USA > Georgia > The history of the State of Georgia from 1850 to 1881, embracing the three important epochs: the decade before the war of 1861-5; the war; the period of Reconstruction, v. 1 > Part 21
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Requisitions were rapidly made upon Gov. Brown for troops, first 5,000 and then 3,000 men, and promptly filled. There was no halting in this stern time. Men rushed forward to enlist, and the dear women sent them to the front in heroic tears. The people assembled by the thousand to bid adieu to the departing soldiers. It was a wild day with its under-stratum of sobs and womanly grief. The huzzas of shouting patriotism and the roar of thundering cannon sped the gallant troops away, perhaps forever, amid a torrent of soulful weeping and convulsive embraces. It was buoyant and sorrowful, an era of proud sadness and damp-eyed exhilaration. The bounding ardor of the soldier was chas- tened in the tender grief of the women left behind.to pray. Handker- chiefs and hands waved fervent farewells from apprehensive but resolute hearts. The whole State was aflame. In every county companies were made up. Newton county, that had been a Union stronghold, organized five companies in a few days, and raised a subscription of ten thousand dollars for aiding these military corps. The city of Macon in a short while furnished five hundred men. These are examples of the rest.
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A SAVANNAH COMPANY THE FIRST FOR THE WAR.
Gov. Brown stood to his wonderful labor of organization with an unceasing persistence. His resourceful energy seemed to grow, if possible. He issued a proclamation prohibiting the payment of any debt of money or property North; and the protesting by any bank of any paper due to Northern banks or people. He also issued a procla- mation exempting persons and operatives engaged in the manufactur .. of arms, woolen or cotton goods or iron, from military duty. All of the troops enlisted for the Confederate service up to May, 1861, were twelve months' companies, of which five regiments were organized.
President Davis called the Confederate Congress together on the 29th of April, 1861, and immediately an act was passed authorizing the enlistment of troops for the war. Francis S. Bartow, the chairman of the military committee, was the captain of a volunteer company in Savannah, the "Oglethorpe Light Infantry," of which the writer was a member and a private. The company was organized in 1856, and was one of the popular corps in that gallant city always noted for its mili- tary spirit and the number and efficiency of its military organizations. Capt. Bartow was in communication with the company, and as soon as the act authorizing war troops was passed and approved, he communi- cated the fact by telegraph to his company. A meeting was promptly called. The writer well remembers the glowing spirit of that meeting. Amid a storm of enthusiasm and excitement a resolution was unani- mously passed tendering the company for the war to the President. The tender was flashed over the wires in hot haste, so as to be the first. and the acceptance was sent back as quickly, Capt. Bartow immediately seeking Mr. Davis. To this superb company of young men, there being hardly a married man in it, among the best young citizens of Savannah, sons of her old and honored families, belongs the honor of being the first company in the entire Confederacy that gave its services to the South for the whole war. As this company had also furnished a detail of men for the detachment that seized Fort Pulaski under orders of Gov. Brown, before the State seceded, it had a record distinctive above all other companies of the great revolution, which will grow brighter with time. And as the company in its service in Virginia and elsewhere, went through the greatest battles of the war during the entire four years, beginning with the first Manassas, and fought with an increasing chivalry to the very close, it achieved an illustrious history and made an imperishable record of glory.
This company left for Virginia on the 21st day of May, 1861, escorted to the depot by the entire soldiery of Savannah and swarming throngs of
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BARTOW'S RAPE OF THE GUNS.
citizens. Amid salvos of artillery and the enmassed applause of the assembled people of the whole city, the train moved off with this splen- did young organization. They had arms belonging to the State, and carried them without the consent of the Executive. This rape of the guns elicited a tart correspondence between Gov. Brown and Capt. Bartow, in which some hard things were said on both sides, which prob- ably both of these patriotic gentlemen would have wished unwritten. Gov. Brown contended for the State's authority. Capt. Bartow repelled what he regarded as an assault upon his patriotism. In his letter Bartow used an expression, that in connection with his early and brilliant death at Manassas, became a marked utterance. He said, "I go to illustrate Georgia." All of these incidents, the participation in the seizure of Fort Pulaski, being the first company to enlist for the war, the forcible taking away of the State's guns, the controversy over them, and Capt. Bartow's high position in the Confederate Congress, all tended at that time to make the Oglethorpe Light Infantry of Savannah a famous com- pany. Its twenty-fifth anniversary was celebrated in Savannah on the 19th of January, 1881, by a handsome banquet, when its honorable history was recalled and commemorated. This company was organized with other Georgia companies in Virginia into the 8th Georgia regiment, and Capt. Bartow was made Colonel; Wm. Montgomery Gardner, Lt. Colonel. The surgeon was Dr. H. V. M. Miller, so prominent in Georgia politics, who has recently presented a handsome portrait of Bartow to the Young Men's Library Association of Atlanta. This regiment was finally com- manded by Col. Lucius M. Lamar, a handsome and gallant officer and a member of the General Assembly of Georgia of 1880-1. It made a memorable record of service, on the march, in camp and in battle, coming up to every patriotic requirement, and in the language of the brilliant but ill-fated Bartow, "illustrating Georgia."
