USA > Georgia > Jones County > History of Jones County, Georgia, for one hundred years, specifically 1807-1907 > Part 15
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turning that flank. I also applied to Col. Murray for some Cav- alry to cover the flanks; he kindly sent a Regiment on each flank, covering and watching the crossing of the swamp.
I cannot speak in too high terms of the coolness and gallantry of Brig. Gen. C. C. Walcutt and Col. R. F. Catterson, 97th Ind. Inf. The skill with which they handled the troops and the re- sults obtained show them to be men of marked ability.
The rebel loss as near as could be ascertained without actual count, was 300 killed and from 700 to 1,200 wounded. Major Gen. Phillips, Col. Munn, Fifth Ga., and Col. George, are re- ported by the prisoners taken to have been killed, and Brig. Gen. Anderson to have been wounded. Twenty-eight prisoners were captured and turned over to the provost-marshal of the army corps. Fifteen wounded were brought in and left at a house, not having transportation for them. Our loss was 13 killed, 79 wounded, and 2 are missing.
Enclosed please find list of killed and wounded. (omitted in the report).
I will forward Col. Catterson's report as soon as received.
I have the honor to be, Captain, your most obedient servant, Chas. R. Woods, Brig. Gen. of Volunteers. to Capt. Frederick Whitehead,
Asst. Adj. Gen. 15th Army Corps.
Confederate Traitor Passing of Stoneman's and Sherman's Armies from Jones County News, November 19, 1908 By S. H. Griswold
There were some amusing and dramatic things happened in the county during the passing of Stoneman's and Sherman's armies.
Quiet old Jones county, with no large city or railroad, except the Central through the lower corner, was subject to the passing of these two armies of the Federal government. Stoneman in August 1864 and Sherman in November 1864, at the "saspross" Stoneman sent a detachment by way of the Stewart place to Pine Ridge, Gordon and down the Central railroad to a bridge on the Oconee river where they burned this bridge and returned to him near Sunshine Church. This squad passed the Duncan place in the
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night. Bill Bonner lived at this place and was quietly sleeping when they came and knocked at his door, demanding that he strike a light. He was taken by surprise, and not dreaming that a Yankee was in miles of him, but a glimpse of the guns, etc., which he got when he opened the door he recognized who they were and it frightened him so that he was slow striking a light when one of them said he had a match and would strike one, whereupon Bill made a break for a side door leading to the back yard. This door he had left open, it being a hot night, and out he went dressed only in his nightshirt, over the yard fence he leaped, down the hill he ran over stumps, rocks, and through briars-running briars-which wound around his naked legs and tore the skin as he went, into the woods, he ran until he was exhausted, but they did not get him, neither did Sherman's army get him when they came, but he had to hide out in Commis- sioners Creek swamp near them all night and from wading the creek and sloughs he was wet and muddy and almost frozen. After Stoneman passed and before Sherman came, he kept his horse saddled and tied to a swinging limb in his yard and if he saw two men coming riding down the road together he would mount his horse and break for the woods. His brother, Charlie, used to say that he ran through our pasture so often that our cattle would run to the swamps whenever they saw a man on horseback.
Mr. Gray Andrews lived on the Grantland place not far from the Jones county line. Mr. Andrews loved to fox hunt and he had a pack of fox hounds. Mr. Orme had come out from Milledge- ville and while in the house talking to Mrs. Andrews, Sherman's men came and Mr. Orme had to hide himself ran under the bed. The dogs in the yard got frightened when the Yankees got to shooting the fowls in the yard and ran into the house and under the bed where Mr. Orme was. After a while quiet reigned and Mr. Orme called softly to Mrs. Andrews and said, "Are they gone?" "No, no," says Mrs. Andrews, "you had better keep quiet." After a little while he again called and asked if they had gone. "No" says Mrs. Andrews "and if you don't keep quiet they will find you." "Well, madam," he says, "these dogs smell mighty bad." He was the editor of the Southern Recorder at
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Milledgeville at the time. He was not found but certainly re- joiced when relieved. The dogs "smelled mighty bad."
