of was divided into 84 squares. The survey also included four public squares of each. Life in the antebellum capital After 1815 Milledgeville became increasingly prosperous and more respectable. Wealth and power gravitated toward the capital. Much of the surrounding countryside was developed by slave labor for cotton plantations, which was the major commodity crop of the South. Cotton bales regularly were set up to line the roads, waiting to be shipped downriver to Darien. Public-spirited citizens such as Tomlinson Fort (mayor of Milledgeville, 1847–1848) promoted better newspapers, learning academies, and banks. In 1837-1842 the Georgia Lunatic Asylum (later the Central State Hospital) was built here. Oglethorpe University, where the poet Sidney Lanier was later educated, opened its doors in 1838. (The college, forced to close in 1862 during the war, was rechartered in 1913. It moved its campus to Atlanta.) The cotton boom in this upland area significantly increased the demand for slave labor. The town market, where slave auctions took place, was located on Capital Square, next to the Presbyterian church. Skilled black carpenters, masons, and laborers were forced to construct most of the handsome antebellum structures in Milledgeville. Two events epitomized Milledgeville's status as the political and social center of Georgia in this period: In 1825 the capital was visited by American Revolutionary War hero and aristocrat, the Marquis de Lafayette. The receptions, barbecue, formal dinner, and grand ball for the veteran apostle of liberty seemed to mark Milledgeville's coming of age. The Governor's Mansion was constructed (1836-38/39); it was one of the most important examples of Greek revival architecture in America. By 1854 Baldwin County had a total population of 8,148, of whom 3,566 were free (mostly white), and 4,602 were African-American slaves. American Civil War and its aftermath 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 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 poured sorghum and molasses down the pipes of the organ at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. 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. Milledgeville struggled to survive as a city