It was one of the most audacious military movements in history—and one of the most controversial. U.S. General William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta in September 1864 and two months later was ready to move. He sent General George Thomas to deal with the Confederate Army moving toward Nashville, while he took the rest of his […]
The threat of secession hung heavy over the land eight days after Abraham Lincoln’s election. Alexander Stephens, who had known Lincoln from his days in Congress, addressed the Georgia General Assembly on this day in 1860. He told the legislature secession was premature. Alexander Hamilton Stephens, born in 1812 near Crawfordville, had been a dominant […]
It was built to look like the United States Capitol and is now a national historic landmark. Georgia’s capital moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1868 but without any buildings to house it, so state government had two temporary quarters—the old Atlanta City Hall and the Kimball Opera House. In 1883, the state legislature authorized […]
With fires burning brightly, this day was still one of the darkest in Atlanta’s history. Atlanta was the gateway through which most of the traffic passed between the south Atlantic seaboard and the regions to the west, and the city became a major prize during the Civil War. Sherman captured the city in September after […]
He was one of only three people inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach. Robert Lee “Bobby” Dodd was a four-sport star at the University of Tennessee and was an All-American tailback playing football for legendary coach Robert Neyland. After graduation, Dodd took a job as assistant […]
He is the only person in the United States ever to be executed for war crimes. Hartmann Heinrich Wirz –“Henry”—was born in Switzerland in 1823. He was practicing medicine in Louisiana when the Civil War began. Wirz was eventually assigned to the staff of General John Winder, who was in charge of Confederate prisoner of […]
War can make or break a man. The Civil War made John Brown Gordon. Born in Upson County in 1832, he was managing his father’s coalmines in northwest Georgia when the war began. Although he lacked any military experience, Gordon was elected captain of the Raccoon Roughs, a company of mountain men, and he rose […]
She just wanted to be known as Mrs. John Marsh. Margaret Mitchell was her maiden name. Born in Atlanta in 1900, she lived away from the city only once, for a year, at Smith College. Her grandfather fought in the Civil War; her mother’s family was Irish Catholic, like the O’Hara’s of Tara. Mitchell went […]
If there was a Mt. Rushmore for civil rights icons, Andrew Young would be on it. But his achievements go well beyond civil rights: Young has served as congressman, United Nations ambassador and mayor of Atlanta. Andrew Jackson Young Jr. was born in New Orleans in 1932. He became involved in the civil rights movement […]
He was the author of the Republican revolution of 1994—and one of the most powerful and polarizing leaders in Georgia history. Newton Leroy Gingrich was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1943. With his father stationed at Fort Benning, Gingrich graduated from Baker High School in Columbus. He earned a history degree from Emory and a […]