David and Dennis Lester were two aged brothers that lived on joining plantations near Fortville. They were wealthy plant- ers and owned large plantations and many negroes. Sherman's men visited their places and carried off their stock and burned their gin houses and cotton. It was told by the negroes at the time that one squad at Dennis and David Lester's demanded gold of him and that he refused it and that they hung him three different times, almost suffocating him, but he defied them and refused to give them the gold. Capt. J. R. Bonner informs me that this was a mistake and that he did give it to them from its hiding place under the hearth of an old outhouse what gold he had and a fine watch and chain and ring of D. W. Lester, his son. He did this to save his property from being burned and himself from hanging. Probably he is right, but neighborhood talk at the time was that they did hang him and it was also said that David Snellings, his nephew did it, but Capt. Bonner says Snellings did not go to David Lesters, but to Dennis Lesters and that he sent a squad of cavalry there and burned the gin house and cotton of Dennis Lester after it had been spared by Blair's men. Gen. Sherman, in his book says Lieut. Snellings, of his escort asked leave of him at the Cobb place to go to spend the night with his uncle nearby and that he granted it and when he returned next morning that he brought him a very fine horse which he had taken from his uncle. This David Snelling was the son of Dennis and David Lester's sister. They had her to live in a house between their homes and provided for her and her chil- dren as long as she lived and after her death her son, David, moved to Baldwin county, but in the same neighborhood. He enlisted in Capt. J. R. Bonner's Co. H, 57th Ga. Regt., May 1862, deserted in July near Bridgeport, Ala. on Tennessee river and joined the Yankee army, was made a Lieut. in Sherman's escort and came through his old home with him in 1865 and visited his uncle and repaid his kindness and care of him and his mother by stealing his horse and burning his property. The Lester brothers had given him all the education he had and had provided for the family until his mother died and he was
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grown and able to shift for himself. He came back to Baldwin on a visit after the war, but left hurriedly after a short stay! Capt. Bonner received a letter about five years ago from Ozark, Ark., from his widowed wife who said he was dead and asking him for certain information in order to get a pension. This he gave and the pension was granted. A deserter. He was capable of doing anything mean and was none too good to have hanged his benefactor for money.
Mrs. Swanson, nee Miss Sallie Bowen then Mrs. Hamilton was at the Dr. Bowen old plantation near Gray all alone when Sherman's army came, except the negro servants. Her husband, Col. Hamilton was with Hood's army at the time. Sherman's men swarmed around the place, taking the horses and mules and everything else that they wanted, taking her valuable silverware which had been her mother's. She was badly frightened of them, but later on secured a guard for the house and the men were kept out. After the main army had left and the guard withdrawn there came one of those stragglers to the house and just as he entered Lieut. Henry S. Greaves who had gotten a short leave to visit his wife at the Stewart place, joining the Bowen place, with three other Confederates, came up the road and saw him enter. They at once made for the house, which set back some distance from the road, to capture him, but he saw them and ran through the house into a back room and hid behind a wardrobe. Mrs. Hamilton thought he had gone through the house and yard into the woods nearby and she told Greaves and he and the men searched there for him but failed to look in the house. It would have gone hard with him had they gotten him for Greaves was badly wrought up over the depredations which he saw had been committed in this, his home county.
After they left the Yankee came out and told where he had been and said that he would give himself up, but he did not do so at least, not to Greaves. He thought that this man had been a guard for Mrs. Hamilton and that she hid him from them, but Mrs. Hamilton assured me that he was mistaken in this and that she certainly thought that he had gone through the house into the woods, as she had stated. So far as wanting to hide him, she was in mortal dread of him and would have gladly given him
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up. The fear, anxiety, etc. of this noble Christian lady ! Young, handsome and accomplished, her husband in the army, all alone, no white people nearby, only the negro servants for protection. It was a time of great distress indeed and when the main army had passed and this straggler came she had everything to dread and nothing to hope for, and what a relief it must have been when she saw her friend Greaves come up. It was an experience that none cares to go through with and was enough to turn her hair gray. They left her one small pony which she had saddled intending to go to her brother Tom's near Haddock, but her faithful negro servant pleaded with her so hard not to go that she finally yielded, and it was well she did, for Blair's corps was camped around his place, his house being Blair's headquarters.
CHAPTER XI.
