A Stark and Blighted Landscape

The final weeks of 1864 brought with them an unprecedented level of want and despair in Cobb County.

After a long occupation, first by the Confederate Army and then by the Union, Marietta’s business district had been late on the night of Nov. 13. Two days later, the Union Army departed, headed south.

For those still living in Cobb on the morning of the 16th, dawn would break over a stark and blighted landscape. Before leaving, the Union Army had foraged liberally, cutting cabbages, digging potatoes, ransacking houses for flour and meal, and driving off livestock. Those few houses that were still occupied had been stripped of everything usable to the Army down to the window glass and feather mattresses. Unoccupied homes had been stripped even of their weatherboarding.

The sense of isolation was certainly terrible. Very few citizens remained in Marietta to begin with, the vast majority having fled south when the Confederate Army . During the , Mariettans felt cut-off from the outside world, yet even then there was some news available through the Yankee soldiers. But now their isolation was complete. There was no post of any kind. There was no government, military or otherwise. Telegraph cables were gone, and the railroad as far north as Resaca had been demolished.

Even had this not been the case, there was really nowhere to go and few people to communicate with. Rome, Acworth, Roswell, and Atlanta all equally lay in ruins, and in some towns the destruction had even included occupied residences.

Amid this desolation, Cobb’s citizens were still not left in peace. As one enemy marched away south, another came from an unexpected source: Bands of robbers made up of Confederate deserters preyed upon the helpless, taking what few provisions the Yankees had not. Rogue elements of Wheeler’s cavalry, operating outside the pale of legitimate military authority, likewise raided homes on the pretense of commandeering supplies for the army. Uniformed men claiming to represent some authority, real or imagined, did the same. Those who had the strength and arms to oppose them did so, but this seldom the case.

As winter set in, so did an unimaginable reality: starvation.

Families in Cobb who had managed to hide some flour, meal or seed corn were fortunate. A few had managed to preserve some edible corn, even if it had previously been deemed fit only as animal fodder. In rare instances, a family had managed to conceal livestock, carefully hiding a precious milk cow.

Amazingly, some of those who had evacuated began trickling back home, anxious to discover the fates of their farms and families. The site that met them was bleak beyond anything they had expected. Nevertheless, these included some of the more able-bodied, and they brought with them small amounts of food and seed corn, if it was only what could be kept hidden in their pockets.

But even in cases where there was grain to plant, there was often nothing left to plant it with. Nearly all farm implements had been taken. People began using anything that could be fashioned into a crude spade or hand-plough. Some managed to turn the soil with nothing more than an old piece of fence, dropping in a handful of kernels. Considering the immediate need for food, such small acts were poignant symbols that hope was not gone entirely.

In late January, in order to prevent the impending starvation, Confederate General William T. Wofford assumed command of those areas of North Georgia not under Union occupation, which included Marietta. His command extended from parts of South Carolina all the way into Florida, and his troops were few and themselves near the point of starvation. But they managed to restore a minimal order and to provide the most meager of rations.

By mid-Spring, the war was over. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox on April 19, 1865. Johnston had surrendered to Sherman the previous day, although the terms were unacceptable to the War Department, resulting in a second, more complete surrender on the 26th. On May 2, Grant ordered the arrest of Jefferson Davis, although he eluded capture for some time. Governor Brown was arrested in Milledgeville on May 9, and on May 12, once he was sure that order would be maintained, Wofford surrendered the last Confederate Army east of the Mississippi.