Dallas became the seat of government for Paulding County, Georgia, in 1852, and by 1861 the town had about 200 citizens. Its Civil War era courthouse stood across Main Street east of the building that replaced it in 1892, and two wartime roads led south from town on the Villa Rica road, present-day Hardee Street, and on a lesser-traveled road on present-day Main Street toward Pumpkinvine Creek Church. In May 1864 nearly 170,000 Federal and Confederate soldiers faced one another in Dallas and across Paulding County for almost two weeks, permanently altering the town and county with the immense movement of men, wagons, horses, mules, and other livestock. The first soldiers to enter Dallas were from the Federal Army of the Tennessee under Major General James B. McPherson, who marched northeast from around Pumpkinvine Creek Church beginning May 26th along Main Street, while McPherson established his headquarters at the Henderson House just east of the courthouse and the 15th Corps under Major General John A. "Black Jack" Logan headquartered on present-day Glenn Street southeast of downtown. Confederate and Federal troops dug opposing trenches north, south, and east of Dallas that stretched nearly twelve miles in total. During the May 1864 battles of New Hope Church on the 25th, Pickett's Mill on the 27th, and Dallas on the 28th, many casualties were brought into town, and on the 28th Dallas felt the war directly when Confederate Major General William B. Bate's division probed Logan's line and was driven back with heavy losses. After the Battle of Dallas, Union Major General William T. Sherman shifted his armies north and east toward Acworth and Kennesaw Mountain. When Confederate troops briefly reoccupied Dallas on May 30th, they found makeshift hospitals filled with wounded soldiers, including men from Bate's division who had fallen into enemy hands on the 28th and, as Captain Ed Porter Thompson recalled, lay uncared for without attendants, medicine, or provisions. One such improvised hospital, Dallas's first schoolhouse, still survives off North Johnston Street four blocks north of the town center after being moved from a nearby lot and later housing the Paulding County Museum. Remains of trenches, campsites, battlefields, and soldiers' graves still survive across the modern city of Dallas and Paulding County.