During the Civil War, Macon, Georgia, was a thriving city and a major transportation, medical, and manufacturing center, and in 1864 Federal officers were held there at Camp Oglethorpe, a prisoner of war camp. Two battles were fought in Macon at the Dunlap farm: the Battle of Dunlap Hill on July 30, 1864, and the Battle of Walnut Creek on November 20-21, 1864. In the summer of 1864, during the siege of Atlanta, Union cavalry General George Stoneman raided Central Georgia, cutting the Confederate supply line and the Central Georgia railroad and destroying property on the way to Macon, where his personal mission was to destroy the city and free Union officers imprisoned at Camp Oglethorpe. Fighting took place on July 30 when Stoneman ordered the city bombarded and his troops to advance, and one shell struck the home of Judge Asa Holt, now known as the Cannonball House. Confederate troops under General Howell Cobb formed in East Macon and repelled the Union attack. Unable to take the city, Stoneman retreated and was stopped in an all-day battle at Sunshine Church near Clinton, where he was captured and taken to Camp Oglethorpe, becoming the highest ranking Union officer captured in the war. After the battle, Confederates constructed a U-shaped earthwork in the yard of the Dunlap house to protect the Walnut Creek railroad trestle from future attacks, and on November 20-21, 1864, the earthwork served its purpose during the Battle of Walnut Creek. Macon was never taken by force, and the city surrendered to Federal forces on April 20, 1865, nine days after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender.