Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

December 29

1778 Savannah fell to a British force of 2,000 soldiers under Col. Archibald Campbell. Gen. Robert Howe and a force of 700 patriots had defended the road into the city, but a black slave named Quamino Dolly led a contingent of British troops commanded by Sir James Baird on a path through the swamp so that they were able to surprise the Americans from the rear.

The patriots were routed and fled. Meanwhile, a British fleet sailed up the river, capturing eleven American vessels. By the end of the day, over 100 patriots had been killed and 450 captured. For the first time in two years, the British flag flew over Savannah.

1835 A minority faction of Cherokees under the leadership of Major Ridge, his son John, and Elias Boudinot met with U.S. commissioners at New Echota, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, and signed the Treaty of New Echota ceding to the U.S. all Cherokee lands in the east of the Mississippi River in return for $5 million.

For their role in securing the treaty and the forced removal of Cherokees from the Southeast, the two Ridges and Boudinot would later be assassinated by fellow Cherokees.

1838 Gov. George Gilmer signed the Cherokee Indian Citizenship Act, which granted full citizenship to twenty-two named families of mixed Cherokee and white ancestry that had been exempted from the force removal earlier in 1838. Many of these families were related and lived in the same community along the southern border of the Cherokee Nation near present-day Suwanee. Prior to the Cherokee land lottery of 1832, most of the families had plantations, while some operated ferries on the Chattahoochee River. Their land was taken from them and distributed to whites in 1832, but by the time of the Cherokee removal, most of the families had been able to repurchase their land Thus, they were allowed to stay in Georgia – but as non-citizens until this act.

1838 Frances "Fanny" Kemble Butler, husband Pierce Butler, and their two young daughters arrived in Savannah after an eight-day trip that began in Philadelphia and would end on Butler Island in the Altamaha River [see map]. Pierce Butler was a wealthy Philadelphian who had inherited several plantations in coastal Georgia. While in England, he met Fanny Kemble, who was a famous English actress. They married in 1834 and continued to live in England. However, for several years, Fanny had pleaded with Pierce to let her visit his Georgia plantation. Pierce opposed the idea but finally relented in 1838.

During what was her first visit to America, Fanny began recording a journal from her arrival in Philadelphia to her trip to Savannah and then about life on Butler Island (from December 30, 1838 to February 16, 1839) and St. Simons Island (from February 16 to April 17, 1839). The journal consisted of a series of letters to a friend (though the letters were never mailed) that reveal how shocked she was based on her firsthand observations of slavery. The four-month visit to Georgia ended in mid-April, and the Butler family returned to Philadelphia. For various reasons, including Fanny's opposition to slavery, Pierce grew unhappy with his marriage. They separated in 1845 and divorced in 1849, with Pierce gaining custody of the two girls. Fanny resumed her acting career on both sides of the Atlantic. In June 1862, she returned to England, where she shared her 1838-1839 journal with a few friends. During her marriage, she had not considered publishing them as it would have been a violation of their marital relationship and could have been embarrassing to her husband. After the divorce, however, she no longer felt obligated to protect her ex-husband. Also, following the financial crash of 1859, Pierce Butler lost his Georgia plantations and 400 slaves, so she now felt freer to write about here experiences two decades earlier. Initially, the American Civil War was a fight over the future of the Union, not a war to end slavery. But after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the nature of the war changed – at least in the North. Because the South was hoping for an alliance with Britain, Fanny decided to publish her letters under the title, Journal of a Georgia Plantation in 1838-1839. The volume was first published in England in May 1863, followed by an edition published in New York in July 1863. Though originally written as a personal narrative, once published, Fanny's journal effectively publicized the evils of slavery and quickly became popular among abolitionists in both England and America.

1847 Gov. George Towns signed an act reincorporating the town of Atlanta as the city of Atlanta. Later, this date would be cited as the birthday of Atlanta. However, under Georgia law, there is no legal distinction between a town and city – as both are considered an incorporated municipality. Changing the name from "town" to "city" did not create a new municipality. The same holds true with respect to changing the name of Marthasville to Atlanta by an act of Dec. 26, 1845. Rather, the actual birthday of Atlanta is Dec. 23, 1843, when the General Assembly incorporated Marthasville. The language of the 1845 legislation changing the name of Marthasville to Atlanta did not create a new municipality or change the powers or boundaries of the existing municipality. It merely changed its name. Nevertheless, by tradition, Atlanta generally celebrates its date of creation as Dec. 29, 1847.

1888 Gov. John B. Gordon signed an act creating the Georgia Experiment Station to undertake agricultural research utilizing federal funding authorized by Congress in 1887 and 1888 to promote state agricultural experiment stations.

1956 Georgia Tech beat Pittsburgh 21-14 in the Gator Bowl.

1987 Georgia beat Arkansas 20-17 in the Liberty Bowl.

1991 Georgia beat Arkansas 24-25 in the Independence Bowl.

1997 The city of Atlanta celebrated its sesquicentennial [see 1847 entry above]/

1997 Georgia Tech beat West Virginia 35-30 in the CarQuest Bowl.

2000 Georgia Tech lost to LSU 28-14 in the Peach Bowl.

2001 Miami Dolphins offensive coordinator Chan Gailey was named Georgia Tech head football coach. Gailey, whose prior experience also included head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, succeeded former Tech coach George O'Leary.

2006 The sale of Atlanta-based BellSouth and Cingular Wireless to AT&T became official. Including stock and assumption of BellSouth debt, the total cost of the transaction was $106 billion. With the purchase, the BellSouth and Cingular names were replaced with AT&T. Headquarters of the former BellSouth were transferred to AT&T headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, although headquarters of what had been Cingular Wireless remained in Atlanta.

Georgia cities and towns first incorporated by acts approved on Dec. 29:

1890 Keysville (Burke County), Lake Park (Lowndes County), Sasser (Terrell County), and Tifton (Berrien County)

Other acts affecting cities and towns approved on Dec. 29:

1847 The name of Cross Plains (then Murray now Whitfield County) was changed to Dalton.

In Their Own Words on This Day . . .

1737 An important source of labor for Georgia colonists were emigrants from various European countries who agreed to serve as indentured servants in return for the Trustees providing for the cost of their transportation to Georgia. In his journal, Salzburger minister Johann Martin Boltzius noted the arrival of one such group from Germany:

"A few days ago a boat full of Germans from the Palatinate [a region of Germany stretching from Heidelberg to the French border] came to Savannah, the passage for whom was provided by the Honorable Trustees, in return for which these people and their children are bound to work as servants for a number of years. . . .

"In the coming week, Mr. Causton desires to speak to these people through my offices, so as to offer some proposals as to how their children, of whom there are many among them, should attend school while pursuing their work. . . ."

Source: George Fenwick Jones and Renate Wilson, Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America . . . Edited by Samuel Urlsperger, Volume Four, 1737 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1976), p. 227.

1864 Just three months from Lee's surrender, Sherman's secretary – Maj. Henry Hitchcock – wrote his wife from Savannah:

"There is nothing very new to add. Indications daily increase of the tremendous moral effect our campaign has had and will have in Georgia in 'knocking out the underpinning' of the C.S.A. . . . [W]hile I do not think the war likely to end within a year from this as some do, I do think we now see clearly 'the beginning of the end.' And our General is the man who under God will bring it."

Source: M.A. DeWolfe Howe (ed.), Marching with Sherman: Passages from the Letters and Campaign Diaries of Henry Hitchcock, Major and assistant Adjutant General of Volunteers, November 1864-May 1865 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995).

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