Ed Jackson and Charly Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

June 25

1735 In London, the Georgia Trustees voted to send a new shipload of settlers to build a new town and fort on the Altamaha River. This settlement would be named for Frederick, the Prince of Wales and son of King George II.

1812 News reached Savannah that the U.S. declared war on England six days earlier.

1868 Congress enacted legislation readmitting Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina to the Union providing they ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and agree to never amend their state constitutions to deprive any citizen of the right to vote.

1921 Lawyer and politician Thomas Hardwick was inaugurated as governor of Georgia. Despite his earlier leadership in Georgia's black disfranchisement movement, Hardwick had a surprisingly progressive administration. He denounced the newly resurrected Ku Klux Klan became an advocate of prison reform, ended the flogging of prisoners, helped achieve Georgia's first gasoline tax to help build roads, and pushed for a graduated state income tax (not adopted until 1931). Perhaps his most remembered achievement as governor came in 1922 when after the death of U.S. Senator Tom Watson, Hardwick appointed Rebecca Latimer Felton to fill Watson's seat, making making the first woman to serve in the U.S Senate. After his term as governor, Hardwick ran unsuccessfully in 1924 and again in 1932, before retiring to his law practice. [See January 31 entry for more biographical information on Hardwick.]

1976 Savannah-born Johnny Mercer, widely recognized as one of America's top songwriters ever, died at age 66. Winner of 4 Academy Awards, Mercer had 702 songs published and 13 number one songs. Among his best-remembered lyrics were those for "Moon River," "Days of Wine and Roses," "Charade," "That Old Black Magic," "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby," "Autumn Leaves," "Jeepers Creepers," and "That Old Black Magic."

1990 The U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case of Georgia v. South Carolina defining the boundary between the two states in the lower stretches of the Savannah River.

1993 Georgia-born actress Julia Roberts married Lyle Lovett.

1997 The National Hockey League officially awarded an NFL hockey franchise to Atlanta's Ted Turner, who announced his new team would be known as the "Thrashers" in recognition of Georgia's state bird, the Brown Thrasher.
 
 2003 Former Georgia governor Lestor Maddox died. See September 30, 1915 This Day in Georgia History entry for more biographical information.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1864 In a letter to his wife back in Wisconsin, Maj. Fredrick Winkler painted a picture of the unglamorous side of war. He also indirectly gave tribute to the strategy Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston had adopted to slow Sherman's much larger force:

"We are still in the same position we occupied day before yesterday. It is like so many we have had during this campaign, very close to the enemy's pickets, and as the pickets keep firing constantly a great many bullets are thrown into the line, although in the second line I have had my men put up breastworks for their protection and a barricade of two lengths of rails, about four feet high, and covered with earth on the outside, sheltering our regimental headquarters from the intrusion of stray bullets; in the front line quite a number have been hurt, but not severely. It is a disagreeable mode of fighting. During these days when there is no engagement and you ought to be at rest, there is constant firing all around, and you are never out of danger and can hardly move about without indiscreet exposure. I know how much we lose in these many successive small battles, but we have as yet had no fighting at all compared to that of Virginia, and this mode of fighting may yet continue a long time. I hope, oh, so earnestly, for some decisive event that may put a speedy end to the whole contest, but I do not exactly see how it is to come. According to present appearances, it will take a series of bloody battles to accomplish that end, and it will be necessary to put more men into the field. The sooner they are got, the better it will be; we ought to have them ready now. I was interrupted by heavy firing on the skirmish line, which brought us to our feet and on the alert. It is now past six o'clock, and the sun is very near down. We have had no rain since the 21st, and it is very, very hot. We are in an open field and the only means we have of sheltering ourselves from the hot rays of the sun is to get young trees from the neighboring woods and build arbors."

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

1865 In her journal, Eliza Frances Andrews continued to express her depression over the South's loss of the Civil War:

"June 25, Sunday. I feel like Garnett [her brother] looks -- in a chronic state of ennui. Poor fellow, he is as unhappy as he can be over the wreck of our cause and the ruin of his career. The latest act of tyranny is that handbills have been posted all over town forbidding the wearing of Confederate uniforms. We have seen the last of the beloved old gray, I fear. I can better endure the gloomy weather because it gives us gray skies instead of blue."

Source: Eliza Frances Andrews, The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1908), p. 311.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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