River Overlook

River Overlook. Civil War Defenses. The wooded hill on the horizon to your right is the site of the Cook and Brother Gun Emplacement - one of Athens' last lines of defense against invading forces., The only attempt to invade Athens during the Civil War was by the Union forces of Stoneman's Raiders. The Raiders, intent on destroying the Cook and Brother Armory and pillaging the town, approached Athens on August 2, 1864. They were met 4 miles south of downtown Athens at the Battle of Barber's Creek by the well-entrenched Athens Home Guard, or "Mitchell Thunderbolts," and a battalion of workers from the Cook and Brother Armory. After a skirmish the Raiders were repelled. Approximately 400 of these Union troops were captured near Winder, GA and temporarily returned to North Campus as prisoners before being sent to Andersonville prisoner-of-war camp. These were the only federal troops to enter Athens during Civil War., (Captions) , (above): Map showing the location of two gun emplacement sites built for the defense of Athens by the Home Guard during the Civil War. These men, called the "Mitchell Thunderbolts," obtained a single cannon and often conducted drills transporting between fortifications on Carr's Hill (the location of the GA Railroad Depot) and the bill adjacent to Cook and Brother Armory., (right): By 1864, most of Athens' able-bodied men were serving with or had been killed fighting for Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Consequently, Athens had to rely on elderly men and teenage boys for its defense. (inset): This photograph was taken of the Hodgson Brothers in their Home Guard uniforms. They are from left to right: Will Hodgson, 18, artillery; Edward R. "Prince" Hodgson, 16, artillery; Rob Hodgson, 14, cavalry., The world's only double-barrelled cannon was designed by Athenian John Gilleland and manufactured at the Athens Foundry and Machine Works. The imaginative inventor's theory was to load two cannonballs connected with a chain into the gun. The chain and cannonballs were intended to sweep evenly across the battlefield upon firing. In repeated testing, the balls traveled unpredictably, and the cannon was never used in battle., Anxious to avoid laying siege to Atlanta, General William T. Sherman sent cavalry columns south and east of Atlanta to destroy the vital railroad and liberate the Union soldiers at Andersonville - the latter proving unsuccessful. Major General George Stoneman (pictured at right) led one of these columns.