Reconstruction - 1865-1875
In April 1865, the War Between the States came to a halt. After four years of death, blood and destruction and a bitterness and hatred that left its mark on the people for generations to come. General Robert E. Lee with sorrowing heart had gone home, proud to the last of the gallant men in gray. He was a gentleman of courtesy, heroic self-control whose dedication to duty was sublime. He will always be remembered by those who descend from Confederates as a model of chivalry and the flower of Southern manhood. He was as much a spiritual leader as a military leader in the fight for independence.
The life of the Confederacy was of short duration. Its at- tempt to exercise the right of a State to withdraw from the Union failed at the end of four years of a struggle as human and moving as men could make it. After the waste, destruction, misery and anguish, the gallantry and devotion of men on both sides, the United States was born. The old union of states fed- erated together for specific and limited purposes died and a new nation came into existence.
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Aleck Stevens and Pres. Jefferson Davis had been arrested and thrown in prison and the Negroes were roaming the land, loafing, stealing and living on free rations. It was a time of great bewilderment, confusion, hard and bitter times. There was no organized state, no power of government, no food, labor or money and stocks and bonds were worthless. Georgia's debts were mounting in all of the poverty, grief and starvation and the barest necessities were unavailable. The thin, worn out and ragged veterans were coming home to ashes.
At least three-fourths of the state's wealth was lost, the prom- ising school situation started before the war went to pieces and the money had to be used in aiding widows and starving fam- ilies.
Salt was a great problem and $5,000 was offered to anyone who would discover and produce as much as 300 bushels a day. Anyone who hoarded or speculated in salt would be dealt with swiftly.
Jones County people had learned to make the most of what they had during the war. They made and used wooden shoes. They learned to make good pistols from scrap iron and steel gathered from the homes and farms, needles were made from hawthornes, cork from cypress, blackening from chinaberries, rope from Spanish moss, coffee from peas and corn, sorghum for sugar, figs for red dye, sumac for purple dye, indigo for blue, and copperas was a favorite coloring. There was never enough sedatives, quinine, salt or iron. Soap making had been done on the farm since 1807. The people used great care in utilizing the meat scraps, fats and bones. They were cooked with the lye drained from the hickory ashes. Good soap was made for domes- tic uses and hard soap for the big house. Sometimes a bar of Castile soap was bought for the babies' use.
Had Sherman's army never entered Georgia she would have had hard enough time recovering from the destruction, mass suffering and privations she was going through. But when Sher- man's armies cut a swath of burning and destruction on the state already on her knees - - - that can never be forgotten. Sherman claims in his own book that he destroyed $100,000,000 worth of actual property and that $80,000,000 of this was wanton waste.
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Forty thousand of Georgia's best citizens were dead and miss- ing. Little chance did anyone have to save anything against hungry Yankees and "bummers," who plundered unmercifully.
"The pang of the Confederate failure and disappointment could have been endured, had it been less bitterly reinforced with the gall and wormwood of reconstruction. The sovereignty of Georgia lay prostrate. The carpetbagger and the former slave upheld by the bayonets of the military power, were in full con- trol of the political machinery. This was the reign of political terror. Immediately after Lincoln's death, when the Radicals could get the upper hand, the parasites and looters, scallawags and scavengers, knaves and fools, took possession of the State governments and entered upon pillaging the stricken people." (P.219 "The Tragic Era.")
James Devreaux, a Negro from Jones Co. was elected to rep- resent Wilkinson, Twiggs and Jones Counties in the State Senate during this period of Reconstruction. Another Negro Jacob Hutchings was the Representative of Jones County. (See Letters of S. H. Griswold-"Bayonet Rule.")
As the Federal bayonets forced black state governments in the South not a single Negro held elective office in any Northern State.
The carpetbaggers and the Negroes had powers, while the whites were disfranchised and the intelligent people cast out. Strangers represented districts they had never seen. The South was dealt with as an alien enemy, to be trodden down and kept under foot for long years. Liberty meant lawlessness and even Pres. Johnson in a message urged the Negro to "adopt systems of morality and abstain from licentiousness, to develop their intellect and apply their physical powers for the good of the country." To this the Radicals laughed; Thad Stevens, Stanton, Theodore Tilton, Oliver P. Morton, and others.
Kindness and generosity would have won back the allegiance of the South, but all of the bayonets in the American -Union could not drive manhood from their breasts. Benjamin Harvey Hill said, "Thy shalt not take the life, liberty or property of a citizen except according to the laws of the land and judgment of his peers," but they did.
