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 30
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" NEAR CHATTAHOOCHEE, 7th July, 1864.
" To His Excellency, J. E. Brown, Governor :
" I have the pleasure to inform you that the State Troops promise well, and have al- ready done good service. While the army was near Marietta they were employed to support the cavalry on the extreme left, and occupied a position quite distinct from any other infantry of ours. According to all accounts, their conduct in the presence of the enemy was firm and creditable. Such Federal parties as approached the crossing places of the Chattahoochee guarded by them, have been driven back. These proofs of their value make me anxious that their number shall be increased. Is it possible ? You know that the distinguished officer at their head is competent to high command.
" Most Respectfully, Your obedient servant,
J. E. JOHNSTON." " HEAD-QUARTERS, July 23d, 1864.
" To His Excellency, Governor Brown :
" The State Troops under Major Gen. Smith fought with great gallantry in the action of yesterday. J. B. HOOD, General."
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOV. BROWN AND MR. SEDDON. 2ST
The following is an extract from a letter from Major General G. W. Smith to Gov. Brown, relative to the fight of the 22d July, at Atlanta:
" The Militia did themselves great credit outside of the trenches on Friday. They marched over the breastworks-advanced upon the entrenchments of the enemy in fine order, took position within three hundred yards, and silenced the artillery by musketry fire through the embrasures. We had no support on our right within a mile, none on our left within six hundred yards, and our troops on the left were driven back.
" We held our position for several hours, and only withdrew after receiving an order to that effect from General Hood, which order was given because the troops upon our left had been repulsed. There was not a single straggler."
These troops were the occasion of the last memorable controversy between Gov. Brown and the Confederate administration. Mr. Davis, through'Mr. Seddon, made requisition upon Gov. Brown for these 10,000 militia and such other force as he might be able to raise; those in. Gen. Hood's department to report to him, and those outside to the command- ant of South Carolina and Georgia. This requisition was dated August 30, 1864, and alleged the condition of the State subjected to formidable invasion as the basis for it.
In the desperate stress of the Confederacy and the stern spirit that pervaded all classes in the consciousness of impending disaster, the forms of politeness were ignored. The antagonism between these high officials had widened and become more embittered. The correspondence is as fiery, incisive and biting as it was possible to be. It was war to the knife. The requisition of Mr. Seddon was received on the 12th of September, and Gov. Brown made immediate reply. He regretted that Mr. Davis was so late in discovering that Georgia was in such danger. The "formidable invasion " began in May and was still going on. He scathed the military policy that had scattered forces instead of concen- trating at the point of danger, that had withheld reinforcements until the damage was accomplished, and that had left in our rear a camp of 30,000 Federal prisoners. He scored the administration for not discov- ering that these troops were already in the trenches fighting under Gen. Hood. As the call for them was unnecessary, he argued that Mr. Davis desired to get control of the whole of the reserve militia, disband its organization and put his own officers over the troops. These commands had been gallantly fighting and many of them filled soldiers' graves. No other state had organized such a force not subject to conscription, and placed it in command of the Confederate general, and no such requisition was made upon the Governor of any state but Georgia. The requisition, too, was made in such a manner as to take the troops out of the trenches rather than putting them in, dividing the troops and
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THE SECRETARY OF WAR AND GOVERNOR BROWN.
sending a part of them to Charleston. Gov. Brown refused to honor the requisition, but said that he should keep these troops at the front under command of the Confederate General as long as he staid in Georgia. Gov. Brown went on to suggest that Georgia had fifty regi- ments in Virginia besides soldiers in every State. If her brave sons could return to fight for their own State, if they could not drive back the invader, they would perish in a last effort.
