Civil War and Reconstruction

As the question of slavery and its expansion in the territories became an issue, Georgia political leaders, such as Alexander H. Stephens, Howell Cobb, and Robert A. Toombs, were among the moderates seeking compromise. After the election of Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860, however, there were demands for secession. Secessionist strength was found in the cities and on the plantations; unionist feelings were strongest in the mountains and in the east-central region known as the“pine barrens,”where there was opposition to both slavery and the social and economic system of the lowlands. On January 19, 1861, Georgia seceded from the Union. Stephens became vice president of the Confederacy; Toombs, secretary of state.

There was little fighting in the state in the early years of the Civil War. However, a major battle was fought at Chickamauga, in September, 1863. In 1864,Atlanta was burned and many areas of the state were devastated as General William T. Sherman led a Union army of some 60,000 troops through Georgia on what became known as the March to the Sea.

Reconstruction after the South's defeat was a time of economic, political, and social disruption for Georgia as it was for other former Confederate states. In 1867, Georgia refused to ratify the 14th Amendment and was placed under military rule. At that time, the capital was moved to Atlanta. Georgia remained under military rule for most of the period until it was readmitted to the Union in 1870.

Following Reconstruction, Georgia was controlled by a faction of the Democratic party called the Bourbons, who were business-oriented and interested in the development of the state's urban areas. They supported reconciliation between North and South in order to facilitate industrialization of the South. They paid little attention to the small farmer and to rural concerns. The major Bourbon leaders during 1876–90 were governors Joseph E. Brown, John B. Gordon, and Alfred H. Colquitt and Atlanta Constitution editor Henry W. Grady.

The post-Reconstruction period in Georgia, as in the rest of the nation, was a time of agricultural depression. Discontented farmers supported the Independent party in the 1870's and 1880's and the Populists in the 1890's. The state's most important Populist was Congressman Thomas E. Watson, who dominated Georgia politics into the 20th century, championed the traditional agrarian South and wanted to stop industrialization and urbanization. He also played a major role in fomenting anti-black, anti-Catholic, and anti-Jewish sentiment.