Piedmont

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 […]

To be African-American and born during slavery didn’t necessarily mean you were a slave. Lucy Craft Laney was born in 1854, but her father had purchased freedom for him and his wife. For Laney, freedom meant education. Able to read and write by age four and translate Latin by 12, she joined the first class […]

He is the namesake of the most prestigious prize in journalism. George Foster Peabody was born in Columbus in 1852. His parents were New Englanders. They moved to New York after the Civil War, when George was 14. Peabody had a natural aptitude for business and finance, and managed railroad accounts for a New York […]

He would serve under the Stars and Stripes and the Stars and Bars in major wars. Born in Augusta, Joseph Wheeler graduated near the bottom of his class at West Point. He earned the nickname “Fighting Joe” in the U.S. Army on the western frontier. But his courage and skill as a Confederate cavalry commander […]

Women’s struggle for equality took a major step forward on this day in 1836. The first college in the world to grant degrees to women was chartered in Macon — an incredibly progressive idea for the times. Now known as Wesleyan College, it began as Georgia Female College after a group of Macon businessmen raised […]

A Louisville, Georgia native would become president of the Republic of Texas. Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar was born in 1798 and led a colorful life, to put it mildly. Lamar opened a store in Alabama; it failed, so he moved back and became secretary to Governor George Troup. He married, started a family, then moved to […]

Fannin County in north Georgia is named for Georgian James Fannin, who fought in the Texas independence movement. Having attended West Point, Fannin was commissioned a colonel in the Texas Regular Army and raised the Georgia Battalion, primarily volunteers from Macon and Columbus. In 1836 at the Spanish fort at Goliad, on the banks of […]

A man who killed a political opponent in a duel nearly became the first president from Georgia, long before Jimmy Carter. William Crawford began his political career in 1803 as a state legislator from Oglethorpe County. Even though he killed a political enemy in a duel in 1802, Crawford’s political star kept rising, with service […]

He was the second-highest ranking Georgian in Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and fought in every major battle, but was court-martialed for neglect of duty. Lafayette McLaws was born in Augusta in 1821. a West Point graduate, he served in the Mexican War, but resigned his commission to fight for the Confederacy. McLaws rose quickly […]

He was a Georgia native responsible for turning Robert E. Lee’s plantation into a national cemetery. Montgomery Meigs was born in Augusta in 1816 and graduated from the U.S. Military academy at West Point. Meigs was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers and oversaw the construction of many of Washington’s most important buildings, including […]