In the early 1840s, the Georgia Railroad built a massive bridge just below the junction of the Apalachee and Oconee rivers, eventually linking Augusta by rail with the newly established town of Marthasville, now Atlanta. About 400 yards long and 60 feet above the water, with several hundred yards of trestle-work at each end, it was an important engineering achievement and later a military target during Union Major General William T. Sherman's March to the Sea. On Saturday November 19, 1864, the Federal 20th Corps division of Brigadier General John W. Geary was ordered to destroy the Georgia Railroad bridge over the Oconee River after continuing its work of tearing up and burning the railroad through Madison, Buckhead Station, and beyond. After destroying the water tank and railroad buildings at Buckhead Station, Geary sent one party to burn the bridge and another to destroy ferryboats and a large mill on the Apalachee River north of the bridge; after exchanging shots with enemy scouts and driving them away, both parties succeeded and the bridge was thoroughly destroyed. Rebuilding took months, and the Georgia Railroad did not fully operate again until after the war. Geary's division then marched to Blue Springs and the plantation of Colonel Lee Jordan, where Federal soldiers destroyed almost 50,000 bushels of corn and 280 cotton bales, bringing the day's destruction to more than 500 cotton bales, several mills, gins, ferryboats, five miles of railroad track, numerous other structures, and the Oconee River bridge. On November 20, General Geary turned south near the Oconee River, destroyed Park's Mill a few miles south of Blue Springs, sent a party across the river to Greensboro to spread a false rumor that Sherman's whole army was moving east along the Georgia Railroad toward Augusta, and by dark camped near Denham Tannery northeast of Eatonton. Blue Springs was known as Swords by 1900, named for John Buchanan Swords, and in 1979 the Oconee River was dammed to create Lake Oconee.