aking down. He wanted to make Toombs, who was then a general in the
army, his successor. But Brown's friends insisted that he should make
the race. The public opinion of Georgia and of the whole South
insisted on it. So he became a candidate for a fourth term. He had two
opponents,--Joshua Hill, who had been a strong Union man; and Timothy
Furlow, who was an ardent secessionist and a strong supporter of the
Confederate administration; but Governor Brown was elected by a large
majority over both candidates.

The war went steadily on, and during the year 1864 Georgia became the
battle ground,--the strategic point. This fact the Union commanders
realized very early, and began their movements accordingly. Virginia
was merely the gateway to the Confederacy, but Georgia was very near
the center of its vitality. This was shown by the fact that when Atlanta
fell, and Sherman began his destructive march to the sea, it was known
on all sides that the Confederate Government was doomed. This movement,
strange to say, was hastened by the Confederate authorities. General
Joseph E. Johnston, one of the greatest commanders of the war, was
removed at a critical moment, when his well-disciplined army had reached
Atlanta. He was ordered from Richmond to turn his army over to the
command of General Hood, and within a very few days the fate of
the Confederacy had been decided. Hood at once ordered an attack on
Sherman's lines. He was repulsed, and then compelled to evacuate the
city. General Sherman detached General Thomas from his main army to
follow Hood on his march toward the Tennessee, and moved across the
State to Savannah. Within a very few months thereafter the war was
brought to a close. Colonel I. W. Avery, in his "History of Georgia,"
says that on the thirty-first day of December, 1864, one dollar in gold
was worth forty-nine dollars in Confederate money. The private soldier
received eleven dollars of this money for a month's service. He could
buy a pound of meat with his month's pay. He could buy a drink of
whisky, and have one dollar left over. With four months' pay he could
buy a bushel of wheat. General Toombs once humorously declared that
a negro pressman worked all day printing money, and then until nine
o'clock at night to pay himself off. There was a grain of truth in this
humor,--just enough to picture the situation as by a charcoal sketch.

A DARING ADVENTURE.

On the 12th day of April, 1862, the anniversary of