Gordon

Gordon, Station Number 17 on the Central Railroad of Georgia, was named for William W. Gordon, the railroad's first president and the grandfather of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA. It was a strategic point linking Milledgeville, the state capital, to the rail line between Macon and Savannah, and first received train service in 1843. During the Civil War the railroad played a major role in moving soldiers and supplies, and Gordon became a strategic destination for the Right Wing of Union Major General William T. Sherman's army during the first phase of the March to the Sea. On Sunday, November 20, 1864, Henry C. Wayne, adjutant and inspector general of Georgia, arrived from Milledgeville with 460 Confederate soldiers made up of fragments of various state units, cadets, pardoned convicts, and their guards. The next day, after learning that Federal troops were approaching, Wayne moved his force east to the railroad bridge across the Oconee River, leaving only two local residents, John R. Bragg and J. Rufus Kelly, to defend the town. Wayne's train departed Gordon about 4:00 p.m. on November 21 amidst bullets from arriving Federal cavalry. For two days Federal soldiers destroyed Gordon's rail and other facilities, ripping up and twisting rails despite ice and snow and foraging widely for foodstuffs and animals. Eliza Frances Andrews passed through Gordon the following month and wrote that the village had been left in ruins, with the depot reduced to a shapeless pile of bricks and the track torn up and twisted into many forms. The Federals began marching east to McIntyre on Wednesday, November 23, and the commander of the Right Wing, Union Major General Oliver O. Howard, left Gordon with his staff on November 25, moving toward Ball's Ferry as the second phase of the march began. The brick wall beginning at the loading dock on the end of the depot is all that remains of the original structure, and the current depot was constructed in 1885.

Gordon, Georgia · United States