Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

November 19

1827 Newspaper writer, civil engineer, and soldier Isaac M. St. John was born in Augusta, Ga. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Fort Hill Guards as a private. In 1862, he served as Magruder's chief engineer and rose to the rank of captain and then major. The next year, he was promoted to Lt. Col. in the Confederate Niter and Mining Corps. In Feb. 1865, St. John was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and at the time of the war's end, he was Confederate Commissary General with responsibility for supplying the Confederacy with gunpowder and metals. In May 1865, St. John was one of several Confederate cabinet members that met with Jefferson Davis in Washington, Ga. for what amounted to the dissolution of the Confederate government.

Memorial at Site of Last Meeting of Confederate Government, Washington, Ga.

St. Johns died on Apr. 7, 1880 in White Sulphur Springs, W.V. and was buried in Richmond, Va.

1861 A song that would be heard over and over in Georgia in 1864 originated when Julia Ward Howe wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

1864 From Richmond, Georgia's delegation to the Confederate Congress sent a telegraph to the people of Georgia indicating that they had met with Confederate president Jefferson Davis and secretary of war James Seddon about Sherman's March to the Sea. Noting that the Confederate government was doing all that it could, the message exhorted the people of Georgia: "Let every man fly to arms! Remove your negroes, horses, cattle, and provisions from Sherman's army, and burn what you cannot carry. Burn all bridges and block up the roads in his route. Assail the invader in front, flank, and rear, by night and by day. Let him have no rest."

1895 This was Georgia Day at the Cotton States and International Exposition and well over 40,000 people attended the festivities. John Phillip Sousa, who had premiered the day before, led his band in several rousing concerts and many Georgia political and social notables spoke.

The day was not without controversy, however, as most were surprised at the absence of Governor William Atkinson. Somehow he had not been invited to participate and assumed he was not wanted. This did little to dampen the enthusiasm of the attendees though, as unusually fair weather helped bring out the crowds and enliven the festivities.

1938 Advertising and cable television pioneer Robert E. (Ted) Turner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father moved the family to Georgia and later began Turner Advertising--an outdoor billboard business. On his father's death, Turner took over the successful business, which in 1970 allowed him to purchase an Atlanta UHF television station that had the license for channel 17. Thus was launched WTCG, which would be known for its schedule of reruns, Bill Tush, and Saturday professional wrestling hosted by Gordon Solie. In the 1970s, Turner began bouncing WTCG's signal off a satellite, which allowed it to broadcast to the nation through cable television systems. The stations's call letters were changed to WTBS to signify the Turner Broadcasting System.

Quickly, Turner built a media empire from a small independent television in Atlanta. Turner subsequently purchased two professional sports franchises–the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Hawks–and began broadcasting their games over his "Superstation." In 1980, Turner created Cable News Network as his second–and arguably most significant–cable television offering.

Following CNN came Headline News, Turner Network Television, and the Cartoon Network. In 1991, Turner was named Man of the Year by Time Magazine.Also hat year, he married former actress and activist Jane Fonda–a marriage that lasted until 2001. In 1997 Turner made international news by announcing a donation of $1 billion (over ten years) to a foundation benefiting United Nations charities.

1973 The speed limit on Georgia highways dropped to 55 miles per hour, and Sunday gas sales were eliminated, as President Nixon issued energy-saving rules to cope with the Arab oil embargo of the United States.

1997 The Atlanta Braves announced the trade of first baseman Fred McGriff to the new Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball team. McGriff, who is from Tampa, was acquired by the Braves from the San Diego Padres in 1993. McGriff's departure, coupled with that of shortstop Jeff Blauser the day before, meant two members of the 1995 World Champion Braves were gone--with other personnel changes still looming.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1735 From Old Ebenezer, Salzburger minister John Martin Boltzius recorded in his journal an interview with a visitor who provided a number of answers about the Indian lifestyles:

"An Englishman called on me who had been sent seven weeks ago from Savannah to the Creek Indians who live some three hundred miles inland from Savannah. . . .I asked him the following questions:

