Editing Bartow County, Georgia (section)

==History==
{{Further|Cassville, Georgia#History|Kingston, Georgia#History|Adairsville, Georgia#History}} <!--could be imported into here-->

Bartow County was created from the [[Cherokee]] lands of the [[Cherokee County, Georgia|Cherokee County]] territory on December 3, 1832, and named '''Cass County''', after General [[Lewis Cass]] (1782–1866), Secretary of War under President Andrew Jackson, Minister to France and Secretary of State under President James Buchanan,<ref name="Krakow">[http://www.kenkrakow.com/gpn/c.pdf Cass County] kenkrakow.com p.36</ref> who was instrumental in the removal of [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]] from the area. However, the county was renamed on December 6, 1861, in honor of [[Francis S. Bartow]], because of Cass's support of the Union,<ref>{{cite news | url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=IP4vAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2jsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4196%2C213560 | title=Bartow County | work=Calhoun Times | date=September 1, 2004 | access-date=April 23, 2015 | pages=13}}</ref> even though Bartow never visited in the county, living {{convert|200|mi|km|abbr=out}} away near Savannah all of his life. Cass had supported the doctrine of [[popular sovereignty]], the right of each state to determine its own laws independently of the Federal government, the platform of conservative Southerners who removed his name.

[[American Civil War|The American Civil War]] first entered Bartow County on April 12, 1862, in the form of [[Great Locomotive Chase|"The Great Locomotive Chase"]]: As a result of the [[Western and Atlantic Railroad|Western & Atlantic Railroad]]’s (W&A RR) strategic war time value, Union soldiers boarded and stole a train named "The General". Their plan was to take the stolen train north toward [[Chattanooga, Tennessee]], destroying bridges, parts of the railroad, and telegraph lines along the way.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=January 18, 2021 |title=Perceptions of the Great Locomotive Chase – The Etowah Valley Historical Society of Bartow County, Georgia |url=https://evhsonline.org/archives/49706 |access-date=September 3, 2023 |language=en-US}}</ref>

The Raiders were unable to cause sufficient destruction to the railroad to make pursuit impossible, and William Fuller, the conductor of the stolen train, eventually caught up with the raiders just north of [[Ringgold, Georgia|Ringgold Georgia]].<ref name=":0" />

The first county seat was at [[Cassville, Georgia|Cassville]]. After the burning of the county courthouse and the Sherman Occupation, the seat moved to Cartersville, where it remains.

Bartow County was profoundly affected by the Civil War: an estimated one out of three Bartow County soldiers died during the war as a result of wounds received, diseases caught, and, in one case, as a result of a train accident. At the end of the Civil War, many residents were financially insolvent, the county seat was "in ruins", the transportation networks were severely damaged, and the citizens were starving due to several consecutive years of crop failures.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Hébert |first=Keith S. |date=2008 |title=The Bitter Trial of Defeat and Emancipation: Reconstruction in Bartow County, Georgia, 1865-1872 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40585039 |journal=The Georgia Historical Quarterly |volume=92 |issue=1 |pages=73 |jstor=40585039 |issn=0016-8297}}</ref>

Prior to the Civil War, Bartow County's social order, and that of the South as a whole, was dominated by "a sense of white intra-class unity that rested upon a shared notion of racial supremacy."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hébert |first=Keith S. |date=2008 |title=The Bitter Trial of Defeat and Emancipation: Reconstruction in Bartow County, Georgia, 1865-1872 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40585039 |journal=The Georgia Historical Quarterly |volume=92 |issue=1 |pages=67 |jstor=40585039 |issn=0016-8297}}</ref> Post-Civil War, during [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]], that world-view was challenged, creating a period of racial tension. When the state of Georgia allocated $200,000 to purchase and transport corn into [[North Georgia]], local officials solely distributed the corn to white families.<ref name=":1" /> And when black families petitioned Bartow County for better educational and vocational opportunities, some local whites responded with violence, including but not limited to [[Ku Klux Klan]] activity.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hébert |first=Keith S. |date=2008 |title=The Bitter Trial of Defeat and Emancipation: Reconstruction in Bartow County, Georgia, 1865-1872 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40585039 |journal=The Georgia Historical Quarterly |volume=92 |issue=1 |pages=65–92 |jstor=40585039 |issn=0016-8297}}</ref>