The first regiment organized for the war was the 6th Georgia, of which Alfred HI. Colquitt, the present Governor of Georgia, was made the Colonel. The practice of the Confederacy accepting troops directly without any reference to the State authority, was a bad one. All requisitions for soldiers should have been through the Executive. Thousands of Georgia soldiers went into the Confederate army in this way, of whom there is no record. No report of them was ever made to the state authorities, and thus the Georgia records are, and must ever remain incomplete. The writer organized the 4th Regiment of Georgia Cavalry, sending the muster rolls directly to the War Department at Richmond, and there is no record of a soldier or officer in the war
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THE UNKNOWN HEROES OF GEORGIA.
archives of Georgia, while the organization had, first and last, over 1,500 men in it. This instance will illustrate the matter. It was an irregular way of doing things that we now see Gov. Brown was right in opposing. It made endless confusion and incurable uncertainty in the records of the state's service. It renders it an impossibility for the full roll of our Georgia soldiers ever to be obtained, and the entire measure of justice be done to the substantial devotion of the state to the Southern cause. Thousands of gallant Georgians fought and perished in this gigantic struggle whose names and heroism are unknown and unpreserved.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE PRECEDENT OF A CENTURY OVERTHROWN, AND BROWN MADE GOVERNOR THE THIRD TIME.
Gov. Brown in a Constant Battle .- Unhinged Times .- Men's Fighting Blood up .- Brown's Curious Altercations .- The Columbus Guards .- The Startling Episode of the Salt Famine .- One of the Worst Terrors of The War .- Brown's Daring against the Salt. Tyranny .- The First Manassas Battle .- Its Stupendous Effect .- The Georgia Coast .- " Dixie Doodle."-Curious War Names .- The "Nancy Harts."- Spoiling for a Fight .- The Bank Convention .- Cotton Planters' Convention .- The Cobbs .- Georgians to the Army .- Coast Defense .- The New Georgia Constitution -Col. Whitaker's Letter to Gov. Brown .- Brown Allows his Name for Governor. -A Coincidence .- The Grandson of the only Third Term Governor urging Brown to a Third Term .- Bitter Assaults on Brown .- Opposition Convention .- Its Personelle .-- H. V. Johnson Declines as a Delegate .- Judge E. A. Nesbit Nomi- nated .- Thos. E. Lloyd .- The Press Nearly Solid against Brown .- Brown's Trenchant Address .- Brown Overwhelmingly Re-elected.
DURING the turbulent days of 1861, Gov. Brown did not by any means, find his executive office a bed of roses. It was not in the nature of things that a man so daring and positive, so fearless in assuming re- sponsibility, and so constitutionally combative, should not get into more or less turmoil beyond what an easier-tempered person would have escaped. The Governor was not a milk and water man, taking things lightly and shifting serious burdens upon other convenient peo- ple. He met his duties boldly, fully and promptly. He shirked no crisis. He confronted every emergency squarely. He made mistakes, as no human being can avoid doing. He was sometimes too aggressive. He occasionally bore too hard on men. He, perhaps, could not brook assault as peacefully as he might. He was, mayhap, too rigid and too unyielding where some concession would have availed better. But in spite of these things, it would have been almost out of the question to have supplied his place. The whole power and fervor of his strong intense soul were in the cause. It was no time for tender-footed and vacillating spirits. An imperious, dominant will was the need of the era-an unhesitating, self-reliant intelligence. The times were un- hinged too. Social bonds were loosened. The ligaments of law were slipping their hold. War was on us, and the passions gathering and
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THE SALT FAMINE.
strengthening. The epoch was every day getting wilder. Men were unconsciously going backward in moral restraint under the license of war. They were ripening in individual audacity, and the stern temper born of strife. It required a firin nerve to maintain its leadership among the stormy elements at play.