October 8, 1864, Mr. Seddon replied. He began: "It requires for- bearance in reply to maintain the respect I would pay your station and observe the official propriety you have so transcended." The reason of the call was to get the full organization of militia, impart unity and efficiency to the troops, and subsist and pay them at Confederate expense. The President had the right to call such militia. This is the first case where the right had been questioned. In the war with Great Britain, Massachusetts and Connecticut had made some such point, but it was overruled, and the impression was created that these states were in collusion with the enemy. Mr. Seddon directly charged that Gov. Brown's prominent and influencing reasons sprung from "a spirit of opposition to the government of the Confederate States and animosity to the chief magistrate whom the people of the Confederacy have honored by their choice and confidence." He said that Gov. Brown's resistance to conscription had impaired the help given to Georgia; that his suspicions of Mr. Davis wanting to disband the militia to reorganize it with his own officers was chimerical; that he had formed nondescript organizations, scant in men and full of officers, affording scarcely a decent division of 4,000 men out of an alleged 16,000, and that Gov. Brown had, by the spirit of his past action and public expressions, caused our enemies to feel encouraged, and the patriotic citizens of the Confederacy to feel mortified. He closed with these biting words:
"To the department it would be far more grateful, instead of being engaged in reminding of constitutional obligations and repelling unjust imputations, to be co-operat- ing with your Excellency in a spirit of unity and confidence in the defense of your State and the overthrow of the invader."
Gov. Brown, on November 14, 1864, replied that he intended no personal disrespect in his letter. He was dealing with principles and proposed to do so frankly. He dissected the nature of the call made on him for boys and old men not subject to conscription or to serve in armies, and showed there was no analogy to the case of Massachusetts and Connecticut, who were called on for men liable to service. In the case of Georgia the call was for militia not subject to duty, or to Con-
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289
SOME SHARP SPARRING.
federate call, and not called for from any other State, but already in the field under the Confederate commander. Gov. Brown went on in this letter to answer the various points made against him; that his " nondescript " organizations were in exact conformity to the law; that his "scarcely decent division" of 4,000 men only embraced the territory between Atlanta and the Tennessee line, leaving the territory below with 12,000 men untouched; that any interruption with Con- federate plans was imaginary; that he could scarcely have given more encouragement to the enemy than Mr. Davis did in his Macon speech when he informed the world that two-thirds of the Confederate soldiers were away from their posts, and that his animosity to Mr. Davis was really his unwillingness to indorse the errors of the administration. His concluding sentence thus reads:
"No military authority, State or Confederate, can be lawfully used for any other purpose than to uphold the civil authorities, and so much of it as the Constitution of my country has confided to my hands shall be used for that purpose, whether civil society, its constitution and laws shall be invaded from without or within. Measured by your standard, this is doubtless disloyalty. Tested by mine, it is a high duty to my country."
Mr. Seddon answered on the 13th of December, 1864. His letter continues the sharp discourtesy, stating that if there had been any "-want of faith or breach of duty " Gov. Brown was the "guilty party," alluding to what he called Gov. Brown's " garbled extracts" from the correspondence with the department, and speaking of his "wanton and reckless assaults " upon the Confederate administration. In his con- cluding letter, dated January 6, 1865, Gov. Brown refers to the devasta- tion of Georgia, and says that the only slight barrier to the foe was this very militia of boys and old men that he refused to turn over to Mr. Davis and permit a portion of them to be sent to Charleston as required by Mr. Davis while they were in the trenches defending Atlanta.
This correspondence reflected the temper of those stern days, and closed a series of constitutional conflicts that will gain interest with the passage of time. And they will become unceasingly famous in illustrat- ing, to use the expressive language of Mr. Grady, that vivid user of words: " Brown, the pallid, forceful mountaineer, who held the helm through Georgia's bloodiest days, and went through a revolution as the foil of its President, standing for the sovereignty of the States against a centralized confederacy."
It will not be inappropriate in this connection to quote from the journalistic correspondence of that day a portion of a letter written from Georgia to the Charleston South Carolinian by M :. F. G. De Fon-
