The Civil War Picket: September 2026

Much has been written about Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s "hard war" in Georgia, and the debate over the accompanying destruction continues today. Did he focus almost completely on military targets, or was civilian property fair game, too?

There was no ambiguity when it came to textile mills and factories around Atlanta that supplied the Confederacy. “This whole region was devoted to manufactories, but I will destroy every one of them,” Sherman wrote to a subordinate the same week cavalry units burned textile mills in Roswell and at New Manchester in Douglas County, about 35 miles to the southwest.

The impressive ruins of the New Manchester mill today are the prime attraction at Sweetwater Creek State Park near Lithia Springs. I recently asked interpretive ranger Adrian Fox to detail its operation and the fate of the nearly 200 men, women and children there, and the tough choice they had to make.

This is among the records kept by Adrian Fox at Sweetwater Creek State Park (Picket photo, click to enlarge)

But let’s start with the Roswell mills, which were destroyed first, on July 6, 1864.

Sherman wrote he wanted 400 Roswell workers to be charged with treason, given the Ivy Woolen Mill was flying a French flag when Federal troopers rode by. The ruse was meant to show the mill was not subject to seizure or destruction. It failed.

From the Northern perspective, the workers were American citizens in open rebellion. Southerners said the women were eking out a living as menfolk defended their homeland.

Click to enlarge Sherman correspondence in Official Records about the mill workers

On July 7, Sherman wrote to Brig. Gen. Kenner Garrard about the Roswell employees, who had been making material for uniforms:

“I repeat my orders that you arrest all people, male and female, connected with those factories, no matter what the clamor, and let them foot it, under guard, to Marietta, whence I will send them by cars to the North...The poor women will make a howl. Let them take along their children and clothing, providing they have the means of hauling or you can spare them. We will retain them until they can reach a country where they can live in peace and security.”

The prisoners were placed in the Georgia Military Institute while they awaited trains. There would be no trials, so no one actually was formally accused and convicted of treason.

New Manchester, then the tallest building in the region, was burned on July 9. It manufactured muslin and osnaburg, a fabric lighter than canvas, for the Rebel army.

Fox said the historic site is “so instinctively human.”

This for a time was a thriving company town. But as conditions worsened and the war ground on, there was always the threat of homes being looted by desperate families who lived nearby.

A 1932 article (below, click to enlarge) in The Atlanta Journal newspaper described the memories of S.H. Causey, a worker at New Manchester:

“Shortly after the burning of the mill, Mr. Causey recalls, the Federal officers assembled the Sweetwater people and announced they were going to be allowed to take their choice between two courses. One was that they would be paroled upon signing an agreement that they would not again engage in the occupation of making cloth for the Confederacy, although they might remain where they were or find homes elsewhere on southern soil. The other choice was that they should be furnished free transportation to some point beyond the Ohio River, behind the Federal lines, and there given their freedom. Most of them chose the latter course, since under the circumstances it offered them the only means of earning a livelihood.”

Some of the workers had highly prized skills. The mill was in ruins and Atlanta was about to fall. As Fox said, they were given a "strong-arm choice."

“For the working poor, the priority was the safety and survival of their children.” So they chose to go north, where -- as it turned out -- they had no real freedom or autonomy.

Workers were sent to Marietta, where they were put together with the Roswell workers. After that, they were all treated basically the same. A monument in Roswell, funded by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, says they were effectively deported (Picket photo, click to enlarge).

The 600 (500 of whom were women and children) were shipped out July 10 and 11, with stops in Chattanooga and Nashville. Many were sent to Ohio and Indiana after they arrived in Louisville, Ky., where they were initially imprisoned in a hospital. A few died of typhoid, measles and other diseases.

“First housed and fed in a Louisville refugee hospital, the women later took what menial jobs and living arrangements could be found. Those in Indiana struggled to survive, many settling near the river, where eventually mills provided employment,” the New Georgia Encyclopedia says.

“Unless husbands had been transported with the women or had been imprisoned nearby, there was little probability of a return to Roswell, so the remaining women began to marry and bear children.”

Lore has it few made it back to Georgia, but there are examples.

Sara Frances “Fannie” White Clay was a daughter of one of the New Manchester Mill workers. She went north with her mother to Louisville, according to Charlie Crawford, president emeritus of the Georgia Battlefields Association. She was called “Sissy” while growing up.

“Don’t believe that ‘they were never heard from again’ baloney,” said Crawford. “Sissy, her older sister and her mom returned to New Manchester area when the war was over and were reunited with the father/husband. When Sissy grew up, she married Alexander Stephens Clay, who became a U.S. senator. One of their sons was General Lucius D. Clay, commander of the Berlin Airlift. One of their grandsons was General Lucius D. Clay Jr., who was commander of Pacific Air Forces when I was in stationed in Vietnam and Hawaii. So much for Sissy never being heard from again.”

Depiction of mill workers assembled in Marietta, Ga., for transport north

After the Civil War, mills were reopened in Roswell, but not at New Manchester.

It became a ghost town.

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2010/10/remarkable-story-of-french-flag-ruse.html

Rendering of New Manchester mill in operation, exhibited at park visitor center (Picket photo)

The Civil War Picket

Sunday, September 6, 2026

A hard choice during 'hard war': Federal soldiers gave women at burned New Manchester mill in Georgia two options. Only one ensured food on the table

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