Ed Jackson and Charly Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

September 10

1752 Officially, this day did not exist in Georgia. See Sept. 3 entry for reason.

1836 Joseph Wheeler, Jr. was born in Augusta, Georgia. After his mother died in 1842, his father took the family to Connecticut, where he owned part interest in a textile mill. After graduating from West Point in 1859, he was assigned to the New Mexico Territory in 1860. Here, during an encounter with hostile Indians, he earned the nickname "Fightin' Joe" -- perhaps a particular compliment as he was only 5'5" tall and weighed 120 pounds. In April 1861, Wheeler resigned from the U.S. Army to accept a commission as a lieutenant in a Georgia artillery unit. In July 1862, he became commander of a cavalry division. After several key actions, he was promoted to brigadier general in October 1862. During his service to the Confederacy, Wheeler had 16 horses shot out from under him. After the Civil War, he moved to Alabama, where in 1880 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Wheeler re-entered military service in the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War as chief of cavalry for the Fifth Army Corps. During that conflict, he participated in several battles in Cuba -- including San Juan Hill. Wheeler died on January 25, 1906 while visiting his sister in Brooklyn, New York.

1875 Former Confederate general John C. Vaughn died near Thomasville, Ga. [For biographical information on Vaughn see Feb. 24 entry.]

1901 University of Georgia football coach Harry Mehre was born in Huntington, Indiana. Entering Notre Dame University in 1918, he played varsity football along with George Gipp under legendary coach Knute Rockne. After graduating, Mehre coached football at St. Thomas College in Minnesota (1922-23). In 1924, University of Georgia coach George Woodruff hired Mehre to help Georgia adapt the Notre Dame offense. Four years later, Mehre was Georgia head coach. The next year in the dedication of Sanford Stadium, his team shut out a Yale team that was favored win. Mehre won many more games at Georgia, until his retirement following the 1937 season. The next year he went to Ole Miss, where he was head coach until 1945. Mehre returned to Georgia,where he began a business in Atlanta. However, he enjoyed writing about sports, and Ralph McGill hired him to write for the Atlanta Constitution. Later, he became a columnist-analyst for the Atlanta Journal. In 1971, he was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. Mehre died in Atlanta on Sept. 27, 1978.

1980 In the largest peaceful protest ever in a Georgia state prison, over 1000 inmates at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville refused to work in order to dramatize their plea for more rights and better living conditions

1994 Civil rights leader James Lofton Barnes was found murdered at his office in Dawson, the victim of a robbery.

2002 The Atlanta Braves clinched a record breaking eleventh straight division title. Oddly they did it without playing a game, as second place Philadelphia lost, assuring the Braves of winning the crown.

Georgia cities and towns incorporated by acts approved on Sept. 10:

1891 Nelson (Cherokee and Pickens counties)
 
 

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1738 As the Trustees' secretary, William Stephens kept an almost daily journal of the happenings in colonial Georgia. His entries for Sundays were usually very brief, mentioning someone reading the "divine service." But the events on this Sunday were not routine:

"Sunday. The Service in the Morning was read (as before) by Mr. Habersham; but in the Afternoon Mr. Dyson being in Town, whose character was grown infamous, by reason of a scandalous Life, and frequent Debauchery; for which Reason Mr. [George] Whitfield had left behind him, when he went away, a short Letter which had been delivered to Mr. Dyson, forbidding him in any Manner, to officiate in the Church here; which if he did, he might expect to hear farther from him: Notwithstanding this, Mr. Dyson took upon him to exercise his ministerial Function, after first asking who would hinder him; to which Mr. Habersham only replied, that he had nothing to say more than what Mr. Whitfield had wrote, which he expected would have been observed. Some few went out of the Church, and many who staid were much offended, especially such as knew how notorious he was grown . . .; another of his greatest Intimacy of late was, Capt. Watson, a vile, busy Mischief-maker among the People, and to his Principles of Religion, much of the same Stamp with that Arch-Deist Aglionby, lately deceased [see Aug. 23 In Their Own Words entries] --Two worthy Companions for a Priest of the Church of England!"

1864 Among the Union forces occupying Atlanta was Col. Fredrick Winkler of the 26th Wisconsin Infantry. On this day, he wrote his wife:

". . . We have collected boards and are building houses. Major L. and I have a nice little hut with a window. I got a recruit yesterday, think of it, one recruit. We have received a lot of congratulatory orders, from the President yesterday, and from General Grant, who fires salutes with shotted guns trained upon the enemy, and finally one from General Sherman, in which he recounts the main achievements of the campaign. General Thomas is coming to review our corps in a few days. I am not ashamed of my regiment. The two hundred men I have look as neat and trim and have their arms and accoutrements as bright and shining as though they had been in camp undergoing daily drills and inspection, only I am out of all music. The rains have broken all our drums; when the pay master comes, we shall raise a fund and buy a half dozen first-class drums. General Sherman, in conducting the war, does not shrink from harshness. He says, in an order, that the City of Atlanta is wanted exclusively for military purposes, and orders all citizens to leave; this, of course, causes great excitement in town. They will lose a great deal of property by it, and it is hard for the people, but they cannot remain without falling a burden to the United States, and many of them are of very doubtful loyalty. But few men would have the courage to issue, or the firmness to execute, an order of banishment to all the inhabitants of a city. The army approves the fearless and independent course of the General in Chief; such a man we should have for Secretary of War. Wouldn't he put the draft through? and wouldn't he catch the runaways?"

© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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