[1] Sterling, originally of Virginia, was a businessman in Macon who in 1855 moved to the LaFarge Hotel in New York before losing US$100,000 (equivalent to $3,270,000 in 2023) in a fire of uninsured property that he owned.
[2] Lanier corresponded with Anderson during the Civil War when the latter was serving with the Confederate States Army in Virginia.
[4] Lanier's letter of June 1861, since collected in the papers of Anderson, exemplifies how the fighting had yet to affect Macon and the sense of security and normality felt by the citizens there at the time.
[3] He also related his views on President Lincoln and instructed Anderson to avoid eating fried meat because "it will breed disease".
[1] Robert Lanier died in 1893, and was praised, in an obituary in the Report of Proceedings of the Annual Session of the Georgia Bar Association, for his legal knowledge, his devotion to his clients, and his "catholic" spirit; the writer compared him to "Chevalier Bayard".