The Georgia Historical Society Monday installed a new Civil War marker in the southwest Georgia town of Quitman.
The plaque commemorates a failed slave revolt in the town near the Florida border.
Three slaves and their white ringleader named John Vickery were hanged in Brooks County in August 1864.
Authorities had discovered their plot to murder the town’s landowners and flee to Florida, with its promise of food depots and occupying Federal troops.
The story highlights how three and a half years into war, many Georgians – especially poor, non-slaveholders -- were hungry for food, war-weary and disillusioned with the Confederate cause.
Christy Crisp, Director of Programs with the Georgia Historical Society, says uprisings like this grew more frequent as the war went on.
“One thing that we’re trying to do with this Civil War 150 marker program is to show that the Civil War in Georgia impacted the entire state, and that stories like this took place outside of Atlanta and Savannah and that really the entire population of Georgia was impacted.”
The group will unveil five more markers statewide in preparation for the war’s 150th anniversary.