Stephen’s Episcopal Church was blown off when the soldiers ignited captured Confederate armories and magazines.” Kilpatrick held a mock legislative session and ‘repealed’ Georgia’s ordinance of secession before looting the building and inflicting thousands of dollars in damage. “Houses, stores and barns were looted by Sherman’s troops, who rampaged through the city ‘foraging.’ The capitol building was occupied and a group of soldiers led by Brigadier General Judson H. General Sherman’s troops decimated the city during The March to the Sea. Milledgeville became an obvious target during the war, the capital city of a rebellious state. Milledgeville rose on the fall line, connected directly to the larger world via the Oconee River. This was the farthest navigable inland point when shipping was so vitally important to transportation and trade.
Likewise it stood at a point where the coastal plain met the Piedmont’s hills like so many other important cities along eastern edge of the United States during that period. Milledgeville was centrally located like Louisville. The state government built it from scratch to serve specifically as the capital city. The history of events leading to the transfer from Louisville to Milledgeville are a bit hazy. Milledgeville laid in ruins by the end of the conflict. From this location, the state of Georgia seceded from the United States and joined the Confederacy. It lasted beyond the first half of the Nineteenth Century in the years leading into the Civil War. Milledgeville experienced a much longer tenure as Georgia’s state capital ( map). Milledgeville Old Georgia State Capitol, Milledgeville “ Recent research… casts doubt on this and suggests that the old Market House may have a much more benign history as an ordinary commercial market.” Allegedly it even served a slave market although the local community disputes this. Merchants sold just about everything imaginable from this location. It remains one of a few structures constructed during the capital period that survives to the present (albeit heavily restored). Louisville also preserved The Market House ( map). A marker now sits near the site of the old capitol building to commemorate perhaps the most significant event occurring during Louisville’s brief tenure as a state capital. The fraud came to light and people reacted with rage. Well, surprise, the beneficiaries had bribed a number of elected officials and legislators supporting the act that authorized the sale. However the sale took place at rock-bottom prices. Georgia sold a huge territory, most of the northern half of present-day Alabama and Mississippi, to a small number of land speculators. That’s when it landed at the center of a scandal called the Yazoo Fraud. It became an interesting historical footnote even though it served as the capital for a decade. The site stood at a crossroads linking several larger towns including Savannah and Augusta ( map). The capital shifted to Louisville because of its centralized location as Georgia’s population began to move away from the seacoast. However locals pronounce it differently: LEWIS-ville. Louisville, like the more recognizable city with the same name in Kentucky, derived from Louis XVI of France. I’ll focus on the two lesser-known locations, Louisville and Milledgeville, since the other three receive plenty of attention on their own. Those are Savannah, Augusta, Louisville, Milledgeville and Atlanta. Nonetheless, despite the long list, most historians generally recognize “only” five capital cities. For example, the American Revolution (1775–1783) and the Civil War (1861-1865) created obvious complexities. Yet, the dates suggested an explanation for the ping-ponging capital. * Temporary meeting sites of state government.1780-81 Heard’s Fort*, miscellaneous sites in Wilkes County.I’ll pick out a few oddities and let the experts provide a more complete narrative. There I found the chart I’ve reproduced below. Readers who want comprehensive details can refer to better sources like Georgia’s Historic Capitals. Immediately, I noticed that greater research - or at least more data available publicly on the Intertubes - existed for Georgia than Alabama.
I’ll jump one state to the right and provide something similar for its neighbor, Georgia. I think it was about a year ago that I discussed Alabama Capitals. Hopefully the topic appeals to a few of you anyway because that’s what this article offers. They might have been famous if history had unfolded just a little bit differently. I have a soft spot for promising places now obscured.
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