Ed Jackson and Charly Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

March 27

1814 About 30 miles west of the Georgia-Alabama border, a U.S. military force under Gen. Andrew Jackson defeated the Upper Creeks at Horeshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River. As a result of the loss, the Creeks in Aug. 1814 ceded most of their lands in southern Georgia to Georgia in the Treaty of Fort Jackson.

1836 After two days of battle, 300 Georgia volunteers fighting in the war for Texas independence under Col. James W. Fannin and Lt. Col. William Ward (who also were Georgians) were forced to surrender to a Mexican Army three times as large. Fannin had negotiated a surrender that would allow the troops in his command to be paroled. However, on March 27, all of the prisoners were marched to Goliad, where on Santa Anna's order, the entire command of Georgia volunteers was massacred. [Click here to read more about the massacre.] This tragedy so inflamed Georgians that a decade later many volunteered to fight with U.S. forces during the Mexican War.

1926 - Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived in Warm Springs, Georgia, prepared to purchase much of the resort property there. He had visited Warm Springs twice previously, and was convinced a haven for patients paralyzed by polio, or any other accident or disease, could be established there. This was Roosevelt's fourth visit overall to Georgia.

1941 Gov. Eugene Talmadge signed an act of the General Assembly making it a felony for any person -- including a minister --from handling or possessing a poisonous snake in a manner that would endanger any other person. The act also made it illegal to advise or encourage any other person to handle a poisonous snake in a manner that would endanger the life or safety of such person. The act, however, did not prevent any person from voluntarily handling a poisonous snake so long as no one else was endangered.

1941 Gov. Talmadge signed a concurrent resolution of the Georgia General Assembly urging Congress to direct the U.S. Postmaster General to issue a stamp commemorating former Georgia congressman and U.S. senator Tom Watson. As one reason for the stamp, the resolution cited Watson as "the author of the first resolution ever passed providing for the free delivery of rural mail . . . ."

1947 Gov. M.E. Thompson signed a joint resolution of the General Assembly creating the Eugene Talmadge Monument Commission to oversee design and placement of a monument to the former governor on the grounds of the state capitol. [Click here to see monument.] It was Talmadge's death three months earlier that launched the "Three Governors Controversy" that eventually ended with Georgia's Supreme Court ruling then Lt. Gov. Thompson was the lawful successor.

1947 Georgia became a "Right to Work" state when Gov. Thompson signed legislation prohibiting any employee from have to join or pay dues or fees to any labor organization as a condition of employment.

1947 Gov. Thompson signed legislation prohibiting two or more people from setting up picket lines or engaging in other activities at or near a place where a labor dispute is underway that block or otherwise attempt to keep workers from their jobs.

1947 Gov. Thompson signed legislation making it illegal to gamble or bet on any sporting event, or to offer or accept anything of value in an effort to influence the outcome of any sporting event.

1970 After having rejected it on July 24, 1919, the Georgia General Assembly ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted women the right to vote.

1970 Gov. Lester Maddox signed Georgia's first legislation designed to protect the state's coastal marshlands. The law prohibited any person from removing, filling, dredging, draining, or otherwise altering any marshland in Georgia without first obtaining a permit from the newly created Coastal Marshlands Protection Agency.

1983 The Georgia Bulldog basketball team defeated top seed and defending national champion North Carolina 82-77 to win the East Regional and advance to the Final Fur of the NCAA championship tournament. This marked only the second time in tournament history that a team making its first appearance had advanced to the Final Four.

