Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia  

July 21

1840 Educator and former University of Georgia president Moses Waddel died. See June 20 entry for biographical information on Waddel.

1861 The First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run) was fought near Manassas Junction, Virginia. Killed in battle was Col. Francis Bartow, commander of Bartow's Brigade.

Prior to the war, Bartow was a Savannah attorney and also was one of Georgia's four delegates to the convention that drafted the Confederate Constitution. See Sept. 6, 1816, entry for biographical information on Bartow.

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

1864 Under a flag of truce, Confederate and Union forces on the outskirts of Atlanta gathered their dead from the previous day's battlefield. With darkness, Hood decided to send Hardee's Corps on a flanking movement around Union Gen. McPherson's forces east of Atlanta so that at daybreak, Cheatham was to attack from the front and Hardee from the rear. However, the night march went much slower than expected, so that the morning of the 22nd found Hardee nowhere near McPherson's troops.

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

1868 The combination Atlanta City Hall-Fulton County Courthouse had a third function. Following the designation of Atlanta as Georgia's new state capitol, the city hall-courthouse served as temporary state capitol until a suitable statehouse could be built.

Union Forces Encamped on the Grounds of the
Atlanta City Hall-Fulton County Courthouse, 1864

Here, on July 21, the Georgia General Assembly adopted a joint resolution ratifying the 14th Amendment, a requirement imposed by Congress on June 25, 1868, as a condition for readmission to the Union. A voice vote on the resolution was taken in the House, where it reportedly won by a large majority. In the Senate, the vote was 27 - 14, with 3 members not voting. As it turned out, Georgia's July 21 ratification of the 14th Amendment did not automatically mean the seating of Georgia's congressional delegation or the end of Reconstruction.

1913 In Atlanta, a grand jury postponed indicting Jim Conley for the murder of Mary Phagan – at least until Leo Frank's trial was completed. This decision was reached after an hour-and-a half hour presentation before the grand jury by prosecutor Hugh Dorsey. After the temperature had reached 99 degrees the previous day, Judge L.S. Roan, set to hear the case, said he would consider postponing the trial if the weather remained so hot. Click here for a detailed accounting of the case.

1927 Alonzo Herndon died in Atlanta, Georgia. See June 26, 1858, entry for biographical information on Herndon.

1973 Hank Aaron hit his 700th career home run against the Philadelphia Phillies.

1978 Ronnie Milsap's "Only One Love in My Life" reached the top of the country-and-western charts. Milsap attended Young Harris College.

1988 At the Democratic Party's National Convention in Atlanta's Omni, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis accepted his party's presidential nomination. Click here to view the text of his acceptance speech.

The convention unanimously accepted Dukakis's choice of Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen as his vice presidential running mate, giving the party an optimistic mood of being able to defeat Republican George H.W. Bush in the November 1988 presidential election.

1996 This was the third day of the 1996 Summer Olympics – and day 2 of Olympic competition. 

Click here for a summary of medals awarded during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Actions affecting Georgia cities and towns approved by the governor on July 21:

1906 The charter of North Rome (Floyd County) was repealed.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1864 From north of Atlanta, Lt. Col. Fredrick Winkler of the 26th Wisconsin Infantry wrote to his wife:

"At last I have some good news. We fought the hardest battle and won the greatest victory yesterday of all the campaign, and my regiment covered itself with glory. We were attacked by superior numbers, the forces on our left failed us; we were outflanked, but we whipped the enemy, turned, and pursued him to the position we coveted, got it and held it. We fought the 33rd Mississippi, and virtually annihilated it; we killed the Colonel and thirty-four men, whom we have picked up inside the point we pursued them to, End beyond that our fire must have done them severe damage. The ground was covered with wounded; I had no time to count them, but had three stretchers working all night, carrying them to the rear. We took its flags and six officers' swords. Every body is speaking the praise of the 26th today. We had a very critical position and everything depended upon holding it; officers and men did bravely. The regiment we fought had nearly four hundred men; I only two hundred and sixty. I lost severely, two captains killed, one wounded, a lieutenant wounded, seven men killed and thirty-four wounded. Upon the whole, our loss is comparatively light; most of the wounds are light, and our success was great. We took a number of prisoners. I am well and unhurt."

Source: Civil War Letters of Major Fredrick C. Winkler, in 26th Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers Home Page

1864 From the outskirts of Atlanta, a Union sympathizer known only as "Miss Abby" recorded in her diary:

"General Johnston is removed from his command, and Hood succeeds him. Johnston could not 'stand,' so his successor is expected to do wonderful things. When censured for continually falling back, Johnston replied, 'We can rebuild cities when demolished, but if this army is once destroyed, we can never raise another.' His men love and honor him and regret his removal.

"Midnight. Words cannot picture the scenes that surround me, scenes and sounds which my soul will hold in remembrance forever. Terrific cannonading on every side, continual firing of muskets, men screaming to each other, wagons rumbling by on every street or pouring into the yard (for the remnants of fences offer no obstructions new to cavalryman or wagoner) and from the city comes up wild shouting, as if there was a general melee there. I sit in my dismantled home tonight, feeling that our earthly loves and all our pleasant things are ours so slightly. . . .

"At day the firing increased, becoming fiercer each hour. Still the soldiers said, 'There is no danger. We are driving back the enemy.' Towards evening, I was standing in the yard, listening to the firing and expressing my fears of a still nearer approach of battle-scenes. Our kind soldier friend replied, 'Oh, that is nothing. That firing is a long way off from here. Our army will never allow the Yankees to take Atlanta.'"

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), Georgia: History written by Those who lived It (Savannah, Beehive Press, 1995), pp. 170-171.

1864 A third perspective on this day came Thomas Maguire, who wrote in his journal from Rockbridge, near Lithonia east of Atlanta:

"At 12 or 1 o'clock at night the Yankees came here in force. Knocked us up. The house was soon filled with the thieving Yankees – robbed us of nearly everything they could carry off. Broke open all our trunks, drawers, etc. & carried off the keys. They must have practiced roguery from their childhood up, so well they appeared to know the art."

Source: Franklin M. Garrett, Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1954), Vol. I, p. 609.

1865 Eliza Frances Andrews has some pointed comments to make about Reconstruction fashion in the South:

"We had no callers till late in the afternoon, which was a great relief, for I feel used up, and the weather is too hot for anything but to sit undressed in my own room. I go in deshabille most of the time, now that the house is free of guests, keeping a dress and coiffure ready to fling on at a moment's notice, when visitors are seen coming up the avenue. I think it is dreadfully vulgar to go dowdy about the house, but what is one to do when one has hardly clothes enough to be respectable when one goes out, and no money to buy any more? And we have to do so much hard work, too, now that our clothes would not last a month if we were to wear them around all the time, when there is no one here. It is too hot to wear clothes anyway. I sometimes wish that old Mother Eve had not set the fashion for fig leaves. . . ."

Source: Eliza Frances Andrews, The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1908), pp. 338-339.