<P> By 1854 Baldwin County had a total population of 8148, of whom 3566 were free (mostly white), and 4602 were African - American slaves . </P> <P> On January 19, 1861, Georgia convention delegates passed the Ordinance of Secession, and on February 4, 1861, the "Republic of Georgia" joined the Confederate States of America . In the closing months of the war, in November 1864 Union general William T. Sherman and 30,000 Union troops marched into Milledgeville during his March to the Sea . Before leaving a couple of days later, they had poured sorghum and molasses down the pipes of the organ at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church . But the Union forces spared most of the antebellum buildings there, as Sherman had relatives in the city . </P> <P> In 1868, during Reconstruction, the state legislature moved the capital to Atlanta--a city emerging as the symbol of the New South as surely as Milledgeville symbolized the Old South . </P> <P> Milledgeville struggled to survive as a city after losing the business of the capital . The energetic efforts of local leaders established the Middle Georgia Military and Agricultural College (later Georgia Military College) in 1879 on Statehouse Square . Where the crumbling remains of the old penitentiary stood, Georgia Normal and Industrial College (later Georgia College & State University) was founded in 1889 . In part because of these institutions, as well as Central State Hospital, Milledgeville developed as a less provincial town than many of its neighbors . </P>

Why did atlanta replace milledgeville as georgia's state capital
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