William Clayton Fain, born in Georgia in 1825, was one of the state's leading Unionists during the Civil War. A Fannin County lawyer and state representative, he served in the 1861 Secession Convention, where he opposed Georgia leaving the United States and refused to sign the Ordinance of Secession. During the war, he was an outspoken supporter of the United States and an anti-Confederate leader among the sizeable number of Unionists in Fannin and adjoining counties. In 1864, the U.S. Army authorized him to raise recruits, which he conducted into Federal lines. Confederates captured and killed him near Ducktown, Tennessee, on April 6, 1864. He was one of many Southerners who opposed the Confederacy, including 400,000, primarily from the Upper South, who enlisted in the U.S. armed forces.