E. Brown was elected Governor of Georgia. He supported free public education for poor white children, believing that it was key to the development of the state. He asked the state legislature to divert a portion of the profits from the state-owned Western & Atlantic, to help fund the schools. Most planters did not support public education and paid for private tutors and academies for their children. That resistance, and inadequate railroad income, initially thwarted governor Brown's education reform efforts. The Western and Atlantic Railroad was mismanaged at the time, and unable to produce the income Brown required to fund his public education proposal. In 1858, Governor Brown appointed John W. Lewis to the position of Superintendent of the state-owned railroad. Lewis had the skills of a successful businessman, and immediately undertook reforms to turn around the failing enterprise. The railroad, said to be in "dire financial straits", required the same strict economic controls Lewis had practiced in his private businesses. In the three years that Lewis ran the railroad, he was able to turn the business into a money making enterprise, paying $400,000 per year into the state treasury. In 1861, Brown was up for re-election to a third term. It was at this time, during the re-election campaign, that Western & Atlantic Railroad Superintendent John Woods Lewis, an old friend of the governor, decided to resign from the railroad. The timing could not have been worse. Fearing that Lewis' resignation would be interpreted negatively, the governor requested that Lewis keep the resignation a secret. But the resignation letter was leaked to the press, causing a rift between the two old friends. Brown wrote to Lewis saying "I did not deserve this at your hands, and I confess I felt it keenly...I do not attribute improper motives, but only say the coincidence was an unfortunate one for me". Leasing Through 1870, it was called the State Road, and was operated directly by the state under a superintendent appointed by and reporting to the governor of Georgia. On December 27 of that year, operations were transferred to the Western & Atlantic Railroad Company, a group of 23 investors including Georgia's wartime governor Joseph E. Brown, who leased it (both tracks and rolling stock) from the state for $25,000 per month. This expired 20 years later, when the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis (NC&StL) leased it for 29 years. The railroad