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290
F. G. DE FONTAINE'S SKETCH OF GOVERNOR BROWN.
taine. He wrote over the name of " Personne," which he made famous then, and he was a rival of our own Georgia war correspondent, Col. P. W. Alexander, who under the initials " P. W. A." achieved so much distinction for his war letters. De Fontaine was very brilliant and his letters were vivid and sparkling pictures. Here is his letter alluded to, and it portrays Gov. Brown:
" Take a delicately constructed human form, robe it in a summer suit of black with that careless grace which so well becomes a Southern gentleman ; give it a light quick step and an easy motion which betokens at once the peacefulness of a lamb or the leap of a tiger ; let there rise from the recesses of a roughly turned shirt collar, a long mus- cular neck, on which there sets a handsomely shaped head-not too broad across the eyes, but long from front to rear, and high from ears to summit-a little too large for the body below, both as regards motive power and proportion ; surmount the whole with a not too quickly growing mass of iron gray hair, which is brushed well back from the temples, revealing a tall, expansive and expressive forehead, marked with lines of men- tal toil ; set under a brow indicative of the moral strength of the man, a pair of keen dark eyes,, mild or piercing as his thoughts may chance to flow, whose variable color may be either gray, black or brown ; fasten in its proper place one of those solidl looking noses by which Napoleon used to choose his thinking men ; close the catalogne of feat- ures by the addition of a large Henry Clay style of month, with an under jaw that can work with the force and vehemence of a trip hammer, and lips so pliable, that like his eyes, they express every feeling, and you have the tout ensemble of the not ungracefnl form and clean shaven face of a man whose name has gone the rounds of every honse- hold in the confederacy-His Excellency, Joseph E. Brown, Governor of Georgia.
" An hour's conversation has revealed him to me as one of the most remarkable men it has been my fortune to encounter during the war, not remarkable perhaps for high intellectual attainments-thongh probably he is not wanting in these-but remarkable in the possession of those strong personal qualities which eminently fit him for the posi- tion he now occupies, as a leader of the people of his state, and an obstinate opponent of the policy of the general government.
" If his maimer is polite to a fault, and winning in its silent eloquence, his conversa- tion is doubly attractive, as the outpouring of a nature evidently sincere, conscientious, and fully imbued with a sense of the grave responsibilities with which he has been in- vested. His utterances are rapid, though frequently overtaking speech, and his gestures few, but forcible and nervous. Fastening his eyes on one who converses with him, fart after fact, and statement after statement roll from his lips in quick succession, until the whole argument clearly and completely shaped stands before you like a picture. Then he becomes a ready listener, with great frankness, he combines a determination that never banlks at difficulty, and would make him almost fierce in the achievement of an end, the way to which was environel with obstacles. Shrewd as a politician, genial in his social intercourse, accessible to any and all, plausible in his statements, with great success in the administration of state affairs as an unimpeachable fact to back him, and more than all, for his strength and fortress a principle always taking with the mass of the people, I can readily nunderstand the secret of the popularity which has been attained by Gov. Brown.
" Remarking to him, in the course of our interview, that his policy was not generally understood beyond the limits of his own state, and was accordingly regarded as inimical
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" PERSONNE'S" SKETCH OF GOVERNOR BROWN, CONTINUED.
to the best interests of the Confederacy, he replied, and not without some force, that the platform on which he stood now, was the same as that occupied by every state of the Confederacy in 1861. Georgia, in common with her sisters, as a sovereign state, had delegated to the general government, as an agent, certain powers ; and only when these were transcended or usurped by Mr. Davis, or by Congress, had he (the Governor) stepped forward to enter his protest against the act. In so doing he had merely made an issue on principle, that it might not be retorted upon him in the future that he silently acquiesced in measures clearly inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution. The encroachments of centralized power had been the curse of the continent, and it be- hooved every statesman in the South to see to it that while yielding to our own general government all proper support, every attempt by it to interfere with the action of the state authorities should be promptly met and checked. To use the Governor's own illustration-we were all sailing in the same boat, and although the pilot at the helm might be steering upon a reef, the crew while discovering the danger should only pro- test, not mutiny. Thus he wouldl be the last man in the Confederacy to throw obstacles in the way of the President, aud had ever rendered all the support in his power. He had always furnished more troops than were demanded, and he was in the present in- stance calling on his militia without a hint to that end from the Executive. Peace he did not want and would not have, except on terms consistent with the honor of the South ; and hence he was utterly and every way opposed to the efforts on the part of a faction in North Carolina to get up a state convention, looking to the accomplishment of that object by any other means than those now employed. He had advised against it and should continue to do so. The idea of a further secession on the part of any Southern state was preposterous, and those who imagined that the attitude of Georgia to-day, or of any of her officials, lent color or probability to such an event, were commit- ting one of the greatest of errors.
