Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

May 19

1777 As a result of a wound received three days earlier in a duel with Gen. Lachlan McIntosh, Button Gwinnett died in Savannah.

1791 This was the second day of Pres. George Washington's visit to Augusta as part of his Southern Tour.

Today, Washington was treated to a dinner at the Richmond Academy building then used as the county courthouse. That evening, a reception was held for him in the same building.

1804 Georgia ratified the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing for separate voting for president and vice president.

1864 At Cassville, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston decided to lay a trap for an advancing Union column. However, generals Hood and Polk strongly opposed the location. Reluctantly, Johnston called off his battle plans – a decision he would regret the rest of his life. That night, his army retreated across the Etowah River with plans to make a stand at Allatoona Pass, which lay 14 miles southeast of Cassville. Click here to see a detailed 1864 map of the area of Georgia between Resaca and Marietta.

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

1913 An investigator from the William J. Burns detective agency arrived in Atlanta to assist in the investigation of Mary Phagan's murder. Also, in what had become an almost-daily occurrence, there was a new rumor – that a telephone operator had heard two men discussing their involvement in the murder. Like most of the other rumors, this one turned out to be false. Click here for a detailed accounting of the case.

1933 The Atlanta City Council voted to legalize the sale of beer not containing over 3.2 percent alcohol. Immediately, 49 applications for licenses were submitted and approved, adding $1125 to Atlanta's Depression-depleted coffers by the end of the day. Governor Eugene Talmadge expressed displeasure with the council's decision but said there was nothing he could or would do about it. When the governor's opposition was mentioned by a councilman before the vote, he was loudly booed and jeered in council chambers.

The legalization of 3.2 beer was possible because Congress had passed the Cullen-Harrison Act in late March 1933. The law, which became effective on April 7, amended the Volstead Act to allow the nationwide sale of beer and wine with an alcoholic content of 3.2 percent. Likewise, each state legislature was supposed to pass enabling legislation allowing the sale of 3.2 beer. However, the Georgia General Assembly did not act until 1935, so the city of Atlanta decided to go ahead and legalize the sale of 3.2 beer through city ordinance. The ordinance was adopted May 19, 1933. In anticipation of the ordinance, owners of 49 Atlanta bars and taverns had already purchased federal excise tax stamps, so once they received their city license patrons could celebrate the limited end of Prohibition.

1959 The Atlanta Public Library was integrated when Maynard Jackson became the first African American to receive a library card.

1977 The movie "Smokey and the Bandit" – which was filmed in Georgia – was released.

2007 The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame inducted nine new members: Steve Bartkowski (football), Kevin Brown (baseball), Larry Campbell (coach/manager), Russell Ellington (coach/manager), Betty Jaynes (contributor), Guy McIntyre (football), Don Richardson (coach/manager), Jessie Tuggle (football) and John Tutt (coach/manager).

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1737 George Whitfield's journal entry for this date shows his dedication for his Georgia ministry and that he was already thinking about the need for an orphanage in the colony:

". . . I went this Morning to two little Villages, Hampstead and Highgate, about Five Miles off Savannah. The former consists of three Families, making in all eleven Souls... .I was much delighted with seeing the improvements a few pair of Hands had made in their respective Plantations, and was surprized [sic] to see what Industry will do. Surely they speak not the Truth, who say that the Georgia People have been idle; for I never saw more laborious People than are in these villages. They live exceeding hard, but with a little Assistance may do very well. . . . I resolved, under God, to follow my worthy Predecessor's Example, and to visit them once a Week, and read Prayers to as many as could understand me. I also enquired into the State of their Children, and found there were many who might prove useful Members of the Colony, if there was a proper Place provided for their Maintenance and Education. Nothing can effect this but an Orphan-House, which might easily be erected at Savannah, would some of those that are rich in this World's Good, contribute towards it."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), Our First Visit in America: Early Reports from the Colony of Georgia, 1732-1740 (The Beehive Press, Savannah, 1974), pp. 288-289.