Georgia towns and cities first incorporated by acts approved by the governor on this day:

1941 Santa Claus (Toombs County)
 
 

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1734 While the newly arrived Salzburgers waited in Savannah for work to begin on their settlement at Ebenezer, their principal minister,John Martin Boltzius, had an opportunity to see both English and Indian justice at work. Two days earlier, a colonist convicted of inciting others and several other charges received the first 100 of a 300-lash sentence. Now Boltzius recorded in his journal:

"The previously mentioned malefactor was to get his second 100 lashes, and more than 50 of them had been given to him. But when an Indian saw this he felt pity for him, ran around the malefactor in a circle and cried: 'No Christian, no Christian!', that is, 'This is not Christian.' And since the lashing did not cease, he embraced the poor sinner and offered his own back to the lash. This caused the judges to end the affair and to remit the rest of the rascal's punishment. This afternoon an Indian husband cut both ears and all the hair off his Indian wife [a common Creek penalty for adultery], because she had been sitting with a white man and was said to have been quite familiar in her conduct with him. The fellow [the Indian husband] had drunk too much, otherwise such cruelty might not have occurred. He hung around town for several hours with the ears and the hair and showed them to the people. Jealousy is said to make these people frequently very cruel."

Source: George Fenwick Jones (ed.), Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America . . . Edited by Samuel Urlsperger: Volume I, 1733-1734 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1968), p. 67.

1737 The three main reasons for the founding of Georgia -- charity, defense, and economics -- are generally well known. Also commonly understood is the fact that slavery was not allowed in the new colony. Less recognized was a particular interest South Carolina had in the founding of a new British colony without slaves to its south. Spain had a policy of encouraging South Carolina slaves to escape to freedom in Florida. There, just north of St. Augustine, was a growing contingent of blacks who had joined the Spanish Army, and Carolinians feared it was only a matter of time until these former slaves marched north to lead a slave rebellion. Thus, a Georgia without blacks would make it harder for Carolina slaves to escape south and would help protect South Carolina from a Spanish invasion and from a slave revolt inspired from Florida.. Documenting this concern was a letter from Andrew Rutledge of South Carolina read to the Trustees and recorded in the journal of the Earl of Egmont on Mar. 27, 1737 as follows:

"That there is reason to believe the Spaniards views are not confin'd to Georgia, but extend to Carolina, where they have neither Forts nor Castles worth mentioning to Secure their Stores, provisions, Women & children in, But must leave them exposed to a more dreadful Enemy than the Spaniards, viz. their Slaves, to whom the Spaniards are to give them their freedom, and I am jealous that Some of them know it."

Source: Robert G. McPherson, The Journal of The Earl of Egmont: Abstract of the Trustees Proceedings for Establishing the Colony of Georgia, 1732-1738 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1962), pp. 249-50.

1864 From Franklin Depot, Va., Sgt.-Major William J. Mosely of Co. D in the 10th Georgia Battalion wrote home of thing other than war. Based on what he had observed, Virginia's young women could not compare with those of Georgia:

"I and Lieut. Amason went over the river and had a few rounds with Some very nice ladies, and while we were over there we heard of a weding, which came off that morning and they were going to have a frolic that night so we came back and got Sgt. Parker and here we went through the Snow about a mile and a half and we arrived at the place (Mr. Daughtry's) and the house was crowded with young ladies, but I never Saw as ugly a Set in my life, they were so ugly the flies will not light on them, and I never heard Such Singing in my life. I have head Something Similar, though better, in our negro kitchens down South, though we passed off the time very well, we made them believe that we had never Seen anything like it, and Shure enough we never. If nothing hepens I will go to a party tomorrow night where there is Some pretty girls and a little more like they are in Georgia, but none of them Suit me near so well as the Georgia girls. Some of the boys Say if they get to go back to Georgia, they are going to carry a wife with them from Virginia, but if the war was to last 20 years, and I had to Stay in Virginia all the time, I would never marry a Virginia lady, unless I could find one that Suited me much better than any I have ever come across yet, and I think I have Seen about as good as the State affords."

Source: Spencer B. King, Jr., Georgia Voices: A Documentary History to 1872 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1974 reprint of 1966 original volume), p. 288.

1865 While visiting an older sister near Albany, 24-year-old Eliza Frances Andrews recorded in her journal what travel was like after heavy rains:

"The roads are so perfectly abominable that it is no pleasure to go anywhere. At one place the water was half a foot deep in the bottom of the carriage, and we had to ride with our feet cocked up on the seats to keep them dry. Some of the ponds were so deep as to almost swim the mules, and others were boggy."

Source: Eliza Frances Andrews, The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl: 1864-1865 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1908), p. 122.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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