Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-06-07
Continued Next Issue)

~ S 4 SsJSsESSffsRS
WHEN GEORGIA SURRENDERED IN
1865.
- Appomattox was done and over with
before Major General Howell Cobb sur
rendered Georgia to General James Fl.
Wilson, who had been on General Grants
staff but had been placed in command
of the Federal cavalry forces and who
started after Forrest and towards Sell
ma, Ala, about the middle of March,
1865. When he met General Forrest near
Selma he drove the latter back with his
overwhelming numbers. Selma was cap
tured April .. Then Wilson marched to
Montgomery, forty-five miles distant. He
had thirteen thousand regular cavalry
men and two thousand infantrymen, and
he procured horses for them at once,
had three batteries, six-inch guns,
large wagon train and fifty wagons haul
ing pontoon bridges. He captured CO.
lumbus, Ga, on April Is. Then he
started for Macon. We were refugees
on the Clinton road, four miles from Ma
con beyond Walnut creek. rode
Door little plow horse into Macon the
morning of the goth. My colored house
boy, cicero, walked as I rode slowly. 1
went to Mr.. John Burxe's book store 30
get some information, and was astound-
ed to hear that a small squad of citizens
had gone out to meet General Wilson
coming from Columbus, to beg protec-
ton for the sick and the helpless women
and children. We had no soldiers to
meet the victorious general. There were
plenty of folks, of course, doing bust
ness etc, and the conScription law
called every man to the defense of Geor-
gia from sixteen to sixty. Major Cen
eral Howell Cobb was sitting in a chair
dressed in citizens garb outside Mr..
Burke's book store as 1 went in. Poor
old Georgia, that had sent thousands of
soldiers to Virginia, to Tennessee, to
Vicksburg, was PROSTATE and no de-
tenders in the crisis of her fate! And
1 was entreated to make my way back
home before 1 was either captured on
the way or cut off from my family. L
made all the haste 1 could, urging my
little nag, named "Bag-of-Bones," to her
utmost speed.
1t was astounding news for my home
folks. We begun to try to hide some
meat and flour. About 5 o'clock the guns
were heard toward Macon. That was an
awful night on plantation in a country
filled with large slave plantations. All
night the wagons rumbled on the road,
getting away from Macon. We had
dim light in the house. About midnight
somebody knocked at the front door l
opened it. 1t was a Confederate officer
in uniform. He told me we should get
out Immediately, as wilson's army was
very large and there were hundreds of
negroes following, and when he slipped
out of Macon after dark they were lying
on sidewalks, in the parks, everywhere,
waiting for daylight to begin to loot.
1 said: 81 can run no further; there
is nowhere to go to. We have no Georgia
troops to defend US We are under
shelter here, and must endure what is
coming to u.s."
The most of the Federal army was en-
camped in East Macon, and to get to
Macon we would be forced to go through
the Federal army. To go toward Augusta
We would have been captured. There
was nothing to do but take what was
coming to US. We spent an awful night
of suspense. There was burning and
destruction going on in Macon. Mr..
Burke's book store (where I had been
that morning) was in flames; also his
printing establishment The second day
the raiders came down on us, took the
stock, Quilted the smokehouse and put a
pistol to my husbands breast and took
his watch from his pocket.
There was anxiety afterwards. We
could go nowhere, and we were afraid
to go outside the yard. We had no mail
and never saw a newspaper. The neigh
bors were afraid to come to us and we
were afraid to go to them. My step
daughter, nearly grown, was so excited
about conditions that my husband de-
cided to carry her to Athens, where her
grandparents were living. The five
Il Ia
any five years of life afterwards. 1t
was agonizing, and if a neighbor lady
and her nephew had not spent the night
with us l do not know how it would
have ended with me. Some Confederate
soldiers not paroled hid in the woods
and came in near midnight and got away
before day from the house.
Two nights after my husband reached
home (and he had suffered intolerable
anxiety for us). he was fired upon in the
back yard by unknoYn parties. We sat
up all night, waiting for another at
tack. Next day I went to Macon to get
guard. I went to the Lanier house to
see General Wilson with a Federal chap
lain, who was very kind indeed. I did
not see the general, but secured the
guard, a young Irishman, raised in the
city of Cincinnati. He rode a magnifi-
cent mare that was captured near Co
lumbuS We could breathe easier after
he came to us. He remained two weeks
and then his command was ordered to
Nashville, Tenn, to be there disbanded.
We struggled along through the month
of May, heard of General Lees surren-
der and were about ready to start back
to our Cherokee, Georgia, home, when
my only surviving child, nearly eleven
years old, my first born and the surviv-
or of three ofsprings, was seized with
a congestive chill at a. m. and was "A
corpse before . o'clock at night.
Do you wonder that my experiences
are still so vivid after a lapse of fifty
three years? 1 can sympathize with the
Belgians.