Ebenezer Creek, Georgia – The Site Where Confederates Massacred Hundreds Of Unarmed African Americans

On December 9, 1864, at the end of General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Army’s march through the State of Georgia, General Sherman expressed his concern that thousands of African Americans were slowing down his army. Hence, after some of General William Sherman’s troops, directly under General Jefferson C. Davis’s command, crossed a bridge on Ebenezer Creek, on the way to Savannah, Georgia, General Davis ordered members of the army to take the bride down. The thousands of stranded African Americans were stabbed and clubbed by Confederate soldiers, that were hiding in the woods, shortly after the bridge was disassembled. General Sherman’s Army, on the other side of the river, were not able to defend the African Americans from the attack.

General Sherman, who was saddened by the act of racism by the Confederates, called on African American leaders to get advice on how to grant African Americans a better life in the south. Grant issued an army proclamation giving land to African Americans, largely in part of the advice from that meeting that began a national debate on reparations. President Johnston revoked General William Sherman’s Order During reconstruction.

Presently, there is a historical marker where the massacre occurred at Ebenezer Creek.

Author’s Note:

Members of the confederacy killed unarmed African American men, due to deep rooted racist mentalities during the war, such as during the Fort Pillow Massacre in Tennessee. African American Union soldiers that had surrendered were stabbed, shot, burnt and drowned by Confederates due to their anger at African Americans aiding with the Union to fight their army.