Gov. Brown had some curious altercations about very strange mat- ters. The controversy with Bartow over his rape of guns, was a speci- men. This was extensively discussed, men and newspapers siding both ways. Mr. Davis, however, came through Atlanta, and had a long and friendly talk about the matter with Gov. Brown, and frankly acknowl- edged that the policy of the Confederate authorities receiving troops over the head of the state Executives was wrong, and he intended to have no more of it, but get all of his requisitions supplied by the state Governors. Another wholly unnecessary difficulty was one between the Columbus Guards and Gov. Brown, in which the Executive simply tracked the law, and in doing so, came in collision with a body of men whose eager desire to enlist rushed them into disregard of law. The statute prescribed the size of companies to be from fifty to eighty men, not exceeding the latter number. Capt. Ellis had 120 men, and the Governor refused to take the extra sixty men, though Martin J. Craw- ford urged it. Capt. Ellis took his extra men to Savannah anyhow. The Governor stuck to the law, telegraphing Gen. Lawton to enforce, the statute. And the Governor was savagely assailed for his action. The fact is the men of the state were burning to enlist, and in the hot eagerness to do a freeman's duty, they quarreled over the privilege of service and the opportunity for peril. Nothing, however, swerved the Executive from his line of resolution. And in every case the public judgment sustained him when the facts were understood. In no case did he act from any personal motive. He sought the success of the cause, and he pursued his object with an immovable tenacity of purpose.
A remarkable instance of his daring readiness to take any risk for the public good, was in the prosaic but incalculably momentous neces- sity of salt. This simple and cheap article of living, that exercises so little thought, and that is as plentiful as the air, became the subject of an appalling famine in the South. It lay in measureless quantities in the boundless ocean that bordered the Confederacy for a thousand miles. Yet with the coast blockaded, with inadequate facilities for its manufacture, with its importation cut off by the bayonets of a beleaguering cordon of hostile soldiers, the scarcity of salt became a terror to the people. It was a romantic fate that made this boundless
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203
1 THE TERRIBLE EPISODE OF SALT TYRANNY.
commodity worth almost pound for pound with silver. It was one of the strangest straits of the Confederacy, this famine of salt. Specula- tors took advantage of it. Even early in 1861, the war of the salt changers began. And it continued until the legislature took the matter in hand and sought to protect the people from these salt sharks. While the matter was pending the speculators took alarm and started to rush their hoards out of the state. The meat for the soldiers needed salt to cure it. The salt famine threatened the commonwealth in earnest. In this crisis Gov. Brown, with his wonted boldness, liberally construing the constitutional provision that allowed the Executive in cases of emergency to seize private property for public use, clutched several large lots of salt for the state, and prohibited its general ship- ment out of the state. The speculators howled. The price they gave with freight, storage, interest, drayage and ten per cent. interest, was tendered to the subjects of this rape of salt. The Legislature passed its protective measure, but the Governor had saved the state from the salt famine by his bold audacity and prompt interference ahead of slow legislative action. The public uses were provided for, with some sur- plus over, which was sold around to the poor people who could not pay speculation prices, and thus the public necessities were relieved.
His audacious exercise of authority, such as few men would have dared to use, and especially when it was a matter of discussion as to the right, elicited some hard criticism from his enemies, but the people, the omnipotent depository of opinion and power, sustained him over- whelmningly, as it will back any man in the end who is disinterestedly doing the right as he conscientiously sees it. This salt trouble was a permanent one during the war. The salt famine hung over the state with its vital terrors until the surrender. The legislatures fought it as sternly and persistently as they pushed the battles. They had to come to the relief of the poor finally. The state took in its own hands the manufacture of salt in self-defense. And not only this, but the state had to organize a great salt bureau, and appropriate half a million of dollars, and make distribution of the despotic staple. In the archives of the Executive Department are huge volumes of records, and enor- mous books that a strong man staggers in carrying across the room, all devoted to the novel and terrible episode of our salt tyranny in the war.
