Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

May 26

1835 Military leader, businessman, and historian Edward Porter Alexander was born in Washington, Ga. [See April 28 entry for biographical information on Alexander.]

1838 Gen. John Floyd and nine companies of the Georgia Militia crossed the Coosawattee River and began the roundup of Cherokee Indians in Georgia. Because U.S. troops from Florida had not yet arrived, Gen. Winfield Scott three days earlier had mustered the Georgia militiamen into federal service to begin the roundup.

1861 Gen. Robert E. Lee wrote Georgia governor Joseph E. Brown saying that many Georgia volunteer companies had arrived in Virginia without weapons and asked if Georgia could send any firearms or equipment.

1861 Savannah's Oglethorpe Light Infantry became the first Georgia group to respond to Jefferson Davis's call for arms,

1861 Pres. Jefferson Davis left Montgomery to travel to Richmond, Va., the new capital of the Confederacy.

1864 West of Marietta, the Battle of New Hope Church continued.

1913 Despite intense questioning by detectives, Jim Conley stuck to his story that he wrote the notes found near the body of Mary Phagan, but at the order of Leo Frank.There was little doubt that he did write the notes, but police continued to investigate the circumstances under which they were written. Click here for a detailed accounting of the case.

1935 Amelia Earhart and Martha Berry were among a group of women granted honorary degrees by Oglethorpe University in Atlanta.

1935 As a Boston Brave, Babe Ruth played the entire game -- his only complete game in the National League.

1936 Fort Frederica National Monument was added to the National Park System,

1949 Gen. Lucius Clay, originator of the Berlin Airlift, spoke at ceremonies in Marietta's courthouse square to honor the Cobb County native.

1982 Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner removed Chief Noc-A-Homa from the stands to provide more seating room, and the Braves promptly went on a 2-19 losing streak. [Click here to view Chief Noc-A-Homa and the elevated platform that was removed.]

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1838 As U.S. soldiers proceeded with rounding up Cherokees, Indian missionary Daniel S. Buttrick, who would accompany the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears, wrote from Brainerd just north of the Georgia-Tennessee line:

"In Georgia [there] were supposed to be about 8000 Cherokees. These, in general, were taken just as they were found by the soldiers, without permission to stop either for friends or property. As the soldiers advanced towards an Indian house, two little children fled in flight to the woods. The woman pleaded for permission to seek them or wait till they came in, giving positive assurances that she would then follow on and join the company. But all entreaties were vain, and it was not till a day or two after that she could get permission for one of her friends to go back after the lost children! A man, deaf and dumb, being surprised at the approach of armed men, attempted to make his escape and, because he did not hear and obey the command of his pursuers, was shot dead on the spot! . . . Women absent from their families on visits or for other purposes were seized, and men far from their wives and children were not allowed to return, and also children being far from home were dragged off among strangers. Cattle, horses, hogs, household furniture, clothing and money not with them when taken were left. And it is said that the white inhabitants around stood with open arms to seize whatever property they could put their hands on. . . . Thus in two or three days about 8000 people, many of where were in good circumstances and some rich, were rendered homeless, houseless and penniless and exposed to all the ills of captivity. . . . Those taken to the post at New Echota [Georgia] were confined day and night in the open air with but little clothing to cover them when lying on the naked ground."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), Georgia: History written by Those who lived It (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1995), pp. 79-80.

1862 Evidence that in the early years, many volunteers had joined the Union Army for reasons other than freeing southern slaves can be found in the following letter from Georgian Lavender Ray to his mother, written from Chattanooga. Ray had just returned from a trip to Huntsville, Ala. under a flag of truce to exchange prisoners. Referring to his conversation with several Union soldiers, he noted:

". . . I soon had some three or four around me and was in a big argument defending our Confederacy. They treated me very gentlemanly and did not say anything insulting to me, but we often gave each other a cut about our national affairs. . . . I told them . . .that their Yankee papers bragged of sending South the numerous scrappings of the Yankee nation to overpower us and liberate and arm our Negroes. They, being Western men, said they were not Yankees and hated the name and liked us better than they did the Yankees. [They] said they believed in slavery and if their government passed the emancipation bill they would all go home. This last I believe, for all the other Western men said the same thing, saying they were fighting for the Union and not for the Negro. I then referred to the Declaration of Independence to show them it was wrong to try to make us submit to a government we did not wish to. This stumped them. . . ."

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. 126.

1865 Nothing was safe from Yankee invaders in the eyes of Eliza Frances Andrews, as attested to in her journal entry for this day :

". . . All the money and plate that lives through these troublous [sic] times will have strange histories attached to it. One man had $1,000 in specie which he went out to conceal as soon as he heard that the Yankees were in his neighborhood. Before he could get it buried, he heard a squad of horsemen coming down the road, so he threw his bag of money over a hedge to get it out of sight, and lo! there it struck a skulking Yankee pat on the head! This is the tale the country people tell, but so many wild reports are flying from mouth to mouth that one never knows what to believe. Where so many strange things are happening every day, nothing seems incredible."

Source: Eliza Frances Andrews, The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1908), p. 269.

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