Novelist and short-story writer Flannery O'Connor is one of Milledgeville's most famous residents. The author of novels Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away spent the last 13 years of her life at her family farm just north of town.
Locals believe ghosts haunt what remains of the antebellum homes in Milledgeville. Laid out as the state capital of Georgia in 1803 (a title it held until Atlanta assumed the role in 1868), the town was not as fortunate as nearby Madison in escaping Union torches during the Civil War. Sherman's troops stormed through here with a vengeance after the general heard hardship stories from Union soldiers who had escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp in nearby Andersonville. Quite a few antebellum buildings remain, including the Old Governor's Mansion and the old statehouse.
