Ed Jackson and Charly Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

September 3

1752 This day did not happen in Georgia or the other British colonies. While the day before was Sept. 2, today officially was Sept. 14. As part of switching Julian to the Gregorian calendar, 11 days had to be eliminated from the year 1752. Sept. 3 was the first casualty.

1779 Count d'Estaing and a French fleet of 22 ships and 4,000 men arrived off the coast of Georgia to participate in a joint American-French effort to take Savannah from the British. Thus began the siege of Savannah.

1783 The American Revolution officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Of particular importance to Georgia was that the treaty stipulated the southern boundary of the United States as the point in the middle of the Mississippi River intersected by the 31st parallel of latitude eastward to the middle of the Chattahoochee River, then southward to the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, then eastward in a straight line to the head of the St. Marys River, then eastward down the middle of the St. Marys to the Atlantic Ocean. Because Georgia was the southernmost state, the Treaty of Paris in effect established Georgia's southern boundary.

1862 By order of the Confederate Secretary of War, the writ of habeas corpus was suspended within Atlanta and any area within five miles of its city limits.

1864 From near Lovejoy's Station, Sherman sent the following telegram to Gen. Slocum, commander of the 20th Corps, in Atlanta:

Move all the stores forward from Allatoona and Marietta to Atlanta. Take possession of all good buildings for Government purposes, and see they are not used as quarters. Advise the people to quit now. There can be no trade or commerce now until the war is over. Let Union families go to the North with their effects, and secesh families move on. All cotton is tainted with treason, and no title in it will be respected.

Sherman also sent a telegraph to Washington stating: "Atlanta is ours and fairly won."

1868 The Georgia House of Representatives voted to remove black members of that body on the grounds that the state constitution did not recognize the right of black citizens to hold public office--which thus made them ineligible to sit in the General Assembly. Of the 29 black representatives, four mulatto members were allowed to hold their seat, while the remaining 25 were removed. Ten days later, the Georgia Senate removed its 3 black members.

1888 Noted virologist Thomas M. Rivers was born in Jonesboro, Georgia. From 1938 to 1955, Rivers chaired the virus research committee of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (which became the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation). He helped organized the research program that resulted in the Salk and Sabin vaccines against polio. Thomas died in New York City on May 12, 1962.

1928 Ty Cobb got his 4191th--and final--major league baseball hit.

1944 Georgia Senator Walter F. George fractured his shoulder in a fall at his Washington apartment. He spent the following day in the hospital but was back at work on his congressional duties on Sept. 5.

1976 Speaking from his home in Plains, Jimmy Carter launched the final phase of his presidential campaign by announcing that balancing the budget was his top priority, even ahead of his welfare reform and national health insurance packages. He announced that "there will be no new programs implemented under my administration unless we can be sure that the cost of those programs is compatible with my goal of having a balanced budget before the end of my term."

1987 Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Company was created from the Georgia and California companies, with the Georgia Division responsible for primary LASC production, second source production, major subcontracting, and major aircraft modification. [Contributed by Dr. Tom Scott, Kennesaw State University]

Georgia cities and towns incorporated by acts approved on Sept. 3:

1989 Lumber City (Telfair County)

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1734 One of Georgia's colonists was Isaac Clarke, a doctor who had agreed to practice medicine in Savannah for a year if the Trustees would provide him a house. Apparently, Clarke thought that he would be Savannah's only doctor, which should allow him to support himself from patient fees. With James Oglethorpe in England, Thomas Causton was in charge of Savannah, and Clarke was very upset over Causton's treatment of him, as evidenced by this letter from Clarke to the Trustees written on this day:

"I am obliged to attend the guard upon all occasions, to mount guard, to do day duty, to relieve guard &c. And those days I am upon duty, there are so many complaints made against me to Mr. Causton (for not attending the sick) that it is intolerable.

"It was agreed that a house should be built for my attendance on the sick for one whole year, and every since I have been here I have been in a hut which is so exposed that I have nothing left but what is rotten and spoiled. I have mentioned the building several times to Mr. Causton, whose answer was generally this, or the like effect, viz. We have so many things to be done for the public that it can't be gone about, or that he expects sawyers from Charles Town and then he will see what is to be done. Ever since my arrival here, either myself, wife or servant have been ill. According to a moderate estimate, with what monies I have received and the injuries I have sustained, £280 this currency will not excuse me.

". . . Here is no less than seven or eight professors to physick, all which assume a prerogative very much to my detriment without any contradiction from Mr. Causton. . . ."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), General Oglethorpe's Georgia: Colonial Letters, 1733-1743 (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1990), Vol. I, pp. 49-50.

1864 The Civil War was beginning to hit very close to home for Gertrude Thomas and her family in Richmond County:

"This morning I received a note from Mr. Thomas about day telling me that a dispatch had just been sent through him to Gen. [Ambrose] Wright [of Augusta] from President Davis and General Bragg [Braxton Bragg, then serving as chief of staff to Confederate President Jefferson Davis] 'to send every armed man to Atlanta.' Mr. Thomas expects he will have to go but I trust that his company will remain for the defence of Augusta. Oh these are troublous times. I leave Belmont not knowing what an hour may bring forth. I carry all the children with me. . . . In case of a nearer approach of the Yankees I will remain on town. I wish to carry something with me and don't know what to take. I will carry the Confederate Bonds and silver spoons and forks. Perhaps the Yankees may make a raid here before I return. . . . I do not form an idea of what the issue of this fight may be. . . ."

Source: Virginia Ingraham Burr (ed.), The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), p. 233.

© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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