In 1864, on this spot (bordered by the present-day streets of Marietta, Means, and Tech Parkway), a house faced out over miles of fortifications toward the Union army as it advanced toward Atlanta during the Civil War. The Ponder House was built by prominent south Georgia planter and slave trader Ephraim G. Ponder, on property purchased in 1857.

During the war, the house rested just within the city’s northwestern fortifications, giving it crucial significance as a defensive position for the Confederate Army. The property bristled with chevaux-de-frise, the iconic defenses against charging cavalry. Sharpshooters filled the upper level of the house and the widow’s walk (the railed walkway atop the roof of the house). This provided them with a formidable vantage point, but also made them a prime target for the Union battery located at the intersection of Howell Mill Road and 8th St. NW. Union Army Major General John W. Geary began his assault of the area by ordering the shelling of the house for hours. As its defenders died in waves, the remaining soldiers began to wonder “how many tons of shot and shell were accumulating within their uncertain fortress.”

The Ponder House was a significant location in the war long before the fighting reached it. Earlier in the campaign, the house was one of many Atlanta buildings outfitted as convalescent camps to serve the sick and wounded of the war. Other spaces, such as Emory University and the Atlanta city fairgrounds, were also converted into hospitals. The Ponder House remained a convalescent camp until it became too dangerous for that purpose.

One of the most dramatic scenes at the house happened alongside its well. A few brave Confederates, including John Shropshire of Atlanta, were gunned down by the Union as they attempted to retrieve precious water from the well, which was already perforated with minie balls. Shropshire was the twenty-seventh man to be killed near the well. He died with over a dozen canteens strapped to his back.

Today, the property where the Ponder House once stood sits on the outskirts of the Georgia Tech Campus, and is one of thousands of historic sites that has succumbed to developing industry in a city that has been born from the ashes of war.

Credits and Sources:

Researched and written by Levi Laseter, Jack Lindsay, and Trevor Gillogly, student at the Westminster Schools.

Bernard, George. “Atlanta, Ga. Confederate Palisades and "chevaux-de-frise" near Potter House.” Photograph. Library of Congress. Accessed January 14, 2015. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cwpb.03415/.

———. “Atlanta, Ga. The Shell-damaged Ponder House.” Photograph. Library of Congress. Accessed January 14, 2015. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cwpb.02229/.

Reddick, James. “Ephraim Graham Ponder.” Rootsweb. http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=reddirtgirl&id=I2935.

Davis, Stephen. "Civil War: Atlanta Home Front." Georgia Encyclopedia. Accessed January 14, 2015. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/civil-war-atlanta-home-front.

Garrett, Franklin M. Volume 1: A Chronicle of Its People and Events, 1820s–1870s. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1969.