Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

 
April 5

1865 Gov. Joseph E. Brown ordered the 1st Georgia Infantry Regiment, which was composed of remnants of Georgia units from all around the state, to assemble in Macon -- Georgia's temporary capital.

1871 Early University of Georgia football coach Glenn "Pop" Warner was born in Springville, New York.

1901 Actor Melvyn Douglas was born in Macon, Ga. as Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg. His acting career spanned 60 years, during which time he became one of three actors to win an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony award. Married to Helen Douglas, he died at age 80 on Aug. 4, 1981.

1937 Gen. Colin Luther Powell was born in New York City in 1937. He attended the City College of New York, where he was in the ROTC program. Upon graduation in 1958, Powell received his commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Powell was then stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he completing the Infantry Officer Basic Course, Ranger Course, and, Airborne Course. Subsequently, his tour of duty included Germany and various bases in the U.S. After two tours of duty in Vietnam (1962-63 and 1968-69), Powell held a number of increasingly important military assignments, also earning an MBA from George Washington University in 1971 and serving in the administrations of presidents Carter and Reagan. In 1987, Reagan named Powell National Security Advisor -- a cabinet position. In 1989, Powell returned to Georgia to serve as Commander in Chief, Forces Command headquartered at Fort McPherson in Atlanta. Later that year, Powell became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a position he held until 1993. In January 2001, Pres. George Bush named Gen. Powell as U.S. Secretary of State, the first African American to hold this post in history.

1962 Gov. Ernest Vandiver called a special session of the General Assembly to revise Georgia's election laws. His action came ten days after the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Baker v. Carr ruled that apportionment of representatives in state legislatures involved the constitutional rights of citizens to equal protection under the 14th Amendment. Immediately following that decision, a suit was filed in federal court challenging Georgia's county unit system -- which heavily favored the voting strength of smaller counties in statewide primary elections.

1968 In Atlanta, planning got underway for the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. In an effort to keep calm, Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen and police chief Herbert Jenkins spent half a day driving around to visit the various black neighborhoods in the city. In each, they got out of their car and walked around and talked to people on the street to let them of their concern. However, Allen was more worried about reaction from white racists. He received a number of telegrams and telephone calls urging the city to ignore the funeral. Gov. Maddox complained about plans to lower flags in Atlanta to half-staff. However, by the end of the day, hundreds of white churches in the city announced they would be opening their doors for black mourners coming to Atlanta for King's funeral.

In an Atlanta Constitution article following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., editor Ralph McGill said: "White slaves killed Martin Luther King in Memphis. At the moment the triggerman fired, Martin Luther King was the free man. The white killer (or killers) was a slave to fear, a slave to his own sense of inferiority, a slave to hatred, a slave to all bloody instincts that surge in a brain when a human being decides to become a beast." Meanwhile, as King's body was returned to Atlanta, his close friend Ralph Abernathy assumed the presidency of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (previously held by King) and announced that the poor people's march on Washington, scheduled for later that month, would go on as planned. Abernathy further noted: "No living man can fill his shoes, but I'll do my best. This is one of the darkest days in the history of this nation, and certainly in the life of my people, but nonviolence will triumph."

1977 In a run-off special election to fill the seat of 5th congressional district congressman Andrew Young, who had resigned to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Wyche Fowler defeated John Lewis by a vote of 54,378 to 32,732.

1991 Former Texas U.S. Sen. John Tower, his daughter, and 21 other people were killed when the commuter plane they were traveling in crashed near Brunswick, Ga.

1993 Playing his first game as an Atlanta Brave, Greg Maddux pitched a 1-0 victory over his former teammates, the Chicago Cubs, at Wrigley Field.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1822 New England lawyer Jeremiah Evarts traveled through Georgia in the late spring. From the coast, he wrote on April 5:

"I have resided now three days on a sea island plantation, where I was treated with all the hospitality which the owner was master of. The house was large, the rooms airy, the furniture costly, the provisions of the table profusely abundant. I had a horse to ride, and spent my time principally alone and with Mr. Eddy. The master of the house was incapable of society from drinking brandy and consequent stupidity and ignorance. He had been educated at Princeton College and is probably somewhat under forty. Every evening he is so far overcome with strong drink as to be silly, every morning full of pain, langour [sic] and destitute of appetite. The state of the slaves, as physical, intellectual and moral beings, is abject beyond my powers of description, yet the state of the master is more to be pitied!

