Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

December 2

1737 After having been in Georgia since February 1736, a disillusioned John Wesley sailed from Georgia to Charleston, and subsequently on to England. Although he had hoped to serve as a missionary to Georgia's Indians, James Oglethorpe had primarily wanted Wesley to minister to the needs of Savannah's population. However, at the time, Wesley was perceived as too formal in his Anglican practices.

Toward the end of his stay, he also became romantically involved with a young woman and proposed marriage. Her refusal and subsequent marriage to another man apparently led Wesley to refuse to offer her communion – an action prompting her new husband to sue him. Facing trial, Wesley departed for England.

1859 Gov. Joseph E. Brown signed legislation incorporating the Lucy Cobb Institute "for the education of young ladies, in the town of Athens." Thomas R.R. Cobb, Henry Hull Jr., Henry R.J. Long, John H. Newton, and Stephen Thomas were designated as initial trustees of the school that over 130 years later would become the home of the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government.

1860 Convicted of treason by a Virginia state court for his raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va., abolitionist John Brown was hanged.

Though his raid had been widely condemned in both the North and South, his death generated much sympathy in the North. This reaction led to increased tension between the North and South and convinced many white southerners that the new Republican Party was committed to ending slavery in the South.

1863 Following the Battle of Chickamauga, Gen. Braxton Bragg turned over command of the Army of Tennessee to General William J. Hardee at Dalton, Georgia.

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

1953 Atlanta University president Dr. Rufus Clement won a decisive election to the Atlanta Board of Education, defeating white incumbent T.H.Landers, who had served on the board since 1927. Clement, who had the support of many white leaders in Atlanta, described his victory as proof that "the white population is ready to work constructively with the Negro population." After the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, Clement became a proponent of a "go slow, go easy" path to integration that helped Atlanta avoid the confrontations over desegregation that developed in many other southern cities.

1955 The U.S. Air Force acquired title to 211 acres of land in Houston County for construction of additional runways for Robins Air Force Base.

1994 "Cobb," a movie based on the life of native Georgian Ty Cobb and filmed largely in Royston and Athens, Georgia, was released.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1737 After an unhappy experience in Georgia, John Wesley sailed for Charleston headed for England. In today's entry in his diary, he recorded:

"Being now only a prisoner at large, in a place where . . . every day would give fresh opportunity to procure evidence of words I never said, and actions I never did, . . . I shook off the dust of my feet, and left Georgia, after having preached the gospel there, . . . not as I ought, but as I was able, one year and nearly nine months."

Source: William Stephens, A Journal of the Proceeding in Georgia ([no city cited]: Readex Microprint Corporation, 1966), Vol. I, p. 45.

1737 In his journal the Trustees' secretary William Stephens recorded some of the unpleasantness surrounding John Wesley's departure from Georgia:

". . .This being the day of Mr. Wesley's going off, the magistrates met, and he sent them a very short Letter of two Lines unsealed, acquainting them, that some Matters of Moment required his waiting on the Trustees, and he desired to know if they had any design to stop him: To which they returned a verbal Answer, importing, that since he did not think fit to enter into a Recognizance for his appearing at the Court, to answer what was alleged against him, they could not give up the Authority of the Court. After which they gave publick Notice to all Constables and Tything-men, in case he attempted to go off, to apprehend him. . . ."

Source: William Stephens, A Journal of the Proceeding in Georgia ([no city cited]: Readex Microprint Corporation, 1966), Vol. I, p. 45.

1860 The Daily Federal Union of Milledgeville published a call for secession from one of Georiga's earliest authors of fiction - Augustus Baldwin Longstreet.

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

1864 In his memoirs, General Sherman wrote that Union cavalry Gen. Kilpatrick:

". . . remained a couple of days to rest his horses, and, receiving orders from me to engage Wheeler and give him all the fighting he wanted, he procured from General Slocum the assistance of the infantry division of General Baird, and moved back to Waynesboro on the 2nd of December, the remainder of the left wing continuing its march on toward Millen. Near Waynesboro Wheeler was again encountered and driven through the town and beyond Brier Creek, toward Augusta, thus keeping up the delusion that the main army was moving toward Augusta. . . . Having thus covered that flank, he turned south and followed the movement of the Fourteenth Corps to Buckhead Church, north of Millen and near it."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), Marching Through Georgia: William T. Sherman's Personal Narrative of His March Through Georgia (New York: Arno Press, 1978), p. 157.

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

1864 Confederate scout Enoch John, who was pursuing Sherman's army, wrote in his diary:

"Dec. 2d. Out early, crossed Buckhead Creek, and found a large body of cavalry near the mill that was burned yesterday. We took the backtrack, crossing a field and met a squad of ten Yankees coming in our rear. We charged killing two of them; crossed the creek again; then crossed the Augusta and Savannah Railroad, and camped."

Source: Diary of Cpl Enoch John