Ivanhoe Plantation was established in 1765 through a Crown Grant from King George III of England to Thomas Whitehead. Located 3 or 4 miles east of Waynesboro, Georgia and 15 miles downstream along Brier Creek, the grant included the lands of Forest Hill, Spread Oak, Ivanhoe, and Kenelworth along or near the creek. Only Ivanhoe remains in the ownership of Thomas Whitehead's direct descendants, and since the death of Alden Rowland Dye in 2005, her grandchildren have owned the plantation and kept it in the family. In November 1864, Union troops under General Judson Kilpatrick took over the Ivanhoe Plantation House while members of the family of Amos Grattan Whitehead, Alden Rowland Dye's great-grandfather, were in the home. Kilpatrick spared the house and its Whitehead occupants, but the Union Army, 10,000 strong, burned buildings, sheds, a barn, cotton bales, and the cotton gin. General Joseph Wheeler, leading 4,600 Confederate cavalrymen, came upon the Union cavalry camped at Ivanhoe and routed them from their position. Wheeler's cavalry then occupied Ivanhoe, camped in the Ole Field, and set up defenses on Brier Creek to protect the road to Augusta, Georgia. The Confederates believed Sherman's Union Army would go to Augusta, but Sherman marched instead to Savannah, Georgia. Wheeler also set up defenses at Rock Creek to stop the Union advance to Waynesboro, Georgia, and during his stay in the area his troops defended Waynesboro and surrounding Burke County homes, farms, and families. He also fought Kilpatrick at Thomas Station on Highway 24 to prevent Union forces from arriving at Old Buckhead Church, the meeting place to join Sherman on his march to Savannah. During 10 days in November 1864, Wheeler related these events at Ivanhoe to Catharine Barnes Whitehead, daughter of Amos Grattan Whitehead and grandmother of Alden Rowland Dye, and Catharine recorded them in the diary she kept throughout the war and later in life; her diaries survive to the present day.