Long Weekend
2 days · ~210 miles · from Milledgeville, GA
Georgia's antebellum capital to the sea by the route the Union army burned across in 1864 — old statehouses, market squares, a prison camp and the creek where the march turned tragic.
This trip chains: Sherman's March to the Sea
Starting in Milledgeville, GA, this 2-day itinerary connects Sherman's March to the Sea. It suits travellers interested in battlefields, the movement & the past. The day-by-day bases let you split roughly 210 miles into a sequence of visits rather than trying to cover every linked route end to end. Use the daily highlights to decide which places deserve your longest stops.
Budget an average of about 105 miles per day across the whole trip, or roughly 2.3–3.5 hours behind the wheel at an assumed 30–45 mph back-roads pace. This is a planning estimate, not a measured time for each leg: transfer days can be longer and rest days shorter. Add meal stops, tours, ferries, traffic and hikes separately; use each day's navigation link for current driving estimates.
Use these day-end areas to plan lodging; the map pins are orientation points, not hotel recommendations. The final day can be your departure day.
Choose your dates around the experiences below rather than assuming one season fits the entire trip. These notes come from the linked route guides; check current forecasts and official schedules.
Georgia's Old Capital and the Governor's Mansion Sherman used as headquarters, then east through Louisville's 1795 market house to Magnolia Springs, where Camp Lawton's stockade held Union prisoners. Overnight near Millen. Give Milledgeville a proper morning, with a house tour only if its current schedule fits; the afternoon works better as a few deliberate stops than a race east. At Louisville, read the market house's history rather than treating it simply as old architecture. Camp Lawton adds the prisoners' experience to the military narrative. Choose lodging near Millen in advance and leave the Ebenezer Creek interpretation for tomorrow's approach to Savannah.
The Gothic statehouse the legislature fled in 1864; Union troops convened a mock session and repealed secession for laughs.
In December 1864, Union Gen. Jefferson C. Davis pulled his pontoon bridge, stranding hundreds of freed people who drowned fleeing Confederate cavalry. The marker holds nothing back.
An open-air market from Georgia's 1790s capital era, long associated with sales of enslaved people; the town keeps it standing to say so plainly.
A crystalline spring inside a state park that was briefly the world's largest prison stockade; archaeology keeps recovering the prisoners' buried lives.
Navigate day 1 in Google Maps ↗ · via Louisville Market House
The quiet horror of Ebenezer Creek and the 1769 Jerusalem Lutheran Church at New Ebenezer, then into Savannah — the Green-Meldrim House, where Sherman offered the city to Lincoln as a Christmas gift.
In December 1864, Union Gen. Jefferson C. Davis pulled his pontoon bridge, stranding hundreds of freed people who drowned fleeing Confederate cavalry. The marker holds nothing back.
The 1769 brick church of the Salzburger exiles, often called Georgia's oldest standing church, swan weathervane and all.
Sherman's Savannah headquarters, where he telegraphed Lincoln the city as a Christmas gift, 1864's most theatrical war dispatch.
Navigate day 2 in Google Maps ↗ · via Ebenezer Creek, Jerusalem Lutheran Church
Sherman's March to the Sea is a 2-day trip of about 210 miles.
It starts in Milledgeville, GA.
It chains Sherman's March to the Sea.
Day 1: near Millen; Day 2: Ebenezer Creek → Savannah.