" I confess myself surprised at the frank definition of his position which Gov. Brown gave me. Although the above is but the substance of his remarks, I repeat them to your readers, because they will serve to disabuse many a mind of the idea, that he is the dangerous ' element of discord ' which thousands now believe him to be,"
This letter is a valuable, and in many respects a remarkable one, and especially so in the intuition of Gov. Brown's character attained in so brief a scrutiny. It is a fine piece of word-painting, and an accurate comprehension and fair statement of Gov. Brown's important position. Mr. De Fontaine's picture is well worthy of preservation.
Recurring to Gen. Sherman's occupation of Atlanta, he inaugurated a vigorous policy. His idea seemed to be to make it purely a military station. Upon his entrance he was met by the Mayor, Col. James M. Calhoun, and other citizens, who sought the protection of the city. He issued an order outlawing Col. G. W. Lee, Col. Alexander M. Wallace, Capt. G. W. Anderson and Mr. C. W. Hunnicutt, on account of certain alleged offenses against Union people. He ordered the departure of all the citizens from Atlanta, and he notified Gen. Hood, on the 4th of September, 1864, that he would remove them and their baggage to Rough and Ready, sending the letter by James M. Ball and James R.
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THE EXILE OF THE ATLANTA PEOPLE.
Crew. A sharp correspondence ensued. Gen. Hood replied pronoune- ing the measure unprecedented in transcending the "studied and ingenious cruelty of all acts ever before brought before the attention of mankind, even in the darkest history of war." Gen. Sherman retorted back, tartly telling Gen. Hood to' "talk to the marines; " that the art was a kindness to the people of Atlanta; and arraigning the Southern generals for savagery in warfare, and the South for causing the war. Gen. Hood replied, repelling the charge of harsh warfare by the South- ern generals, declining to discuss any political questions, and declining also to accept the statement, that the exile of a whole people of a city at the point of the bayonet from their homes in the interest of the United States government, was a kindness. The whole number thus exiled was reported to be between 1,600 and 1,700 persons.
The policy of Gen. Sherman was a severe one, but it was based upon the philosophy that war is a cruelty, and he drove to results unspar- ingly. The exile of the whole people, and the destruction of the city afterwards, were evidently parts of his plan, which had the military merit, whatever may be said of its humanity, that it gashed the Confed- cracy to death and ended the war in favor of the North.
Gen. Beauregard was assigned to the command of the Department including Georgia. He visited Gov. Brown at Milledgeville, and received an ovation from the people, to whom he made a brief speech expressing his belief that Sherman could be driven front Georgia in sixty days if the absentees would return to the army. Gen. A. R. Wright was ordered to Georgia and placed in command at Augusta. Gen. Hardee was ordered to Charleston and placed in charge of the coast.
A convention of the Governors of Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi, was held in Augusta on the 25th day of October, 1864, when resolutions of Gov. William Smith were passed, expressing confidence in the success of the cause, and pledging to the soldiers in the field every effort to increase our armies; and also recommending the passage of certain measures to aid the present prosecution of the war.
Early in October President Davis, accompanied by Hon. Benjamin H. Hill, visited Georgia. During all of these trying days Mr. Hill was in close counsel with Mr. Davis, affording him a hearty co-operation and sympathy. It was a coincidence at once interesting and suggestive, that the main props and opponents of the administration's policy were Georgians. Before the removal of Gen. Johnston, Mr. Hill had made a visit to him as a quasi-representative of Mr. Davis. On the visit in .
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JEFFERSON DAVIS.
