Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

June 15

1215 At Runnymeade in southern England, King John signed the Magna Carta, which became a fundamental document in the development of English, British, and American constitutional government.

1740 In the early morning hours, Spanish forces from the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine took the offensive after a combined force under James Oglethorpe had laid siege to the fort. Although Oglethorpe had cautioned his forces to stay vigilant and never spend more than one night in any place, some of his forces had set up tents two miles from the Castillo in Fort Mose -- a fort formerly manned by black Spanish soldiers. Oglethorpe's men were caught by surprise, with 68 killed and 34 taken prisoner -- the most costly battle in Oglethorpe's entire St. Augustine campaign. 

1775 The Second Continental Congress unanimously named George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

1804 The 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- providing for separate voting for president and vice president -- was declared ratified. Georgia had ratified the amendment on May 19, 1804.

1826 Lawyer and Civil War-era humorist Charles Henry Smith (Bill Arp) was born in Lawrenceville, Ga. He later attended the University of Georgia and studied law under a judge. In 1851, Smith moved to Rome, Ga. Thereafter, he served on the Rome city council and later as mayor. During the Civil War, he performed special judicial service for the Confederacy in Macon, after serving briefly as a soldier. Of his military career he said he "succeeded in killing about as many of them as they of me." His political career also included a term in the Georgia Senate. Though an attorney, Smith became famous for a series of more than 2,000 humorous newspaper columns about life in the South by a backwoods philosopher known as Bill Arp. His columns, written in the form of letters, were eventually collected into six books; he also penned a textbook on Georgia history. Smith worked closely with Henry Grady while Grady edited a Rome newspaper, the two remained friends for life. By the time of his death on Aug. 24, 1903 in Cartersville, "Bill Arp" was one of the best known and loved writers in the South.

1864 The body of Confederate Gen. Leonidas Polk, who had been killed by Union artillery fire the previous day atop Pine Mountain near Marietta, arrived early morning at the Atlanta railroad depot. From here, his body was taken to St. Luke's Episcopal Church, where dressed in his Confederate uniform, Polk's body laid in state at the front of the altar. The funeral service was held at noon, after which his personal staff and a delegation of Confederate officers and Atlanta citizens escorted Polk's coffin to the railroad depot, where it was carried to Augusta for final services and burial in the chancel of St. Paul's Church.

1877 Georgian Henry O. Flipper became the first black to graduate from West Point Military Academy. Flipper was born a slave in Thomasville, Ga. sometime in the mid- to late-1850s.

1928 At age 41, Ty Cobb stole home as part of a triple steal, helping Detroit to a 12-5 win over Cleveland. This would mark Cobb's 50th and final home steal -- also extending his major league record.

1954 Former Georgia governor Zell Miller characterized her as a "blind country soul singer from Grovetown, Georgia, whose smokey, bluesy, velvet-throated voice has been described as the deepest alto in music." Whatever, Terri Gibbs, winner of countless recording awards and most noted for her 1981 national hit "Somebody's Knockin", was born on this day.

1954 Coretta Scott King graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston with a bachelor of music education degree.

1955 At age 22, Georgia power lifter Paul Anderson stunned a Moscow audience with his performance in the first weightlifting competition solely between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Anderson would go on to gain fame as "the world's strongest man."

1974 Georgian Ray Stevens' recording of "The Streak" hit the top of the British singles pop chart.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1738 From Georgia, Hugh Anderson wrote to Adam Anderson in England a about the problems he and many other Georgians were experiencing in trying to support themselves:

"It is some months since I removed from town all my family to such accommodation as I could provide for them in the country and have applied myself with the greatest diligence to improve my little farm. I have cut down, cleared, fenced and planted ten acres of corn, peas and potatoes and four acres of rice, beside some garden ground, nurseries, cotton, tobacco &c. in small quantities for experiments. . . .

"As to what return my improvements may make this season, I will not allow myself to complain, though my corn shares the general fate of the province, of suffering extremely by the drought of the summer, and that I can never expect to balance the expense they have cost me. To write of any unlucky divisions or parties among us is a point too ticklish for a private person.

"The land here, Sir, is not so fruitful by far as represented at home. The high grounds [are] extreme sandy and loose, and the action of the sun so powerful that the strength and substance of the strongest mixtures and manures are soon exhausted, and noting but an insipid Caput mortuum of it remains, so that a person who with great expense and trouble has cleared five, ten or a greater number of acres, enclosed and planted them, the first year the brush springing up from the roots deprive the ground of its strength and the grain of its nourishment; if he plants early, the corn is the more exposed to the weevil and other worms and insects and, if late, to drought, and in three years without proper manure and enriching is exhausted. Nay, want of air and shade of surrounding trees are equally pernicious to the corn as want of moisture. Add to this destruction by deer, who cannot be fenced against, and a long etcetera of other accidents."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), General Oglethorpe's Georgia: Colonial Letters, 1733-1743 (Savannah: Beehive Press, 19909), Vol. II, pp. 338-340.

1865 On this day, Eliza Frances Andrews put away her despair over the loss of the Civil War and had some fun:

"June 15, Thursday. This has been a day of jokes - as crazy almost as if it were the first of April. . . . After we had each told everything we could think of to raise a laugh against the other, he put on a serious face, and began to hint, in a very mysterious way, that he thought this house was a dangerous place. 'There are ghosts in it,' he said, and then, to our utter amazement, went on to tell, as if he were relating a genuine ghost story, about Capt. Goldthwaite's encounter with Cousin Liza the other morning, as he was coming out of his room to take the early train. He evidently didn't know, when he started, who the real ghost was . . . and he would find out by telling the story at the dinner table. . . .We thought this would be a good joke, and it turned out even better than we expected, when Cousin Liza walked right into the trap. . . .Then, when she had betrayed herself as completely as she could, the captain gravely told his ghost story. But instead of laughing with the rest of us, she got on her high horse and gave him a piece of her mind that silenced him for that time as a story-teller. Everybody wanted to laugh, and everybody was afraid to speak, so we all looked down at our plates and ate as hard as we could, in dead silence. I expected every minute to hear somebody break out in a tell-tale snicker, but we held in till dinner was over. Father never allows anybody to make fun of cousin, if he can help it, and he called Metta and me to him when we got up from the table and gave us such a raking over that we ran upstairs and buried our heads in the pillows so that we could laugh as much as we pleased without being heard. . . . Later in the afternoon, when we came downstairs, Garnett proposed that we should all go out in the grove and laugh as loud as we chose. Henry and Cora joined us, and we went to the seat under the big poplar, and when he had arranged us all in a row, Capt. Hudson (the original story-teller) gave the word of command: 'Attention! Make ready! Laugh!' threw up his cap and shouted like a schoolboy. I don't know what makes people so foolish, but I laughed as I don't believe I ever did before in my life, and all about nothing too. We all whooped and shouted like crazy children. . . ."

Source: Eliza Frances Andrews, The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1908), pp. 300-302.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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