Jacksonborough became the seat of government for Screven County in 1797 and thrived for about fifty years before declining, with the county seat moving to Sylvania in 1847. According to legend, the itinerant preacher Lorenzo Dow visited in 1821 and, after being treated badly by all but Seaborn Goodall, cursed the town but blessed the Seaborn Goodall House, also known as the Dell-Goodall House, where he had stayed. Built in 1815, Goodall's home was the only house left standing there by 1864. On Monday, December 5, 1864, Union Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis's 14th Corps arrived and made Jacksonborough its overnight headquarters. Brigadier General H. Judson Kilpatrick used the Goodall house, while Brigadier General Absalom Baird and his staff camped in tents in the dooryard, and Major James A. Connolly of Baird's staff called Kilpatrick "the most vain, conceited, egotistical little popinjay I ever saw." En route, the 14th Corps divisions of Brigadier Generals William P. Carlin and James D. Morgan had camped on December 3 along the railroad between Millen and Augusta, and Carlin's division destroyed three miles of track. On December 5 Morgan's division marched through Jacksonborough and camped eight miles southeast. After their December 4 fight at Waynesborough against Confederate Major General Joseph Wheeler's cavalry, the divisions of Kilpatrick and Baird joined Carlin's division at Jacksonborough. Sergeant Timothy H. Pendergast of the 2nd Minnesota Infantry Regiment complained that the sandy cornfield camp filled bedclothes and dishes with sand and that the rail fence would be gone by breakfast. Frequent skirmishes took place with Confederate cavalry, and Confederate Private Enoch D. John of Shannon's Scouts, part of Terry's Texas Rangers, 8th Texas Cavalry Regiment in Wheeler's command, recorded an attack on a party of Union soldiers in Screven County. Homes and outbuildings were often burned in retaliation for Southern resistance or for blocking roads to impede the Federal advance. All Federal forces left Jacksonborough on December 6, with the cavalry division splitting so that one brigade rode through Sylvania to join the 20th Corps near Springfield while the other continued with the 14th Corps toward Ebenezer Creek. After Seaborn Goodall died in 1868, the house was sold in 1870 to Dr. Julian P. Dell.