Jefferson Davis, president of the Southern Confederacy, left Richmond, Virginia on Tuesday, September 20, 1864 for Georgia to uplift the Confederate war effort as best he could. Arriving in Macon, Georgia on the 22nd Davis rallied his war weary southern people, noting “Our cause is not lost. Sherman cannot keep up his long line of communication, and retreat, sooner or later, he must.” Promising that he would soon confer with General Hood, Davis pled for all Southern army absentees to return to active duty and urged “Let no one despond.” He then traveled to Hood’s headquarters at Palmetto, Georgia, where he confidently told Tennessee troops, “Be of good cheer for within a short while your faces will be turned homeward and your feet pressing the soil of Tennessee.”