Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

November 13

1838 Doctor and politician George Jones died in Savannah, Georgia. Born there on Feb. 25, 1766, he had no formal education but was taught medicine by his father, Noble Wymberly Jones, patriarch of the famous Wormsloe plantation. In 1786, the Georgia legislature elected Jones as state treasurer. After one term, he resigned and served a variety of offices, such as justice of the peace, inferior court judge, superior court judge, state representative, state senator, Savannah city councilman, and Savannah mayor. Jones served several weeks in the U.S. Senate in 1807 to fill out the unexpired term after the death of Abraham Baldwin. After his father died, Jones inherited Wormsloe and became involved in various enterprises – including planting, banking, and railroad promotion. He prospered in many of these undertakings and helped establish the philanthropic reputation of the Jones family and the Wormsloe Foundation.

1864 Union soldiers fought a fire that spread through downtime Marietta – apparently set without orders. Sherman, however, did order the the burning of a large steam mill that he considered a military target.

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

1866 At the state capitol in Milledgeville, the Georgia General Assembly adopted a resolution declining to ratify the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The action followed the recommendation of President Andrew Johnson, whose theory of reconstruction was based on the premise that the southern states had never been out of the Union – which would mean that they could not be forced to ratify a constitutional amendment. In deciding not to ratify the 14th Amendment, the General Assembly adopted a committee report explaining that: "1. If Georgia is not a State composing part of the Federal Government known as the Government of the United States, amendments to the Constitution of the United States are not properly before this body. 2. If Georgia is a State composing part of the Federal Government . . . , these these amendments are not proposed according to the requirements of the Federal Constitution, and are proposed in such a manner as to forbid the legislature from discussing the merits of the amendments without an implied surrender of the rights of the State."

1884 With the ground cleared of the old Atlanta City Hall-Fulton County Courthouse, excavation for the new Georgia State Capitol began. Construction of the new statehouse would take over four years.

1944 During deliberations by the Constitutional Commission of 1943-44 (which had been created to revise Georgia's Constitution of 1877), commission chairman (and governor) Ellis Arnall made a motion proposing that the new constitution include a local government home rule provision that he and the League of Women Voters had been working on.

After much discussion, the motion passed by a narrow 8-7 vote. However, the question of how much power Georgia cities and counties should have to govern themselves from from legislative control would prove to be a controversial issue for the constitutional commission.

1983 Comic television actor Alvin "Junior" Samples – best remembered as the slow-thinking country bumpkin on the TV series Hee Haw – died at age 56 . Born Apr. 10, 1926 in Cummings, Georgia, Samples introduction to television came as a result of his famous big bass story.

1992 Riddick Bowe won a unanimous decision over Atlanta's Evander Holyfield to win the undisputed heavyweight boxing title in boxing heavyweight title in Las Vegas.

1995 Atlanta Brave Greg Maddux became the first major league pitcher to win four consecutive Cy Young Awards.

1999 Fighting in Las Vegas, Atlanta's Evander Holyfield lost a unanimous decision to Lennox Lewis. The 15-round fight went the distance, but the 37-year-old Holyfield was unable to defeat the younger, taller, and heavier British champion. Lewis' victory gave him the undisputed world heavyweight boxing championship – a title Holyfield had hoped to regain.

2006 Ground breaking ceremonies were held for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Scheduled for completion in 2011, the monument will be the first on the mall honoring an African-American and someone who was not a United States President. Former U.S. Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton spoke at the ceremonies.

Georgia cities and towns created by acts approved on Nov. 13:

1889 Demorest (Habersham County), Harrisonville (Richmond County), Hillsboro (Jasper County), Porter Mills (Habersham County), Shady Dale (Jasper County), Stillmore (Emanuel County), and Waleska (Cherokee County)

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1860 Georgia's most outspoken advocate of secession was probably U.S. Senator Robert Toombs. Speaking before the Georgia General Assembly following Lincoln's election as president, Toombs stated:

"The door of conciliation and compromise is finally closed by our adversaries, and it remains only to us to meet the conflict with the dignity and firmness of men worthy of freedom. We need no declaration of Independence. Above eight-four years ago, our fathers won that by the sword from Great Britain . . . .