1740 Because of the five- to six-week delay in hearing news from Georgia, the Trustees were not aware that James Oglethorpe had launched his campaign to take St. Augustine. On this day, the Earl of Egmont recorded in his diary Oglethorpe's recent efforts to obtain permission to return to England. He had mortgaged his estate and other personal properties in Surrey in order to pay unfunded expenses in Georgia. Now, apparently, Oglethorpe's creditors were threatening to foreclose:

"I spent most of the morning at the Georgia Office, and then visited Col. Cecil who is a relation of Col. Oglethorpe, and lives in his house. My visit was to endeavour to persuade him of the dis-service it would be to Col. Oglethorpe to have any application made in his behalf for obtaining a dormant warrant of leave to return home, which he has directed his agent Mr. Furty to obtain for him. I said the very mention of of such a thing at a time when he has orders to attack the Spaniards, would be ill interpreted, and [Prime Minister] Sir Robert Walpole, who loves neither him or the colony, could certainly take the advantage of it against him; besides, that if the colonel should come over to England in time of war, the inhabitants of the colony would fly to other parts as not believing they could be safe.

"Col. Cecil replied that Col. Oglethorpe's private affairs required his return, and there was no disgrace in desiring a dormant warrant to return when he should judged the service of his Majesty allowed of it, which is the style such warrants run in. That if he stay there [Georgia] he will ruin himself, embarking in great expenses for the colony's defence which the Trustees cannot pay, and which he is uncertain whether the Government will allow. That it seemed to him as if it was designed to sacrifice him, and the Colonel could not but apprehend it himself. . . ."

Source: U.K. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Diary of the First Earl of Egmont (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1923), Vol. III, p. 142.

1791 From Augusta, Pres. George Washington recorded in the diary:

"Thursday, 19th. Received and answered an Address from the Citizens of Augusta; dined with a large Company of them at their Court Ho. and went to an Assembly in the evening at the Academy [sic]; at which there were between 60 and 70 well dressed ladies."

Source: John C. Fitzpatrick (ed.), The Diaries of George Washington: 1748-1799 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1925), pp. 179.

1862 That war is not always glory is evidenced by the following excerpts from a letter written from a Richmond hospital by Confederate soldier J.C. Nunn to his family back in Georgia:

". . . I have been very bad off for a few days, but this morning I feel better. I am yet in the hospital but don't know how long I will stay here. I have been here a month tomorrow, and I was sick a week before they sent me here. . . . Oh! dear Father and Mother, I have seen so many men suffer death almost.

"There is one man in the same room I am in, and it looked like would die all day yesterday with pains in his side and all through his body. He could not lie down, and he was a powerful wicked man, and, while he was so bad off, he would pray and would say, "Lord, what have I done that I suffer so and the pains are sharper than any two-edge sword!" and he prayed for mercy. . . . The other night he told his Brother to get a book and read some to him. And his Brother . . . could not find any but religious books and wanted to read him some in them. But he told him, 'No them was Methodist books, and I am a Baptist and I don't want to hear them!' So he heard no reading that night. . . .

" . . . I think we will all have to do something before long or we will all perish here soon. For you never saw such times in all your life. We don't get enough to eat here. I am sorry to say so to you, but I don't get enough. . . .

". . . Ma, oh! dear Mother, this place is so lousy I can't hardly keep the lice off of me. There got some in my socks and laid so many nits in them that I am compelled to throw them away and go bare-legged . . . . Of! how I wish I was there where I could the attention of a kind Mother and Wife and Sisters . . . ."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), "Dear Mother: Don't grieve about me. If I get killed, I'll only be dead.": Letters from Georgia Soldiers in the Civil War (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1990), pp. 120-121.

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

1864 In light of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's continuing retreats in the face of General William T. Sherman, the Atlanta Intelligencer carried the following commentary on public reactions to the newspaper's effort to paint a positive picture of the Atlanta Campaign:

"We are stopped daily on the street, almost at every step, by people who anxiously inquire the news. A large number of these quidnuncs wear the longest faces they can put on, and their pallid looks would lead one unacquainted with them to suppose they had lost their dearest and best friend, or perhaps a whole family of friends. They cry in our ears a most dismal cry. Some of them say to us: 'Why do you publish such flattering opinions about the situation? You know as well as I do that Johnston is falling back, and that Atlanta is threatened. You are misleading the people by holding out to them hopes which will be dashed to the ground. Johnston is being outflanked up there and we are losing ground that will never be regained.'"

Source: Source: Franklin Garrett, Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its people and Events (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1954), Vol. I., p. 589.