The battle of the First Manassas took place on the 21st day of July, 1861, in which memorable engagement the Cth Georgia, and Sth Georgia regiments were engaged, and won a signal fame. The 5th reg-
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204
TIIE EFFECT OF THE FIRST MANASSAS BATTLE.
iment was commanded by Col. Lucius J. Gartrell, ex-member of con- gress. Gen. Johnson, in his official report, mentions the name of Col. Gartrell with others as having distinguished themselves in that engage- ment. His son, Henry Clay Gartrell, was killed in the battle. Col. Bartow commanded the Brigade consisting of the 7th, 8th, 9th and 11th Georgia, and 1st Kentucky Regiments. This battle, the first im- portant action of the war, was a remarkable one in its effects. It was a thorough victory for the Confederates, and a most disastrous defeat for the Federals. It was at first and for a long time believed that the Fed- erals enormously outnumbered us, but recent statistics said to be cor- rect show that the contending forces were nearer equality than has been supposed. The battle was bloody, and for a while desperate. Our losses were heavy. The Georgia troops especially happened at the very brunt of the fighting, and in pursuance of that same destiny, that seemed to press Georgia into the crucial situations of this great struggle at vital times, turned the tide of battle with a frightful loss of gallant men, including the intrepid Bartow himself, who fell, caught in the arms of Col. Gartrell, uttering the now historic exclamation, "THEY HAVE KILLED ME, BUT NEVER GIVE IT UP! " The state of Georgia thus not only gave the deciding stroke in this momentous battle, but furnished the first conspicuous martyr of the war.
The battle gave a terrific momentum to the war spirit of the North, while it affected the South disastrously. It seemed a confirmation of the immeasurable fighting superiority of the South. It aroused the North; it demoralized and distracted the South by a controversy that alienated leaders and caused dissension during the whole war over an issue as to whether the fruits of the victory were not neglected. The pride, the resentment, the courage of the Northern people were stimu- lated to desperation, and from this time on, the war progressed in dead earnest.
In Georgia the activity, if anything, redoubled. Camps of instruction and of preparation were organized, and filled with troops drilling and fitting for the next call. A large attention was given to the coast of Georgia. The Confederate Government had placed Gen. A. R. Lawton in command from Savannah to the Florida line, and Commodore Tatt- nall in charge of the naval force. Every co-operation was given to these officers. Gov. Brown spent $80,000 in equipping Fort Pulaski. Up to the 26th of July, seventeen thousand men had been organized, armed and equipped at a cost of $300,000, and sent into service, most of them out of the state.' Fully 30,000 guns and accontrements were
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HUMOROUS INCIDENTS OF THE EARLY WAR FEVER.
supplied to the Confederacy by the state of Georgia, at her own cost, first and last. Three steamers had been purchased for coast defense, one costing $40,000 and the others less. The Governor purchased 844,265 of material for making gunpowder, which he allowed the Con- federate authorities to take.
There were many interesting features of the war fever of 1861, that would prove very readable. Amid the serious work was a by-play of light incident that helps to complete the picturesque picture of a dramatic time. Some patriotic poetaster drew from his muse a South- ern version of the familiar " Yankee Doodle," and dubbed it "Dixie Doodle." The names of some of the companies were a typical outcome of the spirit of the times. The company commanded by the present Governor Colquitt, was the " Baker Fire Eaters," and his regiment was called the " Coffin Regiment," in memory of a soubriquet given to his famous father, Walter T. Colquitt, in the memorable political campaign of 1850 and 1851, as the "Elder Colonel of the Coffin Regiment." " Defenders of the South," Capt. J. A. Norwood of Troup County; " Union Invincibles," Captain Sam Patterson of Union Co .; "Dixey Boys," Capt. H. Bryan of Thomas Co .; "Miller Wild Cats," Capt. B. R. Kendrick of Colquitt Co .; "Monroe Crowders," of Forsyth Co .; "Sons of Liberty," Capt. E. F. Lawson; "Davis Invincibles," etc., were some of these suggestive names. The ladies of La Grange in their mili- tary enthusiasm organized a company called the "Nancy Harts," in honor of that revolutionary heroine of whom it was said, "she was a rare patriot, but a devil of a wife." Of this company Dr. A. C. Ware was Captain; Mrs. Nannie Morgan, First Lieutenant; Mrs. P. B. Heard, Second Lieutenant; Miss A. Smith, Third Lieutenant; Miss A. Bull, First Sergeant; Miss A. Hill, Second Sergeant; Miss M. E. Colquitt, Third Sergeant; Miss P. Beall, First Corporal; Miss L. Pullen, Second Corporal; Miss S. Bull, Third Corporal; Miss E. Key, Treasurer. Mrs. Overby, widow of B. H. Overby, and daughter of Hugh L. Haralson, gave $100 for the soldiers' families, and pledged herself to continue the patriotic contribution. The " Wrightsville Infantry," commanded by Captain Jessie A. Glenn, was ordered to Savannah. The newspapers copied extensively a piteous letter from Capt. Glenn to HIon. A. R. Wright, after whom the company was named, begging to get away from Savannah to some place " there there is a prospect of a fight." The universal hankering was to get a chance at the enemy, and Capt. Glenn voiced the general wish.
