November 25, 1863

1863 The Battle of Missionary Ridge began as Gen. Thomas’ corps advanced up Missionary Ridge routing the Confederate center, while Hooker attacked their left. Bragg’s army was defeated and retreated into Georgia.

November 25, 1864

1864 Sherman’s army had two different skirmishes today. The 14th and 20th Corps now formed the northern wing advancing toward Sandersville. Meanwhile to the south, the 17th Corps experienced a brief skirmish--sometimes identified as the Battle of the Oconee River Bridge -- with a strange combination of Confederate forces consisting of the Fourth Kentucky (of the Kentucky "Orphan Brigade"), cadets from the Georgia Military Institute at Milledgeville, and Georgia state penitentiary convicts. Badly outnumbered, all the Confederate coalition could do was delay the advance of the 17th.

November 25, 1864

1864 While Sherman was in the heart of Georgia, Gov. Joseph E. Brown ordered state militia Gen. W. P. Howard to inspect Atlanta and report on the condition of what was left of the city.

November 25, 1885

1885 By a margin of just over 200 votes, voters of Atlanta and Fulton County approved a referendum providing for prohibition.

November 25, 1890

1890 Lawyer and politician James Milton Smith died in Columbus, Ga. Though he did not attend college, he studied law with an attorney, gaining admittance to the bar in 1846. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Smith joined an infantry regiment and rose to the rank of colonel. Severe injuries in 1862, however, left him unable to serve in the military--so he ran for and won election to the Confederate Congress. After the war, Smith resumed the practice of law. He also won election the Georgia House of Representatives in 1870, subsequently being elected Speaker the next year. After Reconstruction governor Rufus Bullock fled the state, Smith was chosen governor in a special election in 1871 (and reelected to a four-year term in 1872). Later, he was named chairman of the newly created State Railroad Commission (later renamed the Public Service Commission). Smith’s final public office was that of superior court judge, a position he held at the time of his death in 1890.

November 25, 1960

1960 Songwriter and Christian/popular music singer Amy Grant was born in Augusta, Ga.

November 25, 1961

1961 The first mass meeting of the Albany Movement was held in Mount Zion Baptist Church (present home of the Mount Zion Albany Civil Rights Movement Museum, Inc.).

November 25, 1979

1979 The wagon train bearing gold for Georgia’s state capitol dome [see Nov. 23 entry] arrived in Atlanta. Like its predecessor in 1958, the wagon train pulled into Piedmont Park to spend the night.