On Tuesday morning, November 29, 1864, Union Major General William T. Sherman and the 17th Corps of his army's Right Wing left their encampment at New Hope Methodist Church and marched generally southeast toward Tarver Place plantation, stopping first at Tarver's Mill on Limestone Creek. When Sherman arrived, he found Major General Francis P. Blair, Jr., commander of the 17th Corps, and his staff there, while Blair's troops had discovered a plentiful quantity of cornmeal in the mill and quickly took it, with Major George W. Nichols obtaining two for Sherman's mess. While the army was at the mill, Harper's Weekly artist and war correspondent Theodore R. Davis sketched the scene from a small rise near the road and behind the mill beneath a live oak. The dam at the mill formed a lake above it with standing cypress trees draped in Spanish moss, and although the present mill house is not original, the original mill stone and milling equipment remain; Sherman did not order the original mill burned, though it was destroyed by fire years later and rebuilt. A short distance away at Tarver Place, owned by Judge Andrew E. Tarver, Sherman and his staff joined Right Wing commander Major General Oliver O. Howard and his staff for the mid-day meal. The plantation's main house was a large two-story frame structure with a surrounding porch and a wide breezeway hall, and the plantation had numerous out-houses and abundant forage, corn, and fodder, much of which was also quickly taken. Because Judge Tarver was absent, Sherman advised the Tarver women to gather as much food as they could in tubs and buckets and take it into their home, and he then ordered a guard posted. After about two hours at the plantation, Sherman and his staff continued their march along the Savannah road, keeping just west and south of the Ogeechee River and heading toward Central Railroad of Georgia Station 9½ at Midville.