1) Where do the Indians live? Ans. Not on the Savannah River but further up in the country, where they can be reached only by land. There are some rivers, to be sure, but they cannot be passed because of the Frenchmen that live on them. 2) How do these people live? Do they live together in towns and do they live more orderly than the Indians in this colony? Ans. There are a number of towns in which live perhaps four hundred men (not counting the women and children). The men go hunting and collect a great many skins. The women plant corn, beans, sweet potatoes, and tobacco; and they also raise many hogs and fowl, which can be bought at a low price. Of wine, beer, and the like they know nothing. 3) Are they, like the others, given to drunkenness and especially the drinking of rum? Ans. Yes, very much so, and they hold nothing more precious than a bottle of rum: but they cannot get as much of it as others because everything must be brought to them by packhorse and thus only small kegs ever get to them. 4) Do white people carry on trade with them? Ans. "Yes, many Englishmen live among them; I have lived among them myself for some time. They buy their skins from them and given them in return all sorts of ribbons, knives, guns, powder, lead, white woolen cloth, and also rum. They do not accept money." 5) Are the white people who visit them or live with them in any danger? Ans. "none whatsoever. Whey they are drunk they will cause inconvenience and it is better to avoid them but when they are sober they are very friendly and eager to help the white man." 6) Is any form of worship to be seen among them? Ans. none at all. Further question: Is there no opportunity for such even among the Christians? Ans. The Frenchmen may have it. 7) How is the soil there? Ans. Very fertile, there is hardly any comparison between the land there and the best land of Carolina. 8) How is the weather? Ans. Much hotter in the summer than in Georgia, but also much colder in the winter. during the hot summertime the people must often bathe in the river is they are to stand the heat. 9) what sort of clothes do the heathens wear? Ans. Much the same as the Indians in this country. They will not accept European dress. 10) Is there a regular road that leads to them from this colony, and is the trip dangerous? Ans. It is a regular footpath which is very well known by the Spanish Indians as well. This way leads through many swamps and also across river or creeks which have to be crossed on horseback. From Pallachocolas on there is no house along the way to give shelter, and you must sleep in the forest under the open sky at all times. You build a good fire and hobble your horse and turn it loose with a bell on it to eat the very good grass. You have to carry food for yourself, whereas there is enough drinking water everywhere. There are many wild beasts in the woods but they do not harm people. They are the same kinds to be found in this colony. The only thing one has to fear on this journey is the Spanish Indians who are roaming the country, they are cowardly if you carry a gun and look them straight in the eye; but if you are timid and afraid they tie you up, carry you away, and burn you at the stake. . . ."

Source: George Fenwick Jones (ed.), Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America . . . Edited by Samuel Urlsperger, Vol. 2 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1969), pp. 207-209.

1850 Reflecting the growing sectionalism in the U.S., a debate occurred on the danger of southerners and northerners marrying. After hearing that someone in the South had proposed that southern men not marry women from the North, the editor of an Abolitionist newspaper responded by writing that any northern man who married a southern woman would be selling "his birthright as a friend of freedom." On this day, the editor of Macon's The Georgia Telegraph responded:

"We assure him he need not be alarmed. No Southern woman will marry a gentleman North of mason and Dixon's line, who cannot furnish unexceptional testimonials of being a pro-slavery man."

Source: Spencer B. King Jr., Georgia Voices: A Documentary History to 1872 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1966), p. 253.

1864 After capture at the Battle of the Wilderness in May, Capt. G.W. Roughton of the 49th Georgia Infantry wrote his wife Elizabeth from Ft. Pulaski, Ga., where he was being held as a prisoner:

"Dearest Lizzie: There were two hundred of our party called out this morning to go somewhere but I dont know where as I am one of the numbers I will write so you may know that I have left this place. It may be for exchange but I fear it is to some Northern prison. I have left a friend to send my letters after me so you must write to this place till you hear from me as my time here is short. I must close. Kiss the baby for me and give my love to Ma, Pa, and except the same, may God help you all and keep you from all harm. I am well."

