Information
Landmark: Cannonball HouseCity: Macon
Country: USA Georgia
Continent: North America
Cannonball House, Macon, USA Georgia, North America
Overview
In Macon, Georgia, the Cannonball House stands as one of the city’s most important historic landmarks, its brick walls still bearing the marks of the past.Built in 1853, this Greek Revival home was commissioned for Judge Asa Holt, a well-known cotton plantation owner and attorney, its white columns gleaming in the Georgia sun.With its striking architecture and rich Civil War past, the house has secured a proud spot on the National Register of Historic Places, where its brick walls still hold the echo of old marching boots.The Cannonball House stands as a classic Greek Revival home, the kind once favored across the antebellum South, with tall white columns catching the afternoon light.One of its standout design elements is the stuccoed brick, set in a crisp, perfectly balanced façade.The front portico rests on fluted Ionic columns, their stone chipped and scarred from a Civil War cannonball strike.Tall ceilings, a broad main hallway, and a grand parlor with polished wood trim-hallmarks of the mid-19th-century Southern elite home.Original plaster moldings, heart pine floors warm with a honeyed glow, and furnishings that mirror the elegance of Georgia’s upper class in the 1850s.The house got its striking name from a memorable event in the American Civil War-a moment as sharp as cannon fire echoing in the distance.On July 30, 1864, during General George Stoneman’s raid to cripple Confederate supply lines, a Union cannonball roared into Macon, rattling windows and splintering wood.The projectile hit the sidewalk first, chipping a sharp shard of concrete outside the house.Then it ricocheted into an Ionic column, the marble ringing with a sharp, hollow crack.I stepped in through the front parlor, walked the narrow hallway, and stopped when the rear wall blocked my way.The cannonball didn’t kill or seriously hurt anyone, but its dent in the wall stayed, a scar that later came to stand for the home’s resilience.The event made such an impact that people began calling it “The Cannonball House,” and even now, the name hangs above its weathered front door.Today, the Cannonball House welcomes visitors as both a museum and a hub for local history, its wooden floors creaking softly underfoot.They work to preserve and share the story of Southern life-before the war, through its darkest days, and in the years that followed-right down to a worn quilt folded on a wooden chair.The museum greets visitors with a vibrant mix of exhibits and hands-on learning, from ancient coins you can almost feel the weight of to interactive science displays.Each room in the house has been carefully restored, then dressed with genuine 19th-century antiques-polished wood, worn brass-many pieces either original to the home or true to the era.You’ll find bedrooms, parlors, and dining rooms filled with Victorian décor, family portraits, and everyday items-a lace-trimmed lamp, a worn teacup on the table.Two.Two rooms pay tribute to the founders of two of the nation’s earliest women’s sororities, both born in Georgia.The Adelphean Room celebrates Alpha Delta Pi, established at Wesleyan College in 1851, where sunlight once spilled across its first meeting table.The Philomathean Room honors Phi Mu, a sorority founded at Wesleyan in 1852, where its early members once met by lamplight.The rooms hold memorabilia, early sorority artifacts, and exhibits that showcase women’s influence in higher education and Southern life-like a faded graduation gown hanging quietly in the corner.Number three stood alone, scratched in pencil on the corner of the page.Tucked behind the main house stands the original two-story brick kitchen with its servants’ quarters, a rare survivor from that time, its weathered bricks still warm in the afternoon sun.This part of the property offers a glimpse into the domestic work that kept Southern households running; downstairs, the kitchen holds worn iron hearths, battered utensils, and the tools once used to cook every meal.Upstairs, the small, plain rooms reveal how the enslaved people-and later the household staff-once lived, their narrow beds pressed against walls that still hold the chill.Number four.The museum’s Civil War and Southern History Collection features an impressive array of artifacts, including Confederate and Union uniforms worn threadbare in the heat of battle.Soldiers’ weapons lay beside their worn packs and dented canteens.Military letters, wartime money, and faded local records tucked in brittle paper folders.Southern-made quilts, worn flags, and sturdy 19th-century tools.This collection paints a wider picture of Georgia’s role in the Civil War, showing how the conflict touched soldiers on the battlefield and families waiting by dim lantern light at home.The Cannonball House is wrapped in tidy English-style gardens, their boxwood borders and shaded paths echoing the genteel landscapes of Southern homes from the 1800s.The gardens feature a central lawn dotted with native flowers and low shrubs, where bees drift lazily in the sun.Wrought iron fencing that fits the period, with a dark, weathered finish and cool metal under your fingertips.Shaded pathways wind past quiet benches, creating a peaceful spot where visitors can pause and listen to the rustle of leaves.Step inside the Cannonball House, and you’ll join a guided tour alive with vivid stories and the scent of old wood, each moment bringing the past into sharp focus.Tour guides slip into Civil War–era coats and bonnets, bringing the past to life as they share how people cooked, worked, and endured each day.Tours run Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with new groups starting every half hour; admission is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and military, $5 for students with ID, and free for children under four, and you can browse a gift shop stocked with books, keepsakes, and sweet tea–inspired Southern merchandise.They host special events ranging from Civil War reenactments, where smoke drifts from musket fire, to lively seasonal festivals, engaging lectures, and hands-on school field trips.The Cannonball House stands as both a carefully preserved landmark and a vibrant museum of Southern heritage, its brick walls and creaking floors echoing a layered past of antebellum wealth, wartime turmoil, reconstruction, and sweeping social change.By preserving traditions faithfully and telling their stories vividly-like the sound of a fiddle echoing through a historic hall-it’s become an essential cultural and educational touchstone in Georgia.
