Georgia Military College was created in 1879 by act of the Georgia General Assembly "to educate young men and women from the Middle Georgia area in an environment which fosters the qualities of good citizenship." It was the apparent intention of the General Assembly to establish the school as a unit of the slowly forming University System of Georgia. State property in Milledgeville, including the former state capital building which had been damaged by General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea", was loaned to the University of Georgia by the Act of 1879, and the Board of Trustees of the University of Georgia was given veto powers by this Act over the acts of the local Board of Trustees of the new institution. The school was originally called Middle Georgia Military and Agricultural College and was ceded state government lands surrounding the Old Capitol Building, the seat of government for the state of Georgia from 1807–1868. The Old Capitol Building, then as now, is the main college facility and sits on the highest point in Milledgeville. Former Confederate general Daniel Harvey Hill served as president from 1885 until August 1889, when he resigned due to failing health. (He died in Charlotte, NC on September 24, 1889.) The 1890 graduating class was the first to include female students.