Source: The Civil War in Washington County

1864 From her plantation near Covington, Ga., Dolly Lunt Burge wrote of the destruction of Sherman's forces in her journal:

"Slept in my clothes last night, as I heard that the Yankees went to neighbor Montgomery's on Thursday night at one o'clock, searched his house, drank his wine, and took his money and valuables. As we were not disturbed, I walked after breakfast, with Sadai, up to Mr. Joe Perry's, my nearest neighbor, where the Yankees were yesterday. Saw Mrs. Laura [Perry] in the road surrounded by her children, seeming to be looking for some one. She said she was looking for her husband, that old Mrs. Perry had just sent her word that the Yankees went to James Perry's the night before, plundered his house, and drove off all his stock, and that she must drive hers into the old fields. Before we we were done talking, up came Joe and Jim Perry from their hiding-place. Jim was very much excited. Happening to turn and look behind, as we stood there, I saw some blue-coats coming down the hill. Jim immediately raised his gun, swearing he would kill them anyhow. "No, don't!" said I, and ran home as fast as I could, with Sadai. I could hear them cry, "Halt! Halt!" and their guns went off in quick succession. Oh Clod, the time of trial has come! A man passed on his way to Covington. I halloed to him, asking him if he did not know the Yankees were coming. "No - are they?" "Yes," said I; "they are not three hundred yards from here." "Sure enough," said he. "Well, I'll not go. I don't want them to get my horse." And although within hearing of their guns, he would stop and look for them. Blissful ignorance! Not knowing, not hearing, he has not suffered the suspense, the fear, that I have for the past forty-eight hours. I walked to the gate. There they came filing up. I hastened back to my frightened servants and told them that they had better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection and a guard. But like demons they rush in! My yards are full. To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar, like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in my smoke-house is gone in a twinkling, my flour, my meat, my lard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds -- both in vinegar and brine -- wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys, my hens, chickens, and fowls, my young pigs, are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were rebels themselves. Utterly powerless I ran out and appealed to the guard. "I cannot help you, Madam; it is orders." As I stood there, from my lot I saw driven, first, old Dutch, my dear old buggy horse, who has carried my beloved husband so many miles, and who would so quietly wait at the block for him to mount and dismount, and who at last drew him to his grave; then came old Mary, my brood mare, who for years had been too old and stiff for work, with her three-year-old colt, my two-year-old mule, and her last little baby colt. There they go! There go my mules, my sheep, and, worse than all, my boys [slaves]! Alas! little did I think while trying to save my house from plunder and fire that they were forcing my boys from home at the point of the bayonet. One, Newton, jumped into bed in his cabin, and declared himself sick. Another crawled under the floor, -- a lame boy he was, -- but they pulled him out, placed him on a horse, and drove him off. Mid, poor Mid! The last I saw of him, a man had him going around the garden, looking, as I thought, for my sheep, as he was my shepherd. Jack came crying to me, the big tears coursing down his cheeks, saying they were making him go. I said: "Stay in my room." But a man followed in, cursing him and threatening to shoot him if he did not go; so poor Jack had to yield. James Arnold, in trying to escape from a back window, was captured and marched off. Henry, too, was taken; I know not how or when, but probably when he and Bob went after the mules. I had not believed they would force from their homes the poor, doomed negroes, but such has been the fact here, cursing them and saying that "Jeff Davis wanted to put them in his army, but that they should not fight for him, but for the Union." No! Indeed no! They are not friends to the slave. We have never made the poor, cowardly negro fight, and it is strange, passing strange, that the all-powerful Yankee nation with the whole world to back them, their ports open, their armies filled with soldiers from all nations, should at last take the poor negro to help them out against this little Confederacy which was to have been brought back into the Union in sixty days' time! My poor boys! My poor boys ! What unknown trials are before you! How you have clung to your mistress and assisted her in every way you knew. Never have I corrected them; a word was sufficient. Never have they known want of any kind. Their parents are with me, and how sadly they lament the loss of their boys. Their cabins are rifled of every valuable, the soldiers swearing that their Sunday clothes were the white people's, and that they never had money to get such things as they had. Poor Frank's chest was broken open, his money and tobacco taken. He has always been a money-making and saving boy; not infrequently has his crop brought him five hundred dollars and more. All of his clothes and Rachel's clothes, which dear Lou gave before her death and which she had packed away, were stolen from