October 28, 1861 (Monday): Governor Brown-Georgia First

Milledgeville, GA Old Capital Building

MILLEDGEVILLE, October 28, 1861.

Honorable J. P. BENJAMIN:
I am just informed by private source, having no official information, that you have ordered the troops at Camp Stephens and Camp McDonald, and probably other regiments, to Virginia. We are expecting an invasion of Georgia every day. You have nearly all Georgia army and over 20,000 of her troops in Virginia. Again, the winter is just commencing, and these troops are poorly supplied with clothes for cold weather. It will therefore be peculiarly hard on them to be ordered to Virginia for the winter. In the name of the State and as an act of justice to the troops I feel it my imperative duty to enter my solemn protest against the removal.

JOSEPH E. BROWN.

Official Records, Series 1, Vol. 51, Part 2, Page 359

With rumors running rampant regarding the destination of the Union expedition, Governor Brown of Georgia had reason to marry to his frequent complaint of Georgia soldiers being concentrated in Virginia to the detriment of his home state defenses.  In best of times Brown was an incessant voice in Richmond's ear with no matter regarding Georgia troops too small for his attention.  He calls attention in this letter to the relative difference in winter climate in Virginia, which is no small point.  Throughout the war operations would slow during the winter as the need to supply and shelter large numbers of men was adversely affected by weather conditions.  One other note of interest-Milledgeville, from where Brown writes, was at the time the capital of Georgia.  Atlanta did not rise to prominence until it assumed its place during the war as a critical rail junction.