"At Mr. Mongin's table there are always a number of visitors and generally some retainers. Food is provided in most abundant quantities and in great variety. I observed not fewer than ten or twelve hot dishes for breakfast and supper, besides many cold ones. These dishes were generally excellent in their kinds. The bill of fare was as follows: beef steaks broiled and others fried, three times a day, cold ham and sliced corn beef also at every meal, often stewed or roasted oysters, boiled and fried fresh fish, crabs and shrimps, coffee and tea, both morning and evening, waffles, buckwheat cakes, hominy, toast and wheat bread at breakfast; the same at tea, omitting hominy and buckwheat cakes and adding corn meal and wheat flour cakes. How all these things could be cooked would puzzle a Northern man . . . .

"The furniture of this mansion was expensive, but was little attended to. The general aspect of things indicated slackness and listlessness. Nothing like cheerfulness was seen."

Source: Edward J. Cashin (ed.), A Wilderness Still the Cradle of Nature: Frontier Georgia (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1994), pp. 63-64.

1851 Gertude Clanton attended Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia from 1849-1852. The following entry about talking to one of her friends suggests that some aspects of college life have changed little:

"Saturday, April 5, 1851 -- I was conversing with her on the step when Bettie Williams (Bless her soul) called me and we were promenading the passage together until two oclock. Our conversation was in reference to a secret society got up among the girls principally the seniors which I had not been invited to join. Bett came to give me an explanation which was perfectly satisfactory. When I returned from Mr. Stone's recitation Eugenia Tucker came in with a note for me. I found it was from the Adelphian Society as they style themselves unnanimously soliciting I should join them. I returned a note respectfully declining. To have joined them I should have been thrown into too close communion with the girl I most dislike in college Leab Goodall. . . . After prayers I was on the step with the girls. When I returned Jule Thomas gave a white rose to me as a birthday present."

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. 84-85.

1862 Theodore Montfort, a Confederate defender of Fort Pulaski near the mouth of the Savannah River, wrote to his family prior to the attack by Union forces. His April 5th letter shows sad but reluctant acceptance of horrible death and injury that is anticipated by the fort's garrison:

"Yesterday was the day we were to have been attacked, but from some cause it has been delayed, which we were all glad of, as we could be glad to have about three days more to complete and finish strengthening our position. . . . We must prepare for an unequal and unjust struggle and conflict forced upon us by our Yankee enemy. They are about fifty to our one, with superior arms, vessels, &c. Their heavy cannon and mortars are frowning upon us from seven batteries and a quantity of boats -- all intended for our destruction, the destruction of men that have never wronged them or sought to divest them of a right. What a comment upon this enlightened and Christian age!

"Yet we do not believe the race is to the swift or the battle to the strong. We are nerved for the contest by the recollection of our homes, our families and our rights. . . . I think the garrison is determined without regard to the superior numbers of the enemy to strike until the walls of our fort is battered down or he falls. If the fort is taken, we want them to find nothing to take but crumbled and ruin[ed] walls and mangled corpse[s].

"Yet amidst all of our vindictive feelings and bitter hatreds to our enemy, there is something sad and melancholy in the preparation for battle, to see so many healthy men preparing for the worst by disposing of their property by will, to see the surgeon sharpening his instruments and whetting his saw to take off when necessary those members of our body that God has given us for our indispensable use, to see men engaged in carding up and preparing lint to stop the flow of human blood from cruel and inhuman wounds -- is awful to contemplate. Yet there is still another preparation for battle still more sickening. The casements are cleared. Nothing is allowed to remain that is combustible or would be in the way during the engagement. Listen! The floor is covered around each gun with sand, not for health or cleanliness, but to drink up human blood as it flows from the veins and hearts of noble men, from those that love and are beloved! This is necessary to prevent the floor from becoming slippery with blood, so as to enable the men to stand and do their duty. These are some of the preparations for battle. How sad to contemplate, yet how awful must be the realization! What a calamity is war!"

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), Georgia: History Written by Those Who Lived It (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1995), pp. 150-151.
 
 

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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