her. Ovens, skillets, coffee-mills, of which we had three, coffee-pots -- not one have I left. Sifters all gone! Seeing that the soldiers could not be restrained, the guard offered me to have their [of the negroes] remaining possessions brought into my house, which I did, and they all, poor things, huddled together in my room, fearing every movement that the house would be burned. A Captain Webber from Illinois came into my house. Of him I claimed protection from the vandals who were forcing themselves into my room. He said that he knew my brother Orrington [the late Orrington Lunt, a well known early settler of Chicago]. At that name I could not restrain my feelings, but, bursting into tears, implored him to see my brother and let him know my destitution. I saw nothing before me but starvation. He promised to do this, and comforted me with the assurance that my dwelling-house would not be burned, though my out-buildings might. Poor little Sadai went crying to him as to a friend and told him that they had taken her doll, Nancy. He begged her to come and see him, and he would give her a fine waxen one. [The doll was found later in the yard of a neighbor, where a soldier had thrown it, and was returned to the little girl. Her children later played with it, and it is now the plaything of her granddaughter.] He felt for me, and I give him and several others the character of gentlemen. I don't believe they would have molested women and children had they had their own way. He seemed surprised that I had not laid away in my house, flour and other provisions. I did not suppose I could secure them there, more than where I usually kept them, for in last summer's raid houses were thoroughly searched. In parting with him; I parted as with a friend. Sherman himself and a greater portion of his army passed my house that day. All day, as the sad moments rolled on, were they passing not only in front of my house, but from behind; they tore down my garden palings, made a road through my back-yard and lot field, driving their stock and riding through, tearing down my fences and desolating my home -- wantonly doing it when there was no necessity for it. Such a day, if I live to the age of Methuselah, may God spare me from ever seeing again! As night drew its sable curtains around us, the heavens from every point were lit up with flames from burning buildings. Dinnerless and supperless as we were, it was nothing in comparison with the fear of being driven out homeless to the dreary woods. Nothing to eat! I could give my guard no supper, so he left us. I appealed to another, asking him if he had wife, mother, or sister, and how he should feel were they in my situation. A colonel from Vermont left me two men, but they were Dutch, and I could not understand one word they said. My Heavenly Father alone saved me from the destructive fire. My carriage-house had in it eight bales of cotton, with my carriage, buggy, and harness. On top of the cotton were some carded cotton rolls, a hundred pounds or more. These were thrown out of the blanket in which they were, and a large twist of the rolls taken and set on fire, and thrown into the boat of my carriage, which was close up to the cotton bales. Thanks to my God, the cotton only burned over, and then went out. Shall I ever forget the deliverance? To-night, when the greater part of the army had passed, it came up very windy and cold. My room was full, nearly, with the negroes and their bedding. They were afraid to go out, for my women could not step out of the door without an insult from the Yankee soldiers. They lay down on the floor; Sadai got down and under the same cover with Sally, while I sat up all night, watching every moment for the flames to burst out from some of my buildings. The two guards came into my room and laid themselves by my fire for the night. I could not close my eyes, but kept walking to and fro, watching the fires in the distance and dreading the approaching day, which, I feared, as they had not all passed, would be but a continuation of horrors. "

Source: A Woman's Wartime Journal: an Account of the Passage over a Georgia Plantation of Sherman's Army on the March to the Sea, as recorded in the Diary of Dolly Sumner Lunt (Mrs. Thomas Burge)

1864 On Sherman's fourth day since leaving Atlanta, his secretary -- Henry Hitchcock -- made the following entry in his diary:

"Last night I read to him [referring to Sherman] A.H. Stephen's [native Georgian and vice-president of the Confederacy] most remarkable letter to "Senator" Sumner of Louisiana...sent by A.H.S. to the Augusta Constitutionalist, in which we received it. The General was greatly interested, but made few or no comments. I remarked on A.H.S.'s idea that separation would secure permanent peace, and his talk about the ultimate, absolute sovereignty of the States. Said the General, 'Stephens is crazy on the States Rights question. This war is on our part a war against anarchy. I wish they were separated from us and a foreign Government -- we'd whale 'em all the time.'

"By 11 or 12 o'clock we reached Newborn...The men are foraging and straggling, I an sorry to say, a good deal. At and near every farmhouse we hear constant shooting -- of pigs and chickens. I remarked to the General something about the straggling. He answered, 'I have been three years fighting stragglers, and they are harder to conquer than the enemy.'"

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), pp. 74-75.