Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

June 1

1768 Benjamin Franklin became Georgia's colonial agent in England. In this capacity, he was responsible for promoting Georgia's interests and keeping colonial officials informed on what Parliament and the government were doing that might affect Georgia.

1775 Georgia patriots sent 63 barrels of rice and £122 for relief of Boston following British reprisals after the battles of Lexington and Concord.

1829 Lawyer, politician, and Confederate general Cullen Andress Battle was born in Powelton, Ga. [See April 8 entry for biographical information on Battle.]

1831 Confederate general John Bell Hood was born in Owingsville, Ky. In 1864, Jefferson Davis would place Hood in charge of the Confederate forces attempting to stop Sherman's Atlanta Campaign.

1864 Federal forces that had fought in the battles west of Marietta reached the Western & Atlantic Railroad, which served as their supply line from Chattanooga. Confederate forces had followed, but two weeks of rainy weather set in causing Sherman's Atlanta Campaign to bog down. Although there would be no major battles during these two weeks, there were daily skirmishes -- sometimes with substantial casualities.

1885 The Atlanta city council passed an ordinance prohibiting the driving of any carriage or other vehicle over a public bridge at a speed faster than a walk. Violators could be fined $100 or sentenced to 30 days in jail.

1900 Mary Phagan was born in Marietta, GA. Her murder at the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta in 1913 began one of the more infamous episodes in Georgia history - the Leo Frank case.

1903 A devastating tornado tore through Gainesville and New Holland (a mill village) killing 106 people (40 of them at one cotton mill) and injuring over 300.

1980 Ted Turner launched the Cable News Network.

1981 Former Georgia congressman Carl Vinson died at age 97 in his hometown of Milledgeville.

1987 Former Atlanta Brave knuckleballer Phil Niekro won game number 314 by leading the Cleveland Indians to a 9-6 win over the Detroit Tigers. The victory also brought Phil and his brother, Joe, to a total of 531 career wins, breaking the record set by the Perry brothers.

1997 "This Day in Georgia History" was launched.

1998 Greg Maddux pitched a 5-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers in the Braves' first game in Milwaukee County Stadium in over three decades.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1735 From Georgia, Francis Piercy wrote to Mr. Forester in England:

"Trading and planting goes on very fast, and the town of Savannah is so large, that from forty houses there are now almost four hundred, besides huts, for the town is a mile long and so much wide and it is almost built. There is a great deal of silk made and the name of it fills the colony so full that if it goes on so for seven years it will be the largest city or town in all the continent of America."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), General Oglethorpe's Georgia: Colonial Letters, 1733-1743 (Savannah, Beehive Press, 1990), p. 180.

1862 From Savannah, where they were training, members of the Lowndes County Volunteers wrote a public letter to the citizens back home rebuking a Lowndes County man who was doing everything possible to avoid military service :

"To the Citizens of Lowndes County:

"We have left our pleasant homes and families for their protection, and we left one certain James Howell that has raised and pitched and kicked up hell and got all of he could before the Conscription Act was passed. And when he found he had to go himself, he hired a substitute and is at home yet, and we fear from every circumstance that there is no good in his heart. And we further believe if the good men of Lowndes County don't watch him he will be a great injury to the desolate families left behind. You all well know that he deserted Captain Mosley's company and that goes to prove that he is not a friend to his country. . . . We do believe that he would steal from widows and orphans and soldiers' wives and therefore we request of such men as Reuben Roberts . . . [and others named] to watch him. It is the wish of the Lowndes Volunteers for this to be made public. We hope you will read [this letter] to every man and will oblige the friends of the South now in the field."

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), p. 128.

1864 In Atlanta, a Union sympathizer known as "Miss Abby" wrote of Sherman's continuing advance:

"A little nearer each day, and each day the cannons are heard more distinctly. Sherman flanks and fortifies, and Johnston falls back. Every day's paper reiterates, 'No cause for despondency. We know certain things which we could tell, but the time has not yet come. It will soon be seen that our General knows what he is about.'

"There is sorrow and gloom everywhere around me. But a short distance from my house the militia are stationed. They are composed mostly of men past the conscript age, who had a right to expect exemption from camp life. Many of them, too, have opposed this war from the beginning and have passed through the fires of treason unscathed in soul. One man said he could and would escape across the lines, but he had reason to believe his two sons would be hung in revenge and his house be burned over his defenseless family. So he stands guard in the ditches, through storm and sunshine, with hundreds of men like him praying for deliverance."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), Georgia: History written by Those who lived It (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1995), pp. 167-168.

1865 Union soldiers stationed in Washington, Ga. observed a day of fasting on June 1 in memory of the recently assassinated President Lincoln. Eliza Frances Andrews was unimpressed, as she recorded in her journal:

"June 1. Thursday. I dressed up in my best, intending to celebrate the Yankee fast by going out to pay some calls, but I had so many visitors at home that I did not get out till late in the afternoon. I am sorry enough that Lincoln was assassinated, Heaven knows, but this public fast is a political scheme gotten up to throw reproach on the South, and I wouldn't keep it if I were ten times as sorry as I am. . . ."

Source: Eliza Frances Andrews, The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1908), pp. 279-280.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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