Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

October 1

1831 Confederate general Claudius C. Wilson was born in Effingham County, Ga. [See Nov. 27 entry for biographical information on Wilson.]

1835 Confederate general Robert H. Anderson was born in Savannah, Ga. [See Feb. 8 entry for biographical information on Anderson.]

1838 Though voluntary emigration of a few Cherokee Indians had begun in early 1837, the great majority continued to resist removal to the West. Forced emigration began in June 1838, when three detachments totaling almost 3,000 Cherokees left Ross' Landing by boat on the Tennessee River. However, a severe drought made the river unnavigable, so further removal was delayed until fall. On Oct. 1, the main body of the Cherokees assembled for a final council meeting at Rattlesnake Springs in Tennessee. In all, there were 12,500 Cherokees, with 645 wagons, 5000 horses, and additional oxen. Here, they pledged to keep their laws and form of government in their new home. U.S. Gen. Winfield Scott (who was in charge of the emigration) had planned for 13 detachments of about 1,000 Cherokees each to be escorted west by mounted U.S. soldiers, departing at intervals of three or four days. As soon as the Oct. 1 Cherokee council meeting ended, a signal was given and the first detachment of Cherokees moved out on the road to Nashville. Their journey would taken them through Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and into the Indian Territory of present-day Oklahoma. Because of cold weather and disease, thousands would die during what the Cherokees would call their "Trail of Tears."

1895 The Free Association and Normal Training School for Teachers was established in Columbus, Georgia.

1914 Historian Daniel J. Boorstin was born in Atlanta. He would become recognized for his studies of American civilization, particularly his three-volume The Americans series: The Colonial Experience (1958), The National Experience (1965), and The Democratic Experience (1973), which won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize.

1918 A parade was held in downtown Atlanta with a two-fold purpose. First, a silent tribute was paid to the many Georgians who had died in World War I. Second, organizers hoped to rally support for those still fighting as the allied armies were surrounding Germany near the end of the war.

1918 Augusta's Camp Hancock experienced an outbreak of the Spanish influenza then sweeping the nation. On the previous day only two soldiers had been in the infirmary. On this day, 716 showed up with flu-like symptoms--and it would get worse.

1924 Future Georgia governor and U.S. president Jimmy Carter was born in Plains, Georgia.

1931 Frankin D. Roosevelt arrived in Warm Springs, Ga. for his twenty-first visit to his "second home."

1940 Florence Gibbs was elected to Congress, technically becoming the first woman from Georgia to be elected to Congress. On Aug. 7, 1940, 8th district congressman W. Benjamin Gibbs died near the end of his freshman term. Gov. E.D. Rivers subsequently called for a special election on Oct. 1 to fill the remaining three months of his term. Gibbs' widow, Florence Reville Gibbs, had no political experience or ambitions but she agreed to run in the special election to complete her husband's term -- but not in that fall's general election for a full two-year term. In the special election, Florence Gibbs was the only person on the ballot. And in a very low turnout, voters elected her in what probably was a sympathy vote. Subsequently, she was sworn in the U.S. House on Oct. 3 but never given a committee assignment. After completing her husband's term on Jan. 3, 1941, Florence Gibbs returned to Georgia and never again was involved in politics.

1976 Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter was joined by his wife Rosalynn for a birthday reunion in Pittsburgh, Penn. before taking his campaign to the New England states. Throughout his campaign, he hammered at the previous two Republican administrations, saying "many of our people have simply given up because of the disgrace of the Nixon administration and the failures of the Ford administration."

1986 The Carter Center was dedicated in Atlanta on the birth date of former President Carter.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1862 From Goosetown, Virginia, Confederate soldier Edgar Richardson wrote to his mother back in Georgia:

". . . We are now encamped about six miles from Winchester. . . . We hear no news at all with the exception of camp rumors and there is a good deal of that. I understand 60,000 Yankees [are] at Leesburg and 25,00 at Suffolk, and if it be true we will have to get back towards Richmond. We have lost a great many men since we came up in this part of the country, but our army is stronger at this time that it was before the fight. They have got up all of the stragglers and well men from the hospitals. General lee said he would have routed the enemy at Sharpsburg, Maryland, if it had not been that our army straggled so. I think there was about 20,000 of our army that straggled off and were not in the fight. I don't wish to visit Maryland anymore. . . .

"We come up to General Cobb in 200 yards of the Yankees. He and his staff were doing all in their power to rally his men, but it was too much of a Bull Run stampede to stop them. When we got to where he was, he asked whose battery it was. We told him it was the Troup Artillery.

"We draw a uniform, blanket, shirts, drawers, socks, shoes, hat in a few days, and I will feel like a new man when I get them. . . . I am well and hearty. All of the Watkinsville boys are well, but Tony, his foot has not get entirely well."

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. 192-193.

1868 Edward Hulbert, superintendent of the Western & Atlantic Railroad wrote Gov. Rufus Bullock on the need for better facilities:

". . . The want of a suitable passenger depot at Atlanta is being severely felt by all the roads in interest. Steps should be taken next spring for the erection of a building adequate to the future wants of the roads now in operation as well as those projected. Without counselling extravagance, I would suggest that it be one every way worthy of the great railway interests it will represent, as well as that of the great railway center of the South, the GATE CITY."

Source: Franklin M. Garrett, Atlanta and Its Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1969 reprint of original 1954 volume), p. 839.

1880 Financial troubles continued long after Reconstruction for Gertrude Thomas and her family; finally she was forced to go to work herself to support her family:

"My prayer of yesterday is answered! My way is made clear for me, unmistakable, plain and direct. It is right that I should teach school. It is my duty and this is what decided me. A visit from Mr. Sibley the sheriff to serve me with a writ or paper from Franklin and Brothers. The amount is [left blank] with interest. What a poor business woman I am. I have read it over half a doz times and I only remember that it is $300 and something. Mr. Thomas went in town this morning. I had just signed an order on Howard and Sons for $150.00 conscious while I did so that the river swamp was mortgaged and that we would probably lose it when we tried to settle up at the end of the year. Mr. Thomas was annoyed, said I knew nothing of business and of this I am very conscious. . . ." Despite these self deprecatory remarks, it was largely Mr. Thomas's mismanagement of his family's assets that perpetuated the family's financial woes; Gertrude kept the family afloat with the income from her teaching.

Source: Virginia Ingraham Burr (ed.), The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), pp. 410-411.