Ed Jackson and Charly Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

June 24

1497 Explorer John Cabot first sighted the mainland of North America (present-day Newfoundland, Canada) and claims his discovery for England. It was this voyage that served as the basis for England's claim to most of North America--including Georgia.

1811 U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Archibald Campbell was born near Washington, Georgia. After graduating from the University of Georgia at the age of 14, he practiced law in Alabama. In 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Campbell to the U.S. Supreme Court, where four years later he sided with the majority decision in the Dred Scott case, adding his own concurring opinion in the important case. Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Campbell resigned from the high court and became Assistant Secretary of War for the Confederacy. Imprisoned briefly after the war, President Johnson ordered the release of Campbell, who then practiced law in New Orleans until his death in 1889.

1820 Henry Rootes Jackson was born in Athens, Georgia. Though primarily a lawyer, Jackson served Georgia and the U.S. in a variety of ways. Before the Civil War, he was a U.S. district attorney, Georgia Supreme Court justice, and U.S. ambassador to Austria. During the war, he was appointed a brigadier general of Georgia state forces and fought with Hood during the Atlanta campaign. After the Civil War, Jackson served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico. He also was a railroad executive, banker, and author of a book of poetry. He died May 23, 1898 in Savannah. [Click here for more information on Jackson.]

1839 Planter, former Georgia militia general, and former congressman John Floyd (1769-1839) died in Camden County, Georgia. During the early 1800s, he successfully fought the Creek Indians on Georgia's western frontier, a fact leading the Georgia legislature to create Floyd County in 1833. During the War of 1812, his forces joined those of Andrew Jackson in fighting the Upper Creeks in Alabama. Later, he would serve in the Georgia General Assembly and one term in Congress. At the time of his death, he owned 230 slaves and large land holdings in Camden and McIntosh counties.

1840 Temperance and women's suffrage leader Mary Latimer McLendon was born in DeKalb County, Ga. Younger sister of Rebecca Latimer Felton, she graduated from Southern Masonic Female College in Covington, Ga. in 1856. In 1860, she married Nicholas McLendon and moved to Atlanta. Forced to flee the city in 1864, they returned in 1868. She became active in the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Georgia Women's Suffrage Association and fought for both causes the rest of her life. In 1923, Georgia members of the WCTU obtained permission to erect a marble fountain in Georgia's state capitol in honor of the woman who was credited as the "Mother of Suffrage Work in Georgia."

1913 Georgia senator Hoke Smith denied rumors he had been approached about and was considering aiding in Leo Frank's defense. The rumors spread after defense attorney Luther Rosser and National Pencil Company president Ike Haas stopped in Washington, D.C. en route to New York. Click here for a detailed accounting of the case.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1737 Though evangelist John Wesley had his problems in Savannah, on this day he was well received, as Thomas Causton noted in his journal:

"24 June: . . . The Society of Free Masons held their Annual Feast after had been at Church & heard a Sermon, & broke up about 3 o'Clock. Mr Wesley dined with us, & received the Thanks of the Society for his suitable Sermon. ..."

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. 262.

1738 One year after John Wesley had delivered his sermon to Savannah's Masons, evangelist George Whitefield had dinner with the same group, and was thankful to be doing anything after almost dying from a virulent fever two days previously:

"Friday, June 24. To the great Surprise of myself and People, was enabled to read Prayers and preach with Power before the Free-Masons, with whom I afterwards dined, and was used with the utmost civility."

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. 291.

1740 In his journal, the Salzburger's Lutheran minister John Martin Boltzius observed three reasons for the many complaints among English colonists about Georgia's infertility and their inability to sustain themselves:

". . . 1) the land was allotted to the colonists for planting according to a plan or sketch drawn up in England, hence most of them were supplied with very bad ground. They were not in a position to make it fertile with manure; and they either worked in vain or did no work from well-founded worry about working in vain, but rather applied themselves to other ways of making a living or left the region. If they had been allowed the freedom first to seek out the best land and earn their bread from it . . . the poor land could have been used by and by, and the colony would have soon gained strength and a good reputation. In this way, however, provisions from the store house were given for a few years, but in the end the people were not capable of supporting themselves.

