One of America's oldest Gothic Revival buildings, where Georgia voted to secede in 1861 and Union troops staged a mock repeal — and where phantom marching is still reported on the parade grounds.
201 E Greene St, Milledgeville, GA 31061
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Campus grounds open to the public; contact Georgia Military College for interior access and tours
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat campus grounds with paved walkways; historic building has steps
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1807 · One of oldest Gothic Revival civic buildings in the United States · Georgia Secession Convention January 19, 1861 · Sherman's 1864 Union occupation and mock repeal of secession · Lafayette visit 1825 · National Register of Historic Places
The Old State Capitol was completed in 1807 after Georgia's legislature voted in 1804 to relocate the capital from Louisville to Milledgeville. Designed in the Gothic Revival style — an unusually early American use of the form for civic architecture — it was expanded with a north wing in 1828, a south wing in 1834, and granite portico steps in 1835. The Marquis de Lafayette visited during his 1825 American tour.
On January 19, 1861, Georgia's Secession Convention convened in the building and voted to withdraw from the Union — one of the pivotal legislative actions leading to the Civil War. When Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's forces arrived on November 23, 1864, state officials had already fled. The building was damaged during the occupation, and armories and magazines on the Statehouse Square were destroyed. Union troops then staged a mock legislative session in the chamber, theatrically 'repealing' Georgia's secession.
After the Civil War, the building served as a courthouse from 1871 to 1879 before Georgia Military College took over the campus. The building remains the center of the college to this day and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sources
The lingering paranormal tradition at the Old State Capitol centers on sound rather than apparition. Witnesses on the adjacent parade grounds have reported the sound of massed troop movement — boots on ground, a cadence — with no corresponding physical presence. The phenomenon has been documented in Georgia.gov's own coverage of the site, giving it a degree of official acknowledgment unusual for paranormal claims.
A Confederate sentry apparition has also been reported, described as a uniformed figure that appears briefly at the building's perimeter before disappearing. Given the building's documented history as a site of Civil War-era legislative drama — secession voted here in January 1861, Union occupation in November 1864 — the campus has accumulated enough historical weight to anchor persistent folk accounts of residual presence.
The mock legislative session staged by Sherman's troops in 1864 adds an additional layer of symbolic intensity: the building that formalized Georgia's departure from the Union was also the stage for a theatricalized federal reassertion of authority.
Notable Entities
The Old State Capitol's Gothic Revival exterior, with its distinctive crenellated towers and granite steps added in 1835, is visible from E Greene Street. The adjoining parade grounds where phantom marching sounds have been reported are accessible on the Georgia Military College campus.
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Milledgeville, GA
Georgia College & State University occupies a campus in Milledgeville, Georgia's antebellum state capital. The Old Governor's Mansion on campus housed ten Georgia governors from 1839 to 1868 before becoming part of the college. Sanford Hall, a campus residence hall, became the site of a 1952 tragedy when student Betty Jean Cook died there.
Augusta, GA
Nicholas Ware, a former Augusta mayor who later served in the U.S. Senate, commissioned this Federal-style mansion at 506 Telfair Street in 1818 at a cost of $40,000—approximately $12 million in current terms—earning it the nickname 'Ware's Folly' for its extravagance. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 (reference #73000641). The building has housed the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art since 1937, when it was founded as the Augusta Art Club by Olivia Herbert; it was later renamed in memory of Herbert's daughter Gertrude Herbert Dunn.
Gainesville, GA
The Hall County Library System's main branch at 127 Main Street SW in Gainesville occupies the site of the former Wheeler Hotel, a downtown landmark, and an antebellum Brown Family Cemetery whose remains were relocated to Alta Vista Cemetery in the 1920s before construction. Staff began reporting unusual activity attributed to a figure they named 'Miss Elizabeth' — eventually enlisting paranormal investigators to document the phenomena.