“Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the jubilee! / Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that makes you free!”
– Marching Through Georgia, Henry Clay Work
ATLANTA — There are dozens, hundreds, if not thousands, of historical markers dotting Georgia’s countryside, keeping alive the chaos and conflict that once ruled the landscape.
Houses, shopping malls and office buildings stand on land once soaked with the blood of men fighting a brutal conflict that looked for awhile as though it would never end.
There were more than two dozen Civil War battles fought in Georgia. A number of those battle sites — such as Kennesaw Mountain — are well preserved as reminders of the war once waged here. But, many other sites have been lost to modern development.
Residential and commercial development have overtaken Confederate defensive positions where the Battle of Smyrna was fought, a golf course now stands where the Battle of Peachtree Creek took place and the site of Gen. James B. McPherson’s final moments is now in the middle of an intersection in an East Atlanta neighborhood.
Still, there is so much to see in Georgia when it comes to the Civil War. And even if sites aren’t as the same as they were 150 years ago — learning about what happened here and how it shaped the war and the country is just as important.
