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considerable pluck. Determined to do more for the Confederacy than stoically enduring privations, the young lady stained her skin with walnut juice, frazzled her hair, and went into Atlanta to spy disguised as a Negro girl. Her friends were aghast when they found out about her escapade, but the determined girl returned to set down what she saw and heard in a letter that she sent off to Georgia’s governor.
    Some nine miles east of Covington was the sprawling plantation managed by the widow Burge. Born in Maine as Dolly Sumner Lunt (and a relative of the abolitionist U.S. senator Charles Sumner), Mrs. Burge had followed her sister from Maine to Georgia, taught school, and married a certified Southern gentleman named Thomas Burge. Mr. Burge died in the late 1850s, leaving Dolly with a daughter (Sarah, called “Sadai”) and the responsibility of running the plantation on her own. She proved adept, both in adjusting her New England morality to embrace slavery and in her careful management of the busy enterprise. Already she had witnessed the sad procession of refugees from Atlanta, as well as suffering visits from Yankee raiders who rustled some of her livestock.
    Dolly Burge offered no apologies for keeping slaves. “I can see nothing in the scriptures which forbids it,” she said. Like many thoughtful owners, she eased any pangs of conscience through benevolent stewardship of her charges. “I have never bought or sold slaves and I have tried to make life easy and pleasant to those that have been bequeathed me,” she explained. Her biggest worry was the outcome of this terrible war. “Shall we be a nation or shall we be annihilated?” she wondered.
    Pushing east from Covington, the Georgia Railroad passed through the well-appointed town of Madison, where Emma High lived. The natural beauty of the town was a continuing marvel to her. “The winter was a mild one and there were roses in bloom,” she recalled, “rich and beautiful and in great profusion in many of the flower gardens.” Madison was, by general consensus, one of the most attractive towns in the state, an appearance that offset its more eccentric residents, such as Edmund B. Walker. Walker believed in being prepared, so he purchased a coffin built exactly to his measure, which he stored in his attic. As the years passed and his waistline expanded, Walker was known to make periodic visits to his final resting place to assure himself that he still fit.
    South of the town, in Jasper County, was the Aiken Plantation, run by the owner’s wife while he was away in the army. Frances B. Aiken was the youngest of the twelve children, all of whom helped their mother manage the operation and watch over the slaves. Later in her long life, Frances never forgot how her mother prepared to deal with any invaders. Her plan was not to spite them but to welcome and charm them, pitting Southern hospitality against Northern aggression. Anyone who knew her mother knew that this was no contest at all.
    The Georgia Railroad terminated on the Savannah River at Augusta, one of the Confederacy’s busiest arsenals. The city leaders had been slow to assess potential Yankee threats, so it wasn’t until mid-August that serious work began to erect fortifications around the city. A force of some 500 slaves labored in the summer heat to dig the defensive strong points. The feeling that Georgia’s fate was not being sufficiently considered in far-off Richmond was shared by many. One Augusta newspaper editorial rhetorically asked the Confederate government “whether the State of Georgia is necessary to the achievement of our independence?” By mid-September every available slave had been pressed into the job of protecting Augusta, so many in fact that when the post’s military commander requested a detail to dig some soldier graves, he was told that no extra hands were available.
    The course of the Macon and Western Railroad ran south and then east of Atlanta. The population of Macon,