Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

November 12

1701 The Carolina Assembly passed a Vestry Act making the Church of England the official religion of the colony of Carolina, which at that time--according to the Carolina Charter--included all of present-day Georgia. Strong opposition by Quakers and members of some other religions led the colony's proprietors to revoke the legislation two years later.

1864 Gen. Sherman prepared for his March to the Sea by ordering that railroads and telegraph lines connecting Atlanta with Northwest Georgia be destroyed. The Western & Atlantic Railroad's bridge over the Chattahoochee River was burned. The Army of the Tennessee was now cut off from supplies in Chattanooga and would be on its own during its march to Savannah.

1889 Gov. John B. Gordon signed legislation opening all branch colleges of the University of Georgia to white female students.

1918 Atlanta held its greatest parade to date to celebrate Germany's surrender to the allies. Three hundred veterans had fought in Europe headed the parade, followed by 10,000 soldiers from Camp Gordon and other military facilities, and thousands of relatives of veterans, police, fire fighters, and civilians. Other Georgia cities also held victory parades as the entire state rejoiced over the end of World War I.

1944 The day before the Constitutional Revision Commission was scheduled to reconvene, the Atlanta Constitution reported on a poll it had conducted of Georgia legislators on the question of home rule -- allowing Georgia cities and counties to govern themselves on purely local matters. This was an issue the commission was considering in drafting a new state constitution for Georgia. The poll revealed that 87 percent of Georgia senators and 77 percent of Georgia representatives favored increasing home rule.

1946 Walt Disney's Song of the South had its world premier at Atlanta's Fox Theatre. Created with a combination of live action and animation, the movie was based on Joel Chandler Harris' "Uncle Remus" stories--which featured animal characters Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear in humorous stories (some of which were based on African folklore brought to this country by slaves). The film won one Academy Award--that for best song "Zippity-Do-Dah." Additionally, actor James Baskett, the first black actor to be hired by Disney Studios, won an Honorary Academy Award for screen characterization of Uncle Remus. Even though Harris' stories took place in post-Civil War Georgia, the movie version has been criticized for its portrayal of contented blacks living in slave quarters on a plantation and singing while they march to work.

Not generally known is the fact that "Song of the South" came about as a result of the Atlanta Junior League, which in 1944 suggested that a Walt Disney film based on Uncle Remus stories could become an effective fund-raising event for the League. Mrs.Ivan Allen, Jr., president of the Atlanta Junior League, initially wrote to Disney about the idea. Her successor, Mrs. James Fraser, was successful in convincing Disney to make the movie a reality. [Although some sources cite Nov. 2 as the date of the movie's release, its world premier occurred in Atlanta on Nov. 12.]

Georgia cities and towns created by acts approved on Nov. 12:

1889 Willacoochee (Coffee County)

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1735 From Ebenezer, Salzburger minister John Martin Boltzius wrote in his journal:

"With the first quarter of the moon we are having much rain and very mild weather. Two Indians called here and requested us to repair their two flint-locks. I gave them breakfast and some uncooked rice to take with them and referred them to the locksmith in Abercorn. They were both handsome, and they conducted themselves with modesty. This evening my dear colleague came back home again and reported that the schoolmaster in Purysburg is showing much faithfulness and diligence, and that the children are profiting from his instruction. . . ."

Source: George Fenwick Jones (ed.), Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America . . . Edited by Samuel Urlsperger (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1969), Vol. II, p. 199.

1860 In Milledgeville, the Georgia General Assembly debated what course of action the state should take following the election of Lincoln as president. In that debate, Athens lawyer made clear his position:

"This is a most solemn question and no man should rashly advise his countrymen at such a time. For myself, for months, nay years, I have foreseen this coming cloud. . . . I have called my heart into the council and listened to its beatings. Nay, more, my friends, I fear not to say I have gone to the God I worship, and begged him to advise me. . . . I believe that the hearts of men are in his hands, and when the telegraph announced to me that the voice of the North proclaimed at the ballot-box that I should be a slave, I heard in the same sound, the voice of my God speaking through His Providence and saying to His child, "Be free, Be free."

". . . Marvel not then that I say my voice is for immediate unconditional secession."

Source: Spencer B. King, Jr., Georgia Voices: A Documentary History to 1872 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1966, reprinted 1974), p. 272.

1861 From Yorktown, Va., Georgian Thomas Owen wrote to Sallie R. Merritt back in Georgia indicating his eagerness to do battle with the Yankees:

"The acme of a Southern soldier's ambition consists in the fervent hope that he be afforded the earliest practicable chance of crossing bayonets with the mercenaries of a despotic tyrant who has without a cause forced upon him the alternative of resistance to servilism and drive him in confusion and dismay from the sacred soil of the sunny South! Their incendiary and sacrilegious tread has already too long polluted and having done this, which is certain to the be the ultimate result of this unhappy imbroglio, return to his home where anxiously awaits him in profuseness the smiles of a mother and sister's infinite joy and added to this he will have the indescribable and heightened pleasure of basking again in the beauty and angelic sweetness of his Beau Ideal of Love! Oh, the volumes of joy the anticipation of such happiness affords him! It relieves in a great degree the monotony and many of the cares and privations of camp life! . . . "

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. 84.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

If you have a date related to Georgia history or people that ought to be included, or if know of entries that should be corrected, send a note to Ed Jackson or Charles Pou.

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