Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

July 25

1852 Agnes Scott College founder and president Frank H. Gaines was born in Tellico Plains, Tenn. A Presbyterian minister by age 24, Gaines served churches in Kentucky and Virginia before coming to Georgia in 1888, where he became minister of the Decatur Presbyterian Church. Here, with the support of the church, he founded Decatur Female Seminary in 1889. Essentially a grammar school, the new seminary for girls opened with 4 teachers and 63 students. It proved successful, more than doubling in enrollment in the second year. Thanks to a generous gift from school trustee George Scott, the name of the school was changed to Agnes Scott Institute in honor of Scott's mother. In 1896, Gaines became president of the the institute and began changing the school to a college preparatory orientation by replacing one primary grade each year with a secondary grade. In 1905, he divided the institute into an academy and a college, and the following year renamed it Agnes Scott College. Until his death in 1923, Gaines' goal was to create a special learning environment for young women that fosters liberal arts and high scholarship standards.

1864 Confederate Gen. Clement Hoffman "Rock" Stevens died from mortal wounds received in the Battle of Peachtree Creek during Sherman's Atlanta Campaign. Born Aug. 14, 1821 in Norwich, Conn., Stevens served in the U.S. Navy and as a bank cashier before the Civil War. In 1861, he designed and oversaw construction of the fortress on Morris Island and was appointed as a colonel in the 24th South Carolina. At the time of his death, Stevens commanded a brigade in Walker's Division.

1879 Atlanta experienced a terrible murder as Martin DeFoor and his wife Susan were axed to death and almost decapitated in their beds by an unknown intruder. They had no known enemies, and there was no apparent motive. The crime was never solved.

1889 Black Georgia politician William A. Golding died in Liberty County, where he was born 80 years earlier. Little is known about most of his life, but presumably he was a slave until gaining freedom at the end of the Civil War. Shortly thereafter he was elected to represent Liberty Council in the convention that drafted the Constitution of 1868. That year he was among the first African Americans elected to the Georgia General Assembly, though that fall the black legislators were expelled until a second round of Reconstruction allowed him to regain his seat in January 1870. In some ways, Golding was better remembered for his work in promoting the education of black youth in Liberty County. Though barely literate, he recognized the importance of education and was a major factor in creation of what would become the Dorchester Academy.

1900 Southern union organizer George Googe was born in Palaky, Georgia. After attending a trade school for printing pressmen in 1922, he took a job in Savannah and became an officer in his local union. His ability to recruit union members came to the attention of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which named him its southern representative in 1928. Moving to Atlanta in 1933, he promoted unionism across the South and became the AFL's most important leader in the region. From 1946 to 1947, Googe was credited with attracting a half million new union members. After the merger of the AFL and CIO, he held office in the new organization before retiring to the Pressmen's Home in Tennessee, where he died in 1961.

1972 Major League Baseball's All-Star game was played at Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium. Atlanta Braves' great Hank Aaron homered to help lead the National League to a win.

1996 This was seventh day of the 1996 Summer Olympics -- and day 6 of Olympic competition. 

1998 Martin Luther King III was sworn in as the fourth president of the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was founded in 1957 by his father, Ralph David Abernathy Jr., Joseph Lowery, and other ministers. King Jr. was the organization's first president, followed by Abernathy and Lowery.

Georgia cities and towns first incorporated by acts approved by the governor on July 25:

1906 Godfrey (Morgan County)

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1738 Anglican minister George Whitefield recorded his usual weekly routine:

". . . On Sunday Morning at five o'Clock, I publickly [sic] expond the second Lesson for the Morning or Evening Service as I see most suited to the Peoples Edification; at Ten I preach and read Prayers, at Three in the Afternoon I do the same, and at Seven expound part of the Church Catechism, at which great Numbers are usually present. I visit from House to House, read publick prayers and expound twice and catechise (unless something extraordinary happens,) visit the Sick every Day, and read to as many of my Parishioners as will come thrice a Week,-- and blessed be God my Labours have not been altogether in vain in the Lord. For he has been pleased to set his Seal to my Ministry in a Manner, I could not, I dared not in America expect."

Source: [no author or editor cited], Our First Visit in America: Early Reports from the Colony of Georgia, 1732-1740 (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1974), p. 293.

1864 Lt. Col. Fredrick Winkler of the 26th Wisconsin Infantry wrote his wife of the status of Sherman's campaign to take Atlanta:

"We are very near Atlanta, actually besieging it, only I doubt whether we have troops enough wholly to encompass it; still we are bound to take it, there can be little doubt of it. Our batteries throw shot and shell into the city and the forts around the city, and the rebels reply from their forts at times quite lustily. My regiment is in a very good position and, though one or two shells have struck within the camp, we are unhurt. Do you want my old hat? I have put it up and will send it off by mail. You can see the mark that bullet left on the 22nd of June. I have been through so many battles; nearly two hundred officers and men of my regiment have been killed and wounded in this campaign; I have been with them always, exposed as much as any, and have come out unscathed. I have faith that I will in the future and finally come home. The papers have doubtless told you how disastrously to the rebels the battles of the 20th and the 22nd resulted, and also that General Mc Pherson, who commanded the Army of the Tennessee, was killed. Everybody naturally thought General Hooker would be his successor, both on the score of merit and seniority. Yesterday the official notice came that General Howard had been assigned to that command and General Hooker, at his own request, relieved from duty with this army. The news was received with profound regret. The assignment of General Howard to that command is certainly very unexpected. It is well known that Sherman is unfavorably disposed towards Hooker, and the latter has had to put up with many slights during the campaign. His corps has gained a name here in the army that none other can rival, but no word of acknowledgment has ever come from General Sherman. Mc Pherson was Hooker's junior, and so is Schofield, both commanded departments, while he only commanded a corps; yet he made no objection and he would not have objected now-considering it another army from this- but to take his junior out of this very department for that command was a pointed insult and proves that the doors to his advancement under Sherman are prematurely closed. If the good name of any corps has ever been questioned during any campaign, it is that of the 4th, General Howard's. All generals and field officers of the corps got together this forenoon and took leave of General Hooker. He shook hands with us all and assured us, while the tears rolled down his cheeks, that he had never had a command that he had such perfect confidence in and had proved itself so equal to all emergencies as this corps. He was evidently very much moved. We are now in rather a bad fix with our generals. Brigadier General Williams, of the 1st Division, has temporary command of the corps as field officer. Since General Butterfield left us, we have had a Division Commander whose profound indolence alone prevents him from manifesting his incapacity by daily blunders of the worst kind. It is too bad that men of acknowledged ability cannot keep aloof from dishonorable jealousies. There has been considerable fighting along the lines today. Our lines are moving from the left to the right with the view, I suppose, of meeting at the Mobile Railroad. Two of my men have been slightly bruised by a shell, otherwise we are all well."

Source: Civil War Letters of Major Fredrick C. Winkler, in 26th Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers Home Page

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