October, 1864, Mr. Hill was with him, and they spoke together. At Macon, Mr. Davis made a speech, to which Gov. Brown makes reference in his last letter to Mr. Seddon in the correspondence about the State militia heretofore given. Mr. Davis gave a gloomy view of matters in this noted speech. He stated that two-thirds of the Southern armies were absent from duty. He also called the retreat from Dalton a " deep disgrace." IIe declared the man who charged that he had abandoned Georgia a "miserable man " and " a scoundrel." In that unconquerable spirit which belonged to this most heroic man,-the very type and incarnation of dauntless courage-he urged the people not to despond. But in spite of this resolute spirit that breathed from him unquailingly, his speech did infinite harm. It encouraged the foe and chilled our own people. The revelation was impotent for good. The tone of Mr. Davis was damaging to our cause. It was a sour, spiteful utterance, that showed deep concern and unpoised irritability. It was the anguish of a conscientious soul over calamity to cherished hopes.
Mr. Davis had noble qualities and was a great man. He had many of the requirements of his terrific position-his overwhelming trust. But yet he was not the man as a whole for it. He was brave, able, honest, loyal, firm. The heroic element in Davis was great. His intellect was of uncommon power and culture. Mr. Davis was an orator, a statesman, a general, a patriot. He was intelligent and conscientious. But he lacked mobility. He was a man of stubborn prejudices and a jagged temper. The diplomacy of statesmanship he knew not at all. . He had a large faculty of making enemies. He was not a wise man. He lacked great common sense. He obstinately clung to useless and unavailable instruments. His resentments potently and yet unknowingly governed
his action. He was a singular blending of the true and the unwise. Mr. Davis did not seem to learn anything from his mistakes. All men make blunders, and most men profit by them. He profited nothing. He clung intrepidly to his errors. He showed a sublime tenacity in adhering to unpopular and unsuccessful recipients of his confidence. But it is undeniably true that the Confederacy had than he no higher symbol of unvanquishable courage, constitutional principle and exalted patriotism.
Mr. Davis and Mr. Hill went to Hood's head-quarters, and the result of the conference of the President with the General of this priceless army was that in a few days Hood started on that ill-fated expedition into Tennessee which ended in the annihilation of the army. And Sher- man was free to go on his " March to the Sea," which gave the death-
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GEN. A. R. LAWTON, CONFEDERATE QUAR. - MASTER GENERAL.
blow to the Southern Confederacy. Georgia stuck grimly to her fat ... ful potency in the revolution. It seemed out of the range of possibility to thwart this remarkable destiny.
Another conspicuous instance of Georgia's extraordinary and control- ing agency in this war, was the appointment of that distinguished Georgian, Gen. A. R. Lawton, to the head of the most important practi- cal branch of the war department, the Quartermaster's. Gen. Lawton took charge as Quartermaster-General in August, 1863, and continued to perform the stupendous duties of that responsible office until the sur- render. He was a South Carolinian by birth, a graduate of West Point, and served in the 1st Regiment of U. S. Artillery for eighteen months on the frontier of the British Provinces. Resigning he became a lawyer. graduating at Harvard Law School, and settled in Savannah. He has been one of the acknowledged leaders of the Georgia bar, conducting many of the most important cases in the Supreme Court of Georgia, Sofie of them having been carried to and argued in the Supreme Court of the United States.
As has been stated, he was Colonel of the only Volunteer Regiment in Georgia when the war begun, and seized Fort Pulaski under Gov. Brown's orders. He retained command in Savannah under state com- mission until in April, 1861, he was commissioned Brigadier General in the Confederate army and assigned to the command of the Georgia coast until June, 1862, when at his own request he went to Virginia with 5,000 men of his command that Gen. Lee called on him to send. Gen. Henry R. Jackson had turned over to him his superb division of State troops, and he had over 12,000 men under him at one time.
In Virginia his service was brilliant and honorable. He joined Stone- wall Jackson in the Valley, and returned with him to make the flank movement against MeClellan and take part in the seven days' fight around Richmond. His Brigade was the largest in Gen. Lee's army and bore a conspicuous part, losing heavily in the battles of Cold Har- bor and Malvern Hill. When Ewell was wounded at 2nd Manassas he took charge of that officer's division, which he commanded at Chantilly. Harper's Ferry and Sharpsburg. He was seriously wounded at Sharps- burg and his horse killed. He was disabled until May, 18:3, when. though still lame, he reported in person for duty to the Adjutant Gen- eral in Richmond. Under Gen. Lawton's command the Ewell division made a glowing record. The Richmond press declared it had " covered itself with glory."
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