Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

August 29

1864 While advancing around Atlanta's western perimeter, Sherman's Army had reached the tracks of the Western & West Point Railroad on the previous evening. Sherman ordered his men to spend the entire day of August 29 pulling up over 12 miles of track between Red Oak and Fairburn to the west.

In Sherman's words: "The track was heaved up in sections the length of a regiment, then separated rail by rail; bonfires were made of the ties and of fence-rails on which the rolls were heated, carried to trees or telegraph poles, wrapped around and left to cool." Thus were the instructions for what Union soldiers called "Sherman's neckties".

For more, see This Week in Georgia Civil War History.

1945 American track star Wyomia Tyus was born in Griffin, Georgia. Tyus held the world record in the 100 meters (1964-65, 1968-72) and was the first athlete to win two Olympic gold medals in the event.

Wyomia Tyus at the Tokyo Olympics, 1964

1961 Cobb County's Lockheed Corp. received the go-ahead from the FAA to begin production of the JetStar. Designed to fly at speeds of 550 miles per hour, the JetStar was the fastest passenger plane of the day.

1961 Atlanta Mayor William Hartsfield expressed "faith and confidence" that the imminent desegregation of four Atlanta public schools would be carried out "with peace and good order."

1964 Tropical storm Cleo, just downgraded from a hurricane after devastating Florida, hit the southeast Georgia coast with with wind gusts up to 65 MPH and sustained winds of 50 MPH. Seven inches of rain fell on Savannah in five hours, causing flash flooding.

1971 Atlanta Brave great Hank Aaron knocked in his 100th run of the season, giving him 11 seasons with 100 or more RBIs – a National League record.

1991 The U.S. Postal Service issued a 29-cent stamp commemorating the famous movie comedy duo of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, with first-day-of-issue ceremonies in Hollywood, California. Hardy (1892-1957) was born in Harlem, Georgia.

This was not the first stamp to honor the early movie comic pair. In 1989, the West African nation of Gambia issued a Laurel and Hardy commemorative stamp.

2009 Eight people were killed, and one critically injured, in a mobile home park on the grounds of New Hope plantation near Brunswick. Later, the person who made the 911 call, Guy Heinze, Jr., was charged with the murder of eight members of his family.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1776 The following entry from the minutes of Georgia's Council of Safety indicates members had little mercy for loyalists conspiring with the British:

". . . Whereas, it has been discovered by sundry informations that some perfidious persons, enemies to American freedom, continue to maintain an intercourse with the officers or commanders of the ships of war now stationed at Cockspur; And whereas, such intercourse may be attended with the most dangerous consequence to the peace and welfare of the Independent States of America; It is, therefore, resolved that from and after this day there shall be no license or pass granted to any person whatsoever, for the purpose of going down to the said ships of war, except to those who are about to leave the Province never to return; and all persons who may be detected in attempting to do the same clandestinely will be punished according to the utmost rigour of the law. . . ."

Source: Collections of the Georgia Historical Society (Savannah: Savannah Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, 1901), Vol. V, Part 1, p. 103.

1865 In Washington, Georgia, an "unreconstructed" Eliza Frances Andrews wrote of her gloom about a pending change in the commander of Union forces occupying her hometown:

"Capt. Cooley is to be removed and Washington is to have a new commander. Everybody regrets it deeply, and the gentlemen proposed getting up a petition to have him retained, but finally concluded that any such proceeding would only render his removal the more certain. I do not know the name of our new master, but they say he is drunk most of the time, and his men are the ones that acted so badly in the case of Mr. Rhodes, near Greensborough. One of Mr. Rhodes's 'freedmen' lurked in the woods around his plantation, committing such depredations that finally he appealed to the garrison at Greensborough for protection. The commandant ordered him to arrest the negro and bring him to Greensborough for trial. With the assistance of some neighboring planters, Mr. Rhodes succeeded in making the arrest, late one evening. He kept the culprit at his house that night, intending to take him to town next day, but in the meantime, a body of negroes marched to the village and informed the officer that Mr. Rhodes and his friends were making ready to kill their prisoner at midnight. A party of bluecoats was at once dispatched to the Rhodes plantation, where they arrived after the family had gone to bed. Without waiting for admission, they fired two shots into the house, one of which killed Mrs. Rhodes's brother. They left her alone with the dead man, on a plantation full of insolent negroes, taking the rest of the men to Greensborough, where the Yankees and negroes united in swearing that the Rhodes party had fired upon them. Mr. Rhodes was carried to Augusta, and on the point of being hanged, when a hitch in the evidence saved his life. The Yankees themselves confessed to having fired two shots, of which the dead man, and a bullet lodged in the wall, were proof positive. . . . Mr. Rhodes's life was saved, but his property was confiscated – when did a Yankee ever lose sight of the plunder? – while the wretch who shot his brother-in-law was merely removed from Greensborough to another garrison. This and the Chenault case are samples of the peace they are offering us. Heaven grant me rather the horrors of war!"

Source: Eliza Frances Andrews, The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1908),, pp. 382-384.