Baldwin County GaArchives History .....History of Baldwin Co. - Historic Site in Milledgeville 1925
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 5, 2004, 5:33 pm

p. 54

Historic Site in Milledgeville
(Back of Ennis' Market)

    When Sherman's army marched into Milledgeville, (Friday afternoon, November
20, 1864) the members of the General Assembly fled in order to avoid arrest and
imprisonment.

    Governor Jenkins hastened to New York, taking with him the State's money and
the executive seal. But the Secretary of State, Nathan C. Barnett, carried the
Great Seal of the State and the unfinished acts of the Legislature to his wife,
who concealing them until late at night, buried the seal under the house with
the help of her husband and younger son. Fearing that the house would be burned,
they dug a deep hole in the angle of a brick pillar and buried the Great Seal
there in the dead of night. There it remained until Mr. Barnett came again into
the Secretaryship.

    During its concealment, the Carpet-bag element sought to re-organize
Georgia. "Some pretence of legal form was needed to give authority to fraudulent
transactions." So effort after effort was made to unearth the Seal. Failing in
this, the Carpet-baggers resorted to another seal. No expense was spared in
making this, and the contrivance when finished, seemed perfect. But there was
one trivial mistake, so small that at first it was not noticed; but time exposed
the mistake of the artist. In the false Seal, the soldier held his sword in his
left hand, while in the original Seal, he held it in his right hand. History
often lags in awarding its rebukes and rewards, but in time justice comes.

    As to the unfinished Acts of the Legislature, Mrs. Barnett concealed them
underneath her pig pen, and when Sherman's army withdrew and burned the river
bridge behind them, then she removed them to a place of safety for Col Barnett.

-----------------

p. 55

    The Legislature was called to meet in Macon, and when investigation was
made, it was found that not one scrap of paper pertaining to the adjourned
session of 1864 had been destroyed.



Additional Comments:
From: 

Part I

HISTORY of BALDWIN COUNTY GEORGIA
BY MRS. ANNA MARIA GREEN COOK

ILLUSTRATED
ANDERSON. S. C.
Keys-Hearn Printing Co.
-1925—


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