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I quote from "The Tragic Era," by Bowers, p. 211, "As soon as Lincoln died the gleeful radicals began blackening Pres. An- drew Jackson because he dare carry out Lincoln's policy of len- iency towards the South. Wildcat financiers made a dunce out of Grant, quadroon belles shaking laughter off their bare shoulders in carpeting revels down South; Washington crammed with lob- byists, gamblers, swindlers, bribed Senators, bubbling wine and snobbery, all too close to the so-called statesmen."
Any invaded country knows what one suffers at the hands of the conqueror. I quote from Benjamin Hill's speech on July 10, 1867. "Go on confiscating, you radicals, arrest without warrant or cause, destroy habeas corpus, deny trial by jury, abrogate State Governments, defile your own race . . . on . . . on with your work of ruin, ye hell-born rioters in sacred things, but remember that for all these things the people will call you to judgment. .. . Ye aspire to be Radical Governors, and Judges . . . I paint before you this day your destiny, you are but cowards and knaves, and the time will come when you will call upon the rocks and moun- tains to fall on you and the darkness to hide you from an out- raged people."
Courts were silent, schools empty, churches deserted. Dwell- ings were burned, fences destroyed, and blackened chimneys marked the land. Once a smiling country, peaceful, prosperous and happy was now converted by war into a bloody scene, of utter desolation and starvation. No crops could be raised that hideous year and charity could not penetrate this wilderness of devastation.
After four long years of conflict the resources of the South were completely exhausted. Its paper currency depreciated to the vanishing point. The stores were empty, no manufactured goods were obtainable, only the little produced on the farms could be had. The cotton that escaped burning during the invasion had no market, because the ports were blockaded and the price of cotton in New York in 1864 reached a dollar a pound. Had it not been destroyed by the invaders in wanton revenge, its sale would have enabled Georgia to have recuperated her resources. Private property is supposed to be spared in war, but it was not. The result was that the poverty of the people was pitiful. Other
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generations were to be born before prosperity returned and a new era had dawned. And so the Old South is now only a mem- ory to be recalled in song and story but never again to be known.
Negroes were made free as the South was put in economic bondage as well as political for so long that after a hundred years there ranks a bitterness that a century has not blotted out. There was no Marshall Plan or G.I. bills or any credit to be found so with sweat and muscle Jones County along with the rest of the South started to make her own recovery. In Jones County there were no scallawags, no not one. Ten years went by after surrender before any record shows that there was a school. The days of Reconstruction under the bayonet rule, sired the Ku Klux Klan and the words, "Damn Yankee." At this point I want to mention a few men who used a cool head but a grim determination to get control of the county affairs, and eventually they did. They were: James M. Gray, Dr. James F. Barron, Bob Barron, Capt. Chas. Hamilton, Col. Hamilton, James H. Blount, Dick Hutchings, Bert Hutchings, Henry Christian, R. W. Bonner, Wilkes Gresham, Nat Glover, F. S. Johnson, E. C. Grier, George Mckay, John Bradley, Ham Ridley, Roland T. Ross, Thomas Bowen, Sam Barron and others.
Slowly but surely Jones rebuilt first, her homes, then her churches and schools. Benjamin Harvey Hill on July 31, at the University of Georgia made a speech urging the South to rise, rebuild her schools and educate her children, her labor, teach the sciences, build industries, water power and to build up the soil. I quote from that speech, "Nothing is so costly as ignor- ance and nothing so cheap as knowledge, and the very right arm of all future national power will rest in the education of the people. The educated men now before me must be responsible for the future of Georgia. The future will be anything you now command." Benjamin Hill's challenge had a profound effect on the South and she did start the long task against indomitable odds of rebuilding from ashes. A hundred years plus two World Wars were to pass before the South was treated as an equal, and there are many who still have doubts about that.
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CHAPTER XII.
The Eventful Eighties
After 1875 the Southerners had resumed full control of their affairs. There was the disposition on the part of the people here to extract a maximum of pleasure from a minimum of resources. Lodges, veteran reunions, fairs, amateur theatricals and musicals, traveling shows, circuses, Negro minstrels and magic lantern slides were enjoyed as well as picnics, baseball, watermelon cuttings, camp meetings and militia drills. Most of these activi- ties took place after "laying by" time.
