Georgia

Morehouse College and Atlanta University each once had a white president. John Hope changed that. Hope was born in Augusta in 1868 to a white father and free-born black mother. After graduating from Brown University, Hope taught first in Nashville. He married future black activist Lugenia Burns and moved to Atlanta to teach at Atlanta […]

When the Cherokees were removed from Georgia along the infamous Trail Of Tears, the man in charge was General Winfield Scott. The man known as old “Fuss and Feathers” was the foremost American soldier between the Revolution and the Civil War. Born in Virginia in 1786, Scott served as a general in three wars. He […]

The words slavery and slave were never mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, until Georgia ratified the 13th Amendment and officially abolished slavery in the United States. Ironically, an earlier 13th Amendment would have done just the opposite, outlawing amendments ending slavery in an attempt to persuade the Southern states not to leave the Union. The […]

General William Tecumseh Sherman introduced himself to the people of Georgia on this day in 1864. The Confederacy still had a chance to win the Civil War if Robert E. Lee could hold onto the capital at Richmond, and if Joe Johnston could keep Sherman from taking Atlanta, the South’s major railroad hub. President Lincoln […]

It was the first major battle of the Atlanta Campaign during the Civil War. The Battle of Resaca began 75 miles northwest of Atlanta on this day in 1864. Joe Johnston’s Confederate Army of Tennessee had wintered in Dalton after its defeat at Chattanooga the previous November. Sherman moved south into Georgia in May with […]

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 […]

Few presidential acts have had more impact upon the arc of history than the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on this day in 1863. It transformed a war for union into a crusade for human freedom. Emancipation had not initially been a U.S. war aim. As the Union death toll mounted however, support […]

His companies, and the money they made, impact Georgia to this day. William Clark Bradley was born in 1863 on an Alabama cotton plantation. He moved to Columbus in 1885 to work for a cotton factor. He and his brother-in-law bought the company soon after and in 1888 started the two Columbus banks that in […]

The defeat of Robert E. Lee at Antietam in September 1862 was a huge blow to Confederate morale. Confederates badly needed a boost and they got it at Fredericksburg, Virginia thanks to U.S General Ambrose Burnside. Burnside led his 120,000 men across the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg in order to advance on the Confederate capital […]

A vice presidency can be thankless at best. But when you don’t want the job, and you don’t get along with your president, it’s even worse. Georgia’s Alexander Stephens reluctantly supported secession in 1861. To his horror, he was elected Confederate vice president by the Provisional Congress, which hoped his election would persuade other Southern […]