The Old Governor’s Mansion in Milledgeville was completed in 1839 and was used by the governors until the Civil War. What we’ll see in this post is what the mansion looked like in 1851. It’s one of the finest examples of High Greek Revival architecture in the nation with its stately columns and imposing facade. The information in this post comes primarily from the brochure printed by the Georgia College and State University.
This mansion served as the residence for Georgia’s chief executives for over 30 years. Its history covers the Antebellum, Civil War, and early Reconstruction phases of the state’s history. Over these years, serious social issues shaped the state: slavery, society standards, and gender roles.
If you’re a Georgia resident, you’ll recognize the names of some of the men (and their families) who lived here: George Crawford, Howell Cobb, and Joseph E. Brown (the last Confederate governor).
Times changed radically when Union Major General William T. Sherman and approximately 30,000 troops marched into Milledgeville on Wednesday, November 23, 1864. While most local citizens stayed indoors, the few bystanders watching the Federal soldiers arrive were mostly slaves.
General Sherman made his headquarters in the abandoned Mansion that had been stripped by Governor Brown and his family of all its furniture, carpet, and curtains before fleeing north to Macon. Sherman mocked Brown’s removal of property down to “the cabbages and vegetables from his kitchen and cellar.”
While here, General Sherman planned his “March to the Sea” toward Augusta and then on to Savannah, the destruction of railroad bridges, and an attempt to free nearby Federal prisoners.
Even though much of Milledgeville was destroyed, the Mansion was relatively unharmed during its military occupation.
Governor Brown and other state officials returned to Milledgeville near the end of the war. In May 1865, Brown was arrested in the Mansion by Federal troops and taken to Washington, D.C., where he was briefly imprisoned. President Andrew Johnson pardoned him on condition that he resign the governorship. By that summer, Georgia’s capital was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta.
tour
The docent for our tour was one of the students from the college. The Mansion has 3 floors and 30 rooms.
1st floor – kitchen rooms
Wikipedia gave me this information about the iron in the previous picture. From the 17th century, sadirons or sad irons (from Middle English “sad”, meaning “solid”, used in English through the 1800s) began to be used. They were thick slabs of cast iron, triangular and with a handle, heated in a fire or on a stove. These were also called flat irons. A laundry worker would employ a cluster of solid irons that were heated from a single source: As the iron currently in use cooled down, it could be quickly replaced by a hot one.
bakery and cooking
I wonder what these rooms really looked like while they were being used for the governors and their families.
2nd floor – public rooms
2nd floor – hallway
2nd floor – family dining room
2nd floor – men’s parlor, dance floor
2nd floor – governor’s office
rotunda dome – gold leaf
3rd floor – family bedrooms
This ends our tour of Milledgeville that covers more than 100 years. The next time we visit, we want to take one of the trolley tours so we can learn more about the town and the area.
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