Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

November 25

1863 The Battle of Missionary Ridge began as Gen. Thomas' corps advanced up Missionary Ridge routing the Confederate center, while Hooker attacked their left. [See map.] Bragg's army was defeated and retreated into Georgia. [To read Bragg's official explanation for the loss, click here.]

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

1864 Sherman's army had two different skirmishes today. The 14th and 20th Corps now formed the northern wing advancing toward Sandersville. Meanwhile to the south, the 17th Corps experienced a brief skirmish--sometimes identified as the Battle of the Oconee River Bridge – with a strange combination of Confederate forces consisting of the Fourth Kentucky (of the Kentucky "Orphan Brigade"), cadets from the Georgia Military Institute at Milledgeville, and Georgia state penitentiary convicts. Badly outnumbered, all the Confederate coalition could do was delay the advance of the 17th.

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

1864 While Sherman was in the heart of Georgia, Gov. Joseph E. Brown ordered state militia Gen. W. P. Howard to inspect Atlanta and report on the condition of what was left of the city.

1885 By a margin of just over 200 votes, voters of Atlanta and Fulton County approved a referendum providing for prohibition. [For a background to Georgia's prohibition movement in the 1880s, click here.] The vote to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages would result in one unintended – but very important – consequence. At the time, a French wine named Vin Mariani was popular in America.

The Bordeaux wine was distinct because it was treated with coca leaves. This inspired Atlanta druggist John S. Pemberton in 1884 to capitalize on the craze by developing what he initially called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. However, with prohibition now in effect in Atlanta and Fulton County, Pemberton turned his attention to developing a non-alcoholic, cola version of his French Wine Coca. He decided to call the new beverage Coca-Cola, which he then promoted widely as the ideal temperance beverage. Atlanta's experiment with prohibition only lasted two years, after which Pemberton returned to producing his French Wine Coca. But it was his carbonated cola drink that would become the most popular soft drink in the world.

1890 Former Georgia governor James Milton Smith died in Columbus, Georgia. Though he did not attend college, he studied law with an attorney, gaining admittance to the bar in 1846. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Smith joined an infantry regiment and rose to the rank of colonel. Severe injuries in 1862, however, left him unable to serve in the military--so he ran for and won election to the Confederate Congress.

After the war, Smith resumed the practice of law. He also won election the Georgia House of Representatives in 1870, subsequently being elected Speaker the next year. After Reconstruction governor Rufus Bullock fled the state, Smith was chosen governor in a special election in 1871 (and reelected to a four-year term in 1872). Later, he was named chairman of the newly created State Railroad Commission (later renamed the Public Service Commission). Smith's final public office was that of superior court judge, a position he held at the time of his death in 1890. [See Oct. 24 entry for more biographical information on Smith.]

1960 Songwriter and Christian/popular music singer Amy Grant was born in Augusta, Georgia.

1961 The first mass meeting of the Albany Movement was held in Mount Zion Baptist Church (present home of the Mount Zion Albany Civil Rights Movement Museum).

1979 The wagon train bearing gold to regild Georgia's state capitol dome [see Nov. 23 entry] arrived in Atlanta on a rainy afternoon.

Like its predecessor in 1958, the 1979 wagon train proceeded to Piedmont Park to spend the night.

1980 Although the Atlanta school bus drivers' strike continued, many drivers started crossing picket lines.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1864 Sherman's secretary, Henry Hitchcock, wrote about what happened to the 20th Corps:

"6 miles W. of Sandersville, Ga, tenth day out. Soon learned on the road that bridge or bridges over Buffalo Creek burned: a troublesome place, swampy, creek spreads, really nine successive short bridges . . . . Two or three stories about who burned bridge – negroes said done by this man, others by party from Sandersville. General very angry at it, no wonder . . .got to talk about proposed burning of this house – quite a good one, two story frame with several out-houses, cabins, etc. Good blacksmith shop with very good set carpenter's tools. Ewing was for burning house. H.H. (referring to himself) opposed it without evidence that owner had burned or helped burn bridge . . . . General was sitting near, unobserved by H.H., but, as usual – for nothing escapes him – heard and noticed conversation. Presently he broke in 'In war everything is right which prevents anything. If bridges are burned I have a right to burn all houses near it.' Poe rebuilt bridges rapidly and well, and the whole delay was only about four hours. . . . Learned that rebel cavalry were on t'other side and a few shots exchanged at first but no harm done."

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 91-93.