Founded in 1808, Clinton was a commercial and educational center and the early seat of Jones County. It was planned with streets in a New England styled gridiron pattern and a central square. In 1820, Clinton was the fourth-largest town in Georgia. Samuel Griswold, coming from Connecticut, built a cotton gin factory here, and Thomas B. Slade opened the Clinton Female Institute about 1833. By 1860 this once prosperous village was in decline because the Macon and Savannah Railroad had bypassed the town, prompting Griswold to move his growing business to the railroad, and later the county seat was moved to nearby Gray. Clinton's enduring historic value earned it a listing on the National Register of Historic Places. During the Civil War, Federal cavalry under Major General George Stoneman passed through Clinton twice in July while going to and returning from their unsuccessful raid on Macon. After Stoneman's defeat at Sunshine Church on July 31st, the Federals captured there passed through Clinton again on their way to prison at Macon's Camp Oglethorpe. On Saturday, November 19, 1864, nearly 5,000 Federal cavalrymen led by Brigadier General H. Judson Kilpatrick entered Clinton during the March to the Sea. Three infantry divisions of the 15th Corps began arriving about noon the following day, allowing Kilpatrick's cavalry to feint toward Macon. Commanded by Major General Peter J. Osterhaus, the 15th Corps was one of the two corps in Major General Oliver Otis Howard's Right Wing, representing almost one-half of Major General William T. Sherman's army. Osterhaus's fourth division, under Brigadier General John M. Corse, was delayed by encumbrances clogging its movements because it needed to guard the 15th Corps wagons, pontoon bridge, and cattle. Although Clinton's economy was depressed, some structures remained for Federal troops to burn. Major Thomas Osborn, Howard's chief of artillery, wrote that some of the men captured with General Stoneman were now with Kilpatrick and that Osterhaus had much difficulty restraining them from burning the entire town. The Federals destroyed most of the remaining industrial and commercial buildings. The three 15th Corps infantry divisions departed Clinton on the 21st, and Osterhaus first ordered one division toward Gordon and the other two toward Irwinton, but as the troops left he learned of a Confederate force near Griswoldville and changed his orders to meet that threat.