"The basis – the corner stone of this Government was the perfect equality of the free, sovereign and independent States which made it. . . .

"Withdraw yourselves from such a confederacy; it is your right to do so; your duty to do so. I know not why the abolitionists should object to it, unless that want to Torture you and plunder you. If they resist this great sovereign right, make another war of independence, for that then will be the question; fight its battles over again; reconquer liberty and independence . . . ."

Source: Spencer B. King, Jr., Georgia Voices: A Documentary History to 1872 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1966, reprinted 1974), p. 272.

1863 John Banks of Columbus, Ga. had seven sons in Confederate military service. Four of these were briefly mentioned in today's journal entry:

"Willis has gotten nearly well and will soon be ready to return to his command. Elbert is still at Canton, Miss. Eugene at or near Chickamauga. Stationed there near the enemy. Today I paid $2.10 for a Hhd of sugar and not good.

"Sold Watkins' cotton at 40c. It was not good. 55c the average price. Corn, $3 per bushel."

Source: John Banks, Autobiography of John Banks, 1797 - 1870 (Austell, Ga.: privately printed by Elberta Leonard, 1936), p. 30.

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

1864 Henry Hitchcock, military secretary to General William T. Sherman, noted in his diary efforts by Union soldiers to put out a fire:

"In Marietta by 11 or 12 PM. Entering square, saw our men with fire engine front of Court House, pumping hard, and man inside with hose . . . . Fires appear sundry places, and again in Court House, and at last this breaks out, and fairly burning. All our staff, and all other officers I heard, regret and condemn. Inquired-Nobody knew how set on fire: but . . . had three times put it out and tried hard to save it . . . 'twas no use. This soon blazed furiously, and this set other buildings on fire, across the street, and opposite hotel. Elsewhere on Square large stores, etc. begun to burn, and spread. Large buildings opposite left of hotel showed smoke. This was put out by Maj. McCoy of our staff, and was saved. Found that up to this morning there were guards around these buildings, but they had gone on with column, and thus in unguarded interval fire was set without orders."

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), p. 52.

1871 The closest a Georgia governor came to impeachment was in 1871, when Republican governor Rufus Bullock (1868-1871) resigned days before the convening of a new – and heavily Democratic – General Assembly [see Oct. 23 entry]. Many legislators were pledged to impeach Bullock for his actions as governor during Reconstruction. Rather than face impeachment, Bullock resigned and fled the state, resulting in adoption of this joint resolution by the House and Senate on Nov. 13, 1871:

"Resolved, That Rufus B. Bullock, late Governor of the State of Georgia, who has resigned his office and left the State under circumstances creating grave suspicion that he is guilt of high crimes and misdemeanors, has, in charging, in a letter bearing the date 23d October, 1871, addressed to his political friends and the people of Georgia, that a majority of the House of Representatives had pledged themselves to vote for articles of impeachment against him without investigation, and that the Senate had determined to unseat a sufficient number of Republican Senators to secure his conviction without regard to the truth and validity of the charges, defamed this General Assembly by charges which are untrue. That the statement in the same letter to the effect that the people of Georgia have recently denounced or ignored the Constitution of the United States is false and defamatory of the people of this State. On the contrary, we assert that the people of this State do now, as they did six months ago (when, according to the letter of the said Rufus B. Bullock, they were peaceably disposed, acquiesce in the result of the war, and neither entertain any hostility toward the United States, nor deny to any person within the limits of the State the equal protection of the laws.

"Of force through lapse of time, November 13, 1871."

Source: Ga. Laws 1871-1872, pp. 263-264.