supporters announced a write-in candidacy for the general election, insisting that Georgians must have the option of a moderate Democrat beside the conservatives Maddox and Callaway. In his general election campaign, Maddox equated the Callaway Republicans to the American Civil War and the 1864 March to the Sea waged in Georgia by Union general William Tecumseh Sherman. He criticized the Callaway family textile mill, which he alleged had kept wages at $10 a week in Troup county. Maddox said that Callaway was unable to relate to farmers, small businessmen, and the unemployed: "He would be a lot better off if he knew about people as well as dollars." Maddox said that Callaway Gardens had hired off-duty police officers to maintain segregation at the tourist park in Pine Mountain, but a superior court judge verified that Callaway had an open admission policy at the facility. Callaway won a plurality in the general election, becoming the first Republican gubernatorial candidate to top the polls in Georgia since the close of Reconstruction, and Maddox finished second. More than 52,000 wrote in Arnall's name. Under the election rules then in effect, the state legislature was required to elect one of the two candidates with the highest number of votes, which meant that the lawmakers could not consider Arnall. With the legislature overwhelmingly dominated by Democrats, all of whom had been required to sign a Democratic loyalty oath, Maddox became governor. He was sworn-in on the evening of January 10, 1967, minutes after the legislature certified his election. Governor of Georgia Maddox campaigned hard for states' rights and maintained a segregationist stance while in office. Upon the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., he denied the slain civil rights leader the honor of lying in state in the Georgia state capitol after being told by undercover agents in the Atlanta Police Department that there was a planned storming of the state capitol by participants in the crowd of mourners. No evidence has ever emerged that this was anything more than a rumor; the undercover agents provided no evidence for it other than their statement. As a precaution, Maddox stationed 160 state troopers to surround the capitol. Regardless, the funeral procession, attended by tens of thousands; was entirely peaceful. In 1968, Maddox endorsed the former Democrat George Wallace, the then pro-segregation American Independent Party candidate in the 1968 presidential election. When he was asked what might