Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

January 19

1735 Though protesting her innocence to the end, Irish indentured servant Alice Riley was hanged in Savannah for participating in the murder of William Wise on March 1, 1734. Pregnant at the time of her conviction, she was allowed to deliver her baby before the sentence was carried out. Four weeks after the birth of a son, Riley was hanged -- making her the first woman to be executed in Georgia.

1749 James Oglethorpe attended his last meeting of the Common Council on Georgia's Board of Trustees. Two months later on March 16, he would attend his last meeting of the Trustees.

1852 Gov. Howell Cobb signed into law an act of the General Assembly creating the Georgia Academy for the Blind in Macon.

1861 Georgia became the fifth state to secede when delegates attending a secession convention in Milledgeville voted 208-89 to withdraw from the Union by adopting the following Ordinance of Secession:

"We, the people of the State of Georgia, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained:

"That the ordinance adopted by the people of the State of Georgia in Convention on the second day of January in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eight-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was assented to, ratified and adopted; and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying and adopting amendments of the said Constitution are hereby repealed, rescinded and abrogated.

"We do further declare and ordain, That the Union now subsisting between the State of Georgia and other States, under the name of the "United States of America," is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State."

Click here to view University of Georgia Library copy of Georgia's 1861 Ordinance of Secession printed on silk.

1866 In the midst of a smallpox epidemic, the Atlanta city council ordered a temporary hospital built and appropriated $10,000 to deal with the emergency.

1871 Savannah became the first city in America to celebrate Robert E. Lee's birthday as a public holiday. Authorization for the holiday came in October 1870 after news of Lee's death reached Savannah.

1924 The partially completed carving of Robert E. Lee's head on the side of Stone Mountain was unveiled in ceremonies attended by 20,000 people. [Click here for more information.]

1997 Atlanta-born novelist and poet James Dickey died in Columbia, South Carolina. [For more information click here.]

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1865 From Savannah, Sherman wrote Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Obviously still concerned about Stanton's suspicions over Sherman's treatment of freed slaves, Sherman wrote:

"I avail myself of the opportunity also to inclose [sic] you copies of all my official orders touching trade and intercourse with the people of Georgia, as well as for the establishment of the negro settlements. Delegations of the people of Georgia continue to come in and I am satisfied that , with a little judicious handling and by the little respect being paid to their prejudices we can create a schism in Jeff. Davis' dominions. All that I have conversed with realize the truth that slavery as an institution is defunct, and the only question that remains is, what disposition shall be made of the negroes themselves. I confess myself unable to offer a complete solution of this question, and prefer to leave it to the slower operations of time. We have given an initiative and can afford to await the working of the experiment."

1866 After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, vice president Andrew Johnson became president. As Congress was not in session, Johnson proceeded to implement the mild Reconstruction plan that had been advocated by Lincoln. In May 1866, Johnson issued a general amnesty to southern men who would sign a loyalty oath (excluding politicians and officers of the Confederacy). However, when Congress met in Dec. 1865, Radical Republicans rejected Johnson's plan and refused to seat recently elected southern congressmen. In Milledgeville, Georgia's all-white General Assembly met on Jan. 15, 1866. Four days later, legislators adopted the following joint resolution declaring their support for Pres. Johnson in his battle with Radical Republicans:

"Whereas, It is one of the privileges if not duties of this General Assembly, convened under circumstances so peculiarly interesting and important to the future of Georgia and her people, now that it is about to adjourn over its session for a brief period, not to do so until it shall have given some expression of its high appreciation of the President of the United States, through whose justice and magnanimity, and through whose regard for the constitutional rights of the States, civil government has again been put in motion at the capital of this State.

"Therefore be it Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Georgia in General Assembly met, That in Andrew Johnson, the Chief Magistrate of the American Republic, Georgia, in her recent past, while yielding to a power she could not successfully resist, and in her present condition moving onward in the work of reconstruction, has felt a sustaining arm, and will ever be grateful for the generous clemency extended by him to her people, the magnanimity displayed toward them, and the determined will that says to a still hostile faction of her recent foes, 'thus far shalt though go, and no farther,' ' peace be still.'"

Source: Georgia Laws 1866, p. 315.