1850 to 1875

Macon’s antebellum buildings and homes testify to the growing prosperity of Georgia’s central city. Many of the old buildings have had various uses through the years. Today’s columned City Hall was built in 1836 as a bank for the Monroe Railroad Company. Later it became a cotton warehouse and soon after, the seat of municipal government. During the War Between the States, the building served as the state capitol for several days after Sherman’s capture of Milledgeville. Even the Confederate government met there while retreating south after Federal troops captured Richmond.

During that same year railroad entrepreneur Jerry Cowles commissioned Elam Alexander to build his home atop Coleman Hill, now known as Woodruff House. Later Cowles sold his home to millionaire planter Joseph Bond, the richest planter in the state with more than thirteen hundred slaves. Ironically Bond was killed defending a slave from an overzealous overseer.

William Butler Johnston, a wealthy business entrepreneur later appointed Public Depository for the Confederacy, traveled to Europe with his young bride to gather plans and furnishings for their planned Italianate mansion. The eighteen thousand square-foot mansion was under construction in 1855. Now restored by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, the Johnston/Hay House is recognized as one of the most beautiful homes in America.⁷

Loyal friends, Bond and Johnston enjoyed fishing together in the Ocmulgee River. They arranged to be buried side-by-side on a river overlooking in Rose Hill. More than one hundred years later, the Allman Brothers featured the ornate stonework of the family sepulchers as the backdrop for one of their album covers.

After the fatal motorcycle accidents of two members of the Allman Brothers Band, Duane Allman and Berry Oakley, just one year apart in 1971 and 1972, they, too, buried side-by-side, have become a part of Rose Hill lore.

By 1860 Macon’s population had increased to 8,132 (5,042 white, 21 freedman, and 3,069 slaves), while Bibb County’s swelled to almost 16,000.⁸ With cotton still the city’s most important source of revenue, Macon’s commercial base had broadened to include the manufacture of tin ware, leather products, coaches, carriages, and furniture. Macon also had several large foundries, including the Macon Iron and Brass Foundry.

Within Macon a state-level unionist party and a states’ rights party competed for public policy. With the 1861 election of Abraham Lincoln of the new Republican Party—aided by the splintering of the Democrats—national accord was supplanted in Macon by state loyalty. Protecting land and family from domination of the agricultural south by northern industrialists and the abominable Yankee tariffs became rallying cries. The growing abolition movement in the North and South threatened to undermine the economics of “King Cotton.”

Decades of questions and compromise since the War for Independence were over; a great conflagration would decide the preeminence of states versus union. Thus Georgia became the fifth southern state to join the Confederate States of America in 1861.

Macon volunteers, both young and old, joined the war effort. In addition the city played a vital role in the supply of war provisions through its manufacturing, cotton mills, and foundries. The Confederate States’ arsenal was relocated to the Findlay Iron Works, which manufactured cannon, shells, and pistols.

Macon’s women shouldered the responsibility for home and war relief. Clothing and hospital supplies were prepared and donated, and many structures in Macon were converted into hospitals. Macon became a refuge for disabled soldiers, civilian refugees, and poverty-stricken families of absent soldiers. A memorial to Macon’s women during the war can be seen today on Poplar Street.

Unlike the burning of Atlanta, the only direct fighting the city of Macon experienced was a single cannonball, destined for the Johnston/Hay House by General Stoneman’s unsuccessful raid on Macon during Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea. The cannonball hit a porch column, smashed through the wall, and came to rest in the foyer of Judge Asa Holt’s house.

Conditions in Georgia continued to deteriorate, especially in Macon, which was overwhelmed with refugees. General Robert E. Lee, leader of the Southern Army, surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia on April 9, 1865. Shocked at the assassination of President Lincoln only five days earlier, Macon surrendered on April 20, 1865.

The noble American experiment of a union indivisible was vindicated, but the war had taken a terrible toll in life. While African American families temperately celebrated freedom, confederate families honored and buried their dead, as all Maconites began the difficult tasks of rebuilding their lives. Both races left the farms and crowded into Macon. Shortages of food and shelter and epidemics of smallpox resulted in many deaths.

As Macon dealt with post-war deprivations, suspicion and resentment grew as the races adjusted to new realities. After Marshall Law and during Federal Reconstruction, segregation of the races became an unwritten law. By the turn of the century, some of the laws were codified and referred to as “Jim Crow.” It would be another one hundred years, however, during the civil rights movement of the1950s and 1960s, when true equality was considered a constitutional right.