In the South the young folks would go to the sugar cane mills to sit on the mountains of cane and chew the sweet stalks while the mule went 'round and 'round, or drink juice at the vat be- fore it went into the kettle for syrup. They picked out sweet gum and often waded in the streams and the boys would climb the willows and swing on the grape vines. Sometimes they would find a cannon ball or a minie ball. The old soldiers would tell of their part in the war, sitting around the stove in the country store and then get into an argument and one would rap his cane on the stove and the other would thump his wooden leg angrily until it would seem another battle was in the making until a pretty girl came along and the old soldiers would straighten up, stroke their beards and pay her a compliment and forget their argu- ment.
Schools were back on the way up although revenues for them were very meager. It was still tough going for Jones Countians to look forward instead of backward and to banish inherited prejudies and take advantage of revolutionary opportunities. Henry Grady was proclaiming the "New South" about 1886 and industry was on the increase. Papers carried pictures of a type- writer with wooden keys, the telephone was patented in 1876 and by 1878 the old lift type elevator in New York made by Otis was now lifted by a hydraulic installation.
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Some Jones Countians in Chicago in 1893 sent back picture post cards of the huge ferris wheel 364 feet high with the fancy words, "World's Columbian Exposition" printed on them.
In 1886 the new Central of Ga. railroad came through the center of Jones County from Macon to Athens. Parties of young people would ride up to Tallulah Falls and the mountains of North Georgia. Others went on excursions to Tybee and St. Simons Island. When the train would go through Jones County on the return trip from Tybee, people would put out the lights in their homes as it was not unusual for men under the influence to take a shot at any light in the dark, as they rode by.
In 1896 papers carried the news of a new gasoline buggy with wheels like bicycles and a flared body to hold several passengers. There were detachable leather sides and a top to keep out rain and brass trimmed lamps for lights and decoration.
Along came 1898 and the sinking of the Maine. The cry was heard from shore to shore, "Remember the Maine." Men were enlisting again but this time for a united country and Jones County's quota was soon in uniform and as zealous and loyal to Uncle Sam as any part of the country. President Mckinley issued an ultimatum to Spain April 16, 1898 giving Spain several days to say whether or not Spanish troops would vacate Cuba. On April 21, 1898 the United States Fleet at Key West sailed for Cuba; it was war on August 12. Three months and twenty-two days later Spain and the United States signed a protocol (the basis of a definite treaty of peace). President Mckinley paid Spain $20,000,000 for the Philippines, although the Filipinos didn't want us to rule them either, so they fought on for some time.
A Relic of Antiquity-1884
Mr. Cautus Morris, who keeps a general store in Jones Coun- ty, came in town Tuesday to make a few Christmas purchases. He came in a carriage drawn by two bay horses, driven by a small negro boy, who occupied the driver's box of the carriage. The carriage attracted considerable attention from all who saw it as it rolled over the streets. It was noticeable from the fact
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that it was almost whitened by age, and its build was of a style that was seen and used by our grandparents.
It was a very high affair, with holding steps almost reaching to the ground. The interior had been finely upholstered and in the most substantial manner. The work was first-class, and none of it was ripped or torn loose, but had been worn. The uphol- stering was blue, and it had faded to a dingy white, especially where the sun and rain could beat in through the windows. The material and workmanship of the entire vehicle was of the best, and the wheels and framework is good for fifty years to come.
The old vehicle belongs to Mr. Morris, and has been in his family for a number of years. He bought it from a family of Smiths living in Jones County. We are told that the carriage has a history. It came into the possession of the family by coming down from a line of descendants and connections which are traced to the very door of the White House at Washington.
The carriage was built in 1837, but it is difficult to determine the age of the timber out of which the wheels and framework are made. It will be remembered that the frigate Constitution was the oldest United States war vessel and was dubbed. the "Old Ironsides" in the war against Great Britain in 1812-15. During the last term of Andrew Jackson as President of the United States, the old. vessel went to pieces from long service. In the winter of 1837, just preceding the retirement of General Jack- son, the Democracy of New York city gathered some timbers from the hull of the Constitution and had made out of them a handsome carriage and presented it to him.
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