Knott & Hollingsworth buy 16 bales on April 21, 1864 — two lots at different rates. Two bales branded R.C.B. sell at 35 cents per pound, $327.25. Fourteen more at 45 cents, $3,050.55. Total first sale: $3,381.80. Knott & Hawes buy 10 bales on March 4, 1865 — 5,203 lbs at 80 cents per pound, $4,162.40.

The April sale at 45 cents and the March sale at 80 cents document the price trajectory of wartime cotton across ten months. The second sale is made after Fort Sumter has fallen and before the war formally ends — the cotton that crossed the Toby Sofky bridge in early 1865 sold at the highest per-pound price in the estate's entire record.

James W. Knott — the same buyer who purchased pindars in 1862 — receives $2,000 for one syrup mill. It is the largest single purchase in the war-era record, and the largest non-enslaved-person purchase in the entire estate. A syrup mill processes sorghum or sugar cane into molasses and syrup. The plantation has been producing food crops since 1862 — peas, pindars, corn, lard. A syrup mill in September 1864 is production infrastructure for the food economy the plantation has been building across three years of war. The estate that paid $1.80 for a box of chrome green paint in 1859 pays $2,000 for this.

August 10: cash handed J.S. Bryan going to Front — $40.00. October 11: cash handed J.S. Bryan going to Front — $20.00. James S. Bryan is documented in the estate returns as a student, then a boarder, then an overseer. The ledger records him going to the Front twice in 1864 with money from the estate — $40 in August, $20 in October. The two entries are the full extent of what the documents record about his military service.

Catharine H. Bryan died May 1861. Her estate — dower land, a cotton crop, individual interests — is being distributed among her heirs across 1864 and into 1865. Ira Hugh Bryan receives $954.60 as his full distributive share: one-tenth of one-eighth of 65 bales of cotton, $414.60, plus $540 for lands, March 4, 1865. Cornelius Bryan receives $1,903.20 for his own and W.M. Whitehurst's share — one-tenth of one-sixth — covering mother's dower and her interest in 65 bales of cotton, March 28, 1865. The distribution of one estate running through the administration of another, three and a half years after her death.

Cornelius Bryan receives $350.00 in full payment of all demands for overseeing and negro hire up to this date — January 18, 1865. A single receipt closing out the overseer arrangement that has been running since 1856. Nine years of overseeing and hire of Claiborne, Charles, and Matilda, settled in one final payment. The receipt is signed by Cornelius. The arrangement ends here.

In February 1853, the estate paid Samuel Griswold $48.50 to overhaul the plantation's 50-saw cotton gin — filing all fifty saws, fitting a new main shaft, fifty-one new ribs, a new cotton box. Griswold came to the plantation to do the work. His factory was four miles east of Macon at Griswoldville, where he made and repaired cotton gins for customers across the county. When the war came, Confederate pistols were made at Griswoldville.

On November 20, 1864, Sherman's right flank came through Griswoldville and burned what was there — the depot, the factory works, everything. Two days later, Georgia militia marched into Union artillery near the ruins. A Union soldier who was there wrote about it that night. His brigade of eleven hundred had faced about six thousand men. The Confederates came out of the pine timber in three lines. Old grey-haired and weakly looking men and little boys, not over fifteen years old, lay dead or writhing in pain. Confederate losses: a thousand. Union losses: fourteen. The gin repairman's factory was ash.

— Lynton: A History of the 1832 Bryan Plantation House, Chapter Six.

Three separate entries record Bryan family members traveling to Wilkinson County. June 16, 1864: cash handed to Honora Bryan going to Wilkinson — $20.00. January 17, 1865: cash handed to Catharine P. Bryan going to Wilkinson — $20.00. February 18, 1865: cash handed to Laura A. Bryan for Wilkinson — $20.00. Nancy Bryan Whitehurst lives in Gordon, Wilkinson County, where her husband W.M. Whitehurst was away with the State Guard cavalry.

In November 1864, between Honora's June trip and Catharine P.'s January trip, Sherman's right flank moved through Wilkinson County on its march toward Savannah. Nancy's plantation in Gordon lay on the army's path. Sherman's officers made their headquarters there. When the columns moved on, the plantation was left desolate. The estate records show two of Nancy's sisters traveling to Gordon in the months that follow. The ledger records the travel expenses. It does not record what they found when they arrived.