"2) People were brought into the land who never held an axe or hoe in their hands in their entire life, much less did they bring the skill and strength and will to work the land. On the contrary they came here with the notion of living here comfortably and better, also doubtless of becoming richer and more prominent with less trouble than in Europe. . . .[T]hat type of life (i.e., agriculture) does not suit most of the people in this country. Hence they apply themselves to trade or become lazy, wasting what they brought with them or was given them for assistance. . . .

"Some people bring a few servants along or get them here in this country. However, these sometimes understand as little about field work as their masters; or, because they long for their freedom and are kept badly in food, clothes and work, they make a lot of mischief, run away, or have to be forced to do their work, or only pretend to do it. If a person has to buy his own servants, he cannot succeed because the crops a servant can draw from the land in a year are not worth nearly the cost of keeping him. . . .

"3) It causes great harm in the land when people on the plantations cannot choose neighbors with whom they get along but rather have to have the neighbors they are assigned. Hence a diligent worker gets a lazy neighbor, and as a consequence the diligent one gets no help building his fences. . . ."

Source: George Fenwick Jones and Don Savelle (trans. and ed.), Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America . . . Edited by Samuel Urlsperger (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983), Vol. 7, pp. 170-172.

1864 Evidence that the Atlanta Campaign had now entered a deadly phase can be seen in the following addendum to a letter written the previous day by Maj. Fredrick Winkler to his wife:

"We have got into a new position somewhat in advance of the one we held before. The rebels tried an attack in this place yesterday, but were repulsed with great loss. It is a very important position, as it holds one of the principal roads leading back to Marietta. The loss of so many of my good boys yesterday affected me very much more than at any other time; it was, I believe, because I saw everything so plainly and talked to many of the wounded myself. The engagement was slow and lasted so long; one had an opportunity to see all so plainly, and then, while both at Resaca and near Dalton the great majority of the wounds were light, most of them yesterday were severe, many of them fearful. Now the intelligence that the result of the fighting yesterday has been largely in our favor, has reconciled us somewhat to our individual loss. A good many rebel deserters have come into our lines during the last night; they are all very much discouraged. Everybody looks at my hat, and dozens of men have stopped and looked and speculated upon the Majors close call. My nice hat, isn't it too bad? Captain Lackner came up to our line once and got one ball through his coat skirt and another on his sword scabbard, but escaped unhurt."

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

1864 From Kennesaw Mountain, Georgian Fortson wrote his father about the Atlanta Campaign:

". . . There has been some very hard fighting during the last two days. Hood first charged the enemy, driving the army corps from two lines of entrenchments, capturing twenty pieces of artillery and 1000 prisoners, though his loss was very heavy. . . . The enemy since then made an assault upon Hood's line, but were repulsed with heave loss. . . . I saw yesterday the aggregate loss of our regiment. It was 130 killed, wounded and missing. This army has not loss less than 25,000 men, but I believe the loss of the Yanks to be much greater, oblige[d] to be, for we have fought behind entrenchments. I believe Colonel Joe [nickname for Gen. Joseph E. Johnston] will yet fall back to the Chattahoochee. He will then be able to hold his front with a small force, while he can spare a large force to flank the enemy. I guess we will then do some flanking.

"I have not yet received my box from Atlanta. I sent yesterday for it. I do believe I will get completely naked before I can get a rag. I now have on no shirt, having stripped to wash mine and have it now drying. I could not wash my drawers for my pants was so holely I was ashamed to go without [them]."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), "Dear Mother: Don't grieve about me. I I get killed, I'll only be dead.": Letters from Georgia Soldiers in the Civil War (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1990), p. 308.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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