Originating in the 1820s, Social Circle became Walton County's rail center in 1845 as the Georgia Railroad advanced westward. According to legend, the settlement received its name when a traveler praised the hospitality of its congenial pioneers. During the Civil War, Union cavalry under Brigadier General Kenner Garrard entered town on July 23, 1864, took prisoners, captured mail, plundered houses, and burned the town's only hotel, railroad depot, wood station, water tank, several Confederate wagons, a store of commissary supplies, and reportedly five nearby houses before riding away. After the fall and occupation of Atlanta and during Sherman's March to the Sea, panic spread across Georgia, and many displaced families, including exiles from Atlanta, found temporary shelter in abandoned railway cars at Social Circle. On November 18, 1864, the Federal 20th Corps under Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams, accompanied by Major General Henry W. Slocum, entered Social Circle on Hightower Trail, surprising residents, capturing a Confederate surgeon and $3,000 in gold, drawing a joyful welcome from the enslaved population, and then continuing eastward toward Rutledge after one division halted in town for dinner.