Atlanta, Georgia had been devastated in the war, but as a major railroad center it rebuilt rapidly afterwards, attracting many rural migrants. From 1860 to 1870 Fulton County (Of which Atlanta was the county seat) more than doubled in population, from 14,000 to 33,000. In a pattern seen across the South, many freedmen moved from plantations to towns or cities for work and to gather in communities of their own.