Apparently, somebody decided to have a little fun and steal the memorial marker to Sherman’s March located on North Clark Street in Milledgeville, Georgia. According to the story, it is not the first time the sign has gone missing. Perhaps the guilty party is attempting to revise the narrative. Actually, I suspect it’s a college prank.
OK, Who Stole the Sherman’s March Marker?
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A couple of years ago, while living in Atlanta, I embarked on a project to try and track down and photograph the Georgia historical markers. (UGA has a wonderful resource list online). While several were missing as would be expected, I found myself being unable to find a good number of the ones for Sherman’s March. Some of that can be ascribed to the ravages of time, those seemed to be singled out by some people for an informal removal. Sad really.
I haven’t been to Milledgeville, but I did visit Atlanta in 2001, about two years before I first began to suspect I might have a Civil War ancestor and about four years before I confirmed that suspicion by requesting and obtaining service and pension records from NARA for my Civil War ancestor and two soldiers I thought might be his brothers-in-law. The service and pension records for all three soldiers were part of one request and reached me all at the same time. The signatures of the soldiers I thought might be in-laws were found on the pension request filed by my Civil War ancestor’s widow, confirming my hunch. One of the in-laws was my great great grandmother’s younger brother who was wounded in the Battle of Atlanta.
Websites featuring historical plaques posted in various locations around Atlanta were what I used to reconstruct the circumstances leading to the war wound of my great great grandmother’s younger brother. But to reconstruct those circumstances I had to first reconstruct my visit to Atlanta several years after the fact and for that the plaques posted around Atlanta marking key points in the battle were an invaluable tool.
Let’s suggest some books people can read or good web sites so this story isn’t “stolen.”