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Columbia County, Georgia
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===American Civil War=== [[plantations in the American South|Plantation]] agriculture based on slave labor was the major force of the economy in the county prior to the [[American Civil War]]. Cotton production had expanded dramatically after the invention of the cotton gin, which enabled the cultivation of short-staple cotton in the upland areas. Numerous vast plantations existed, the central houses of some of which still exist. Thousands of slaves were brought to the county for labor. At times the [[slavery|slave]] population outnumbered the free white population. When Georgia seceded from the United States, [[George W. Crawford|George Walker Crawford]], a native son of Columbia County, presided over the [[Ordinance of Secession|Secession Convention]]. He had previously been elected as the only [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig]] governor of the State. Men from the county served in [[List of Civil War regiments from Georgia|several companies]], among them the Hamilton Rangers and the Ramsey Guards, some in the 48th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and some in the 22nd; almost all in [[Wright's Brigade]]. The troops assembled in front of the courthouse, then boarded trains at the depots: Berzelia, Sawdust, Dearing, and Thomson. No fighting occurred in the county during the war; nor was it directly in General Sherman's [[General Sherman#Georgia|path]]. According to some family stories, some [[Union Army|Union]] cavalry scouts or bummers entered the county. Near the war's end, the remnants of the Confederate treasury were taken through Columbia County from Augusta to where the Chennault Raid occurred in neighboring [[Lincoln County, Georgia|Lincoln County]]. The war took a heavy toll on the white male population of the county; a plaque behind the bench in the main Courtroom bears the names of Columbia County's Confederate dead. During [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]], the county was subject to military occupation. Because of significant [[Ku Klux Klan]] violence in the late 1860s, it was attached to a special district including Warren, Wilkes, and [[Oglethorpe County, Georgia|Oglethorpe]] counties. Additional Union forces were sent there to try to suppress the [[insurgents]] and their [[vigilante]] crimes against [[freedmen]]. They had been steadily reported by the [[Freedmen's Bureau]], whose reports included a mob [[lynching]] of a freedman in Appling in July 1866.
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