I'm John Dutch with Professor Daniel Rood in the shadow of the great house.

This is the plantation system

that survived several hundred years and then the Civil War, an opportunity to end the plantation

system right then. It was a second American revolution. Sherman's March to the Sea is one way

to express ending the plantation system. Sherman went out of his way on the

march to destroy and burn down the biggest houses he could find. And one of them was a Cobb house.

Who was Cobb, Professor?

Cobb was a lawyer, a very important politician in the Confederacy.

Howell Cobb had a plantation in central Georgia and had been one of the authors of the Confederate Constitution,

which was one of the most pro-slavery documents you'll ever find.

Sherman pulls up in front of his house and makes certain that the people keeping the house,

I believe the wife, Cobb's wife, and the people who are there, including the slaves who

work in the house, know that they're going to ransack and then burn it down. And they do.

They leave ashes, do I remember correctly? And they did that. Whenever they found a big,

a great house, they went out of their way to burn it. Yes, sir. Now, that would have ended the

plantation system if they kept that up after the war, but they did not. And do we know why?

Why they went first for, they had an instinct for restitution and for empowering the slaves,

and then they pulled back. Is there a moment that happened or was it over many years?

Oh, I think it actually happened somewhat quickly um so so

sherman passes uh field order 15 basically on sherman's march just like in the american revolution

um about 10 000 people who were still suffering an enslavement in Georgia took the

opportunity when union troops passed by of fleeing their owners. They often took, they often

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