Two Conventions were held in Georgia in June, 1861, of public inter-
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GEORGIA LEADERS GO INTO THE ARMY.
est. The first was at Atlanta, a " Bank Convention of the Confederate States," which met June 3d, and did important work in aiding the finan- cial measures of the new government. Georgia, Alabama, Florida and South Carolina were represented. The Georgia delegates were R. R. Cuyler, S. Cohen, H. Roberts, Isaac Scott, W. S. Cothran, A. Austell, W. H. Inman, G. B. Lamar, and W. E. Jackson. The President was G. B. Lainar, and Vice-President, Jas. S. Gibbs of South Carolina. Resolutions were passed for the banks to receive Confederate Treas- ury notes, and asking railroads and tax officers to take them. The sec- ond Convention was the Cotton Planters' Convention in Macon. A committee composed of J. H. R. Washington, Pulaski S. Holt and Nathan Bass was appointed to issue a call for a Confederate Cotton Planters' convention, which was done. A camp of instruction, called Camp MeDonald, was organized in Cobb county of some 2,000 troops under command of Brig. Gen. Wm. Phillips. War speeches were made in Atlanta by distinguished gentlemen passing through, among them Hon. Roger A. Pryor and Hon. R. M. T. Hunter of Virginia.
The Confederate Congress adjourned in May, at Montgomery, to meet in July, at Richmond. It first authorized an issue of fifty millions of bonds for war purposes. Howell Cobb and T. R. R. Cobb issued an address to the planters of Georgia, urging them from patriotic consid- erations to invest in these bonds, in which address they called attention to the two proud facts that Georgia was the only State that had adopted the Confederate Constitution by a unanimous vote, and that she was offering the largest number of volunteers of any State, thus preserving that leadership in this revolution that Georgia had maintained. As Bartow had gone into the army, so our other Georgia leaders drifted in. Howell Cobb accepted the tender of a regiment in June, 1861, unable to resist the war impulse. He was followed swiftly by his brother, Thomas R. R. Cobb, and by Mr. Toombs, and all of them became Briga- dier Generals. The regiments of Georgia regulars were consolidated into one, and officered by Col. C. J. Williams and Lieut. Col. E. W. Chastain.
In September, Gov. Brown made a visit to the coast, and found the force under the Confederate authorities there, wholly inadequate to the defense. He promptly, on his own responsibility, called out additional State troops. Up to the first of September, twenty-five regiments and three battalions had been organized in Georgia under Gov. Brown's authority, and some seven independent regiments, making 30,000 troops Georgia had furnished for the war, and of this number, over 20,000
in the
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207
GOVERNOR BROWN URGED FOR A THIRD TERM.
were in Virginia. Many of them were suffering for clothing. Gov. Brown issued proclamations making earnest appeals for the people at home to contribute money and clothing. He also made proclamation that he was exhausted of arms, and called upon the people to loan the State their private rifles and shot-guns for public defense. He ordered a full enrollment of all men liable to militia duty. All of his measures were vigorous and timely. Every point connected with the State's interest was closely watched and promptly attended to.
The vote upon the new Constitution of Georgia will show how com- pletely the people were absorbed in the war to the exclusion of all other considerations. The vote for ratification was 11,499, and against rati- fication 10,704, a majority of only 195 for ratification, and a total vote of but 22,203 out of 120,000.
The time was approaching for the election of a Governor. The people early in the year had sounded in no uncertain tones the desire to have Gov. Brown re-chosen, in spite of the custom that limited Gov- ernors to two terms. In August, Jared I. Whittaker addressed a letter to Gov. Brown propounding two inquiries:
" First .- Whether in his opinion it was proper, under existing circumstances, to hold a convention to nominate a candidate for Governor, and conventions in the districts to nominate candidates for Congress.
" Second .- Whether, if it should be the wish of the mass of the people of Georgia, without regard to old party differences, Gov. Brown would in that critical period of the State's history, consent to serve a third term in the executive office."
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