Kingston, a town whose history is inextricably tied to the Western and Atlantic Railroad, experienced several noteworthy events during the Civil War. Kingston was a major center for the shipment of potassium nitrate, or saltpeter, used to produce gunpowder at the Confederate Powder Works in Augusta, Georgia. The mine near Kingston was taken over by the Confederate Nitrate Bureau early in the war and operated until the Federal army forced it to cease operation in May 1864.
The Great Locomotive Chase came through Kingston on April 12, 1862. Andrews’ Raiders were forced to wait over an hour on a sidetrack in Kingston while several southbound freight trains steamed through town. It was also in Kingston that Captain William A. Fuller and his party abandoned Cooper’s Iron Works yard engine Yonah to continue their pursuit with the more powerful engine William R. Smith.
Both Confederate and Federal armies marched through Kingston on the way to Atlanta. When Major General William T. Sherman spent May 19-23, 1864, in Kingston, he planned to move his army off the railroad supply line and to the west towards Dallas in Paulding County. With the Confederate army entrenched in the natural fortification of the Allatoona Mountain range, a direct assault would have been suicidal. Sherman was familiar with the terrain, having worked on a government project in North Georgia years before. By moving around the Confederate army’s left, Sherman’s continual flanking movements would force the Confederates to retreat or fight at a disadvantage, a strategy known as the “red clay minuet.”.
After the armies moved south, Kingston served as a supply base for the Federal army. In November 1864, while General John B. Hood’s army marched north for the Tennessee campaign, Sherman was in Kingston conducting much of his telegraph correspondence with Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant on the strategies that would end the Civil War. He ultimately wrote his final orders for the March to the Sea while occupying the V.B. Hargis House, which the Federals burned upon departing.
Before Federal occupation, Kingston served as a Confederate hospital center. A monument honoring the women who cared for thousands of Confederate and Union sick and wounded at the eight Confederate hospitals in Kingston can be seen at the southern end of the city park. Kingston was also the site of the last surrender of Confederate troops east of the Mississippi on May 12, 1865, by their commander, Brigadier General William T. Wofford.