Ed Jackson and Charly Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

September 18

1812 Politician and judge Herschel Johnson was born in Burke County, Georgia. Graduating from the University of Georgia in 1834, he subsequently read law and was admitted to the bar in Augusta before year's end. There, and later in Louisville and Milledgeville, Johnson had a successful law career--though also becoming active in politics. When Georgia Senator Walter Colquitt resigned his seat in Congress in 1848, Gov. George Towns appointed Johnson to serve the remaining year in Colquitt's term. In 1849, the Georgia General Assembly elected Johnson to serve a superior court judge for the Ocmulgee circuit. Four years later, Johnson was elected governor, and reelected in 1855. At the end of his second term, Johnson temporarily retired from politics and returned to his plantation in Jefferson County. In 1858, the General Assembly honored Johnson by naming a new county in his honor. In 1860, Johnson was persuaded to run as Democratic presidential candidate Stephen Douglas's running mate. After their loss to Republican Abraham Lincoln, Johnson unsuccessfully opposed Georgia's secession. Nevertheless, in 1862, the General Assembly elected him to represent Georgia in the Confederate Senate. After the war, the legislature again named Johnson as a superior court judge, a post he held until his death on Aug. 16, 1880.

1815 Future Confederate general Henry C. Wayne was born in Savannah, Ga. [For biographical information on Wayne see March 15 entry.]

1818 Future Confederate general Marcellus Augustus Stovall was born in Sparta, Ga. [See Aug. 4 entry for biographical information on Stovall.]

1864 Gen. John Bell Hood directed his Confederate troops to begin moving out of Lovejoy's Station, where they had been resting during Sherman's occupation of Atlanta. What was left of Hood's forces after the disastrous Atlanta Campaign headed west towards the Atlanta & West Point Railroad.

1895 At sunset from his home in Massachusetts, Pres. Grover Cleveland pressed an electric switch that sent a message to Atlanta activating a steam machine and signaling soldiers to fire their batteries of cannon to officially open the Cotton States and International Exposition. Held in Piedmont Park, the exposition featured 6,000 exhibits, many of which were intended to promote Atlanta and Georgia. Also participating were a host of famous personalities, including Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show and John Philip Sousa, who composed the "King Cotton" march for the event and performed with his band for three weeks. The exposition, which lasted until December 31, attracted 800,000 visitors and both national and international press coverage.

One of the most significant events of the opening day occurred at the Negro Building, where Booker T. Washington gave his famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech. In his remarks, Washington called on fellow blacks to accept their status for the time being and concentrate instead on improving their education and skills. Full equality would come in time, he predicted, when blacks were ready. Expectedly, many whites would praise Washington's remarks, while many blacks--notably W.E.B. DuBois--would not. Regardless of the speech, however, the Cotton States and International Exposition was the first major American public event to feature a prominent role for African Americans.

1898 Six weeks after getting drenched by a sudden storm during a review of Confederate veterans substituting for her ill father, former Confederate president Jefferson Davis, Winnie Davis died in her family's summer home in Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island. Davis was widely known throughout the South as the "Daughter of the Confederacy" -- a title she acquired when Georgian John B. Gordon introduced her by saying, "Fellow countrymen, your late president is unable to greet you, but here is his daughter. Our daughter, the daughter of the Confederacy." After her death, the new Georgia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy decided to honor her with a new women's dormitory at the State Normal School for Teachers in Athens. Winnie Davis Hall continued in this role until the U.S. Navy purchased the Normal School property in 1953 and converted it from a dormitory to a building for administrative offices for its new Supply Corps School.

1981 After two years of work by a select committee on constitutional revision, the Georgia General Assembly approved a joint resolution proposing a new constitution for the state of Georgia. That document -- which would become known as the Constitution of 1983 -- was approved by voters in the Nov. 1982 general election. Georgia's tenth -- and current -- state constitution went into effect July 1, 1983.

