S. Rosecrans from entering Georgia, but each side sustained heavy casualties; around 16,000 Union and 18,000 Confederate.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Union general William T. Sherman's troops remove ammunition in wheelbarrows from Fort McAllister (Bryan County) in 1864, following their successful March to the Sea.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Selected Civil War photographs, 1861-1865, #LC-B8171-3503.
Fort Pulaski, situated on Cockspur Island at the mouth of the Savannah River, was built in the 1830s and 1840s to defend Savannah. During the Civil War, Union forces captured the fort on April 11, 1862, and controlled it for the remainder of the war.
Photograph by Brooke Novak
Generals from Georgia who served in Virginia during the Civil War include (left to right, top to bottom): James Longstreet, Howell Cobb, Ambrose R. Wright, A. H. Colquitt, T. R. R. Cobb, Robert Toombs, William D. Smith, Paul J. Semmes, and Alfred Iverson Jr.
A $100 bill issued by the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. The printing of paper money during the war resulted in massive inflation throughout the South.
Photograph by Wikimedia
As Union troops entered the state during the Civil War, enslaved Georgians took the opportunity to escape under their protection. The Union army established "contraband" camps to provide food and shelter for the newly freed African Americans.
Photograph by Wikimedia
Generals from Georgia who served in Virginia during the Civil War include (left to right, top to bottom): G. T. Anderson, W. T. Wofford, E. L. Thomas, Henry L. Benning, John B. Gordon, George Doles, Edward Willis, Goode Bryan, and William M. Browne.
Confederate president Jefferson Davis tried to flee as Union soldiers surrounded his camp in Irwinville on May 10, 1865. He had thrown his wife's raglan, or overcoat, on his shoulders, which led to the persistent rumor that he attempted to flee in women's clothes.
Photograph from Wikimedia
From such fortifications as this earthwork in front of Atlanta, Confederate general John B. Hood defended the city from Sherman's attack. Sherman bombarded the city for five weeks, but Hood did not order an evacuation of Atlanta until all rail lines leading into the city had been destroyed.
From Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign, by G. N. Barnard
Photo of an unidentified Civil War bugler; buglers were necessary for the telling of time and duties in the camps as well as guiding the actions of troops in battle.
The remains of a Confederate earthwork, used during the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June 1864. In the1930s archaeologist Charles Fairbanks, in one of the earliest Civil War excavations, documented the earthworks on top of Kennesaw Mountain in Cobb County.
Courtesy of Garrett W. Silliman
Schofield's Iron Works in Macon, founded around 1859 and pictured in 1876, was an active foundry during the Civil War.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
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The ruins of New Manchester Mill at Sweetwater Creek State Park in Douglas County are pictured in 2017. One of the largest factories in Georgia during the Civil War, the mill was burned in 1864 by Union general William T. Sherman's troops during their march to the sea.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Confederate Powder Works in Augusta sits along the Augusta Canal. The canal, which opened in 1846, provided transportation and waterpower during the Civil War for the powder works, as well as for a Confederate firearms plant, ordnance foundry, and bakery.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
