Alexander Hamilton Stephens (1812-1883) was born near Crawfordville, Georgia in Taliaferro County, Georgia, to Matilda Marbury Somerville and Andrew Baskins Stephens. He graduated from Franklin College (later the University of Georgia) in 1832 and passed the bar in 1832. Stephens was elected in 1836 as a representative in the Georgia Legislature. He served as a United States congressman (1843-1859), working on sectional legislation. Stephens served as Vice-President of the Confederate States of America. Following the end of the Civil War, Stephens was imprisoned at Fort Warren in Boston, Massachusetts for five months. When he returned to Georgia, he was elected as senator, but the Senate refused to seat him. In 1873, Stephens was elected to the United States House of Representatives where he served until 1882, when he was elected governor of Georgia. Stephens wrote a 2 volume apology for the South, A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States.

James M. Calhoun (1811-1875) was born near Abbeville, South Carolina, and moved to Decatur, Georgia, at the age of 18. Calhoun studied law and passed the bar in 1832. He married Emma Eliza Dabney (1813-1860) in 1832, and they had ten children. Calhoun became the sixteenth mayor of Atlanta, Georgia in 1862, governed the city during the Civil War, and surrendered it to General William T. Sherman on September 2, 1864. Calhoun served as mayor until 1866.