1990 After years of hard work by Atlanta and other cities around the world competing to host the 1996 Summer Olympics, it was finally time for the International Olympic Committee to announce its decision as to host city. The I.O.C was meeting in Tokyo, where representatives from each competing city were present to hear the decision. Atlanta's delegation included Gov. Joe Frank Harris, mayor Maynard Jackson, former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, and Atlanta Organizing Committee president Billy Payne. Back in Georgia, a large crowd gathered at Underground Atlanta, joined by Georgians across the state, to watch the early morning live television announcement from Tokyo. Finally, I.O.C. president Juan Antonio Samaranch took the podium. As Georgians held their breath, he gave the never-to-be-forgotten pronouncement, "The International Olympic Committee has awarded the 1996 Olympic Games to the city of . . . Atlanta." As everyone from the Atlanta delegation jumped to their feet and hugged each other, the jubilant crowd in Atlanta went wild. In fact, what followed was an unplanned celebration at Underground Atlanta that went on into the night.

 2003 For the second year in a row, the Atlanta Braves clinched their division title without playing a game. When the Florida Marlins lost, it assured the Braves would win their twelfth straight division title.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1740 From Savannah, Keeper of the Public Stores Thomas Jones wrote to John Lydes explaining the failure of James Oglethorpe's Florida invasion and siege of St. Augustine:

"I wrote to you from Fort Diego in Florida July 6th ultimo wherein I gave you some account of the state of our then warlike preparations against the Spaniards, which have not succeeded according to expectation. Many of the Carolina officers ran away, several of the private men both of the Carolina and of the General's own regiment (being Irish) deserted and went to the Spaniards. The flux and fever raged, especially among the Indians in the camp. The captains of our men of war before Augustine were not unanimous and at length quitted that station, fearing the hurricanes which sometimes have happened in the months of August or September in these coast. The General is returned with the troops, many of them sick but now I hear pretty well recovered, to the camp at Saint Simon's, having left garrisons at the fort that are between the camp and Florida. He has been himself very ill but is recovered. . . . The Spaniards made several sallies (with a body commonly of six hundred men) but were every time beat back by the General with his own regiment and Indians, with the loss of several men and horses on their side and that without the loss of one man of ours in any of these attacks. The greatest disaster that befell our forces during this short campaign was at Moosa [Fort Mose] about three miles from Augustine, where a company of Scotch Highlanders and some Indians (not observing the orders given them by the General) were surprised by a party of 500 Spaniards in the nighttime, who killed 16 and took 26 prisoners." [Actually, the casualties were much higher.]

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), General Oglethorpe's Georgia: Colonial Letters, 1733-1743 (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1990), Vol. II, p. 474.

1864 From Camp Bartow, Va., Lavender Ray of the 1st Georgia Infantry wrote his mother about the accidental loss of a soldier in the 12th Georgia due to friendly fire:

"We were now upon the side of the mountain about 2 1/2 miles from the enemy's camp. The Colonel now sent out scouts up the mountain . . . We then began to advance slowly. General Jackson, Colonel Johnson and Ramsey, P. Major Thompson at our head, when someone hollered that they heard the Yankees coming with artillery. We were immediately ordered to get in the side of the woods and as soon as it was done both sides fired into each other. But the other side commenced hollering 'Georgians, Georgians!' and 'Hurrah for Jeff Davis!' by which some thought they were Yankees trying to fool us. But I with Jim Brown and others, think they perhaps were Georgians, did not shoot, for which I was glad. For we soon found that they were the advance guard we had sent the other road coming back. They had cut off the enemy's pickets and killed fifteen of them and were coming after more when they met us and mistook us for the enemy.

"I ran from the woods to the other side and found that we had shot a man from the 12th Georgia in the leg, who immediately bled to death. He had a slight wound on the side of his head above the eye. It is well now. And [I] saw Tom Brown lying on the ground shot through the lower part of the stomach. He is lying now in Lieutenant Brown's tent. We don't think he will live. The ball passed through his bladder. There was a man on our side shot through the heart. He was standing in 20 feet of me. And another shot through the fleshy part of the leg. . . ."

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), pp. 64-64.

© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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