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Confederate Orders, Reports and Letters -- Georgia |
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OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 1, vol 44, Part 1 (Savannah) OPERATIONS IS S. C., AND FLA. Chapter LVI. Pge 858
GRIFFIN, November 15, 1864.
General S. COOPER:
The enemy has burned Atlanta and destroyed railroad to Allatoona, burning bridge over Chattahoochee. He moved out of Atlanta with very large force in direction of Macon by Jonesborough and McDonough. We have no force to hinder him must fall back to Macon, where re-enforcement should be sent at once to meet him successfully.
HOWELL COBB,
Major - General, Commanding.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NEAR JONESBOROUGH, November 15, 1864 - 2. 30 p. m.
General J. B. HOOD:
Enemy advanced with infantry, cavalry, and wagons early this morning. Have driven our cavalry back to this place. Strength not yet ascertained. Enemy have burned many house in Rome, Marietta, and Atlanta; also destroyed railroad and burned bridge over Chattahoochee.
J. WHEELER,
Major - General.
OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 1, vol 38, Part 3 (The Atlanta Campaign) Page 688 - 696 (Also posted to Mississippi page)
Journal of Brigadier General Francis A. Shoup, C. S. Army, Chief of Staff, of operations July 25-September 7.
Memoranda of daily movements and events in Army of Tennessee, kept by Brigadier General F. A. Shoup, assigned to duty as chief of staff by orders from General Hood, dated July 24, 1864.
No records were turned over by former chief of staff, therefore the records of the office embrace only the administration of General S[houp].
Page 691 -692) August 20.-No change in our lines to-day; all quiet along our lines. Enemy threw a few shell into the city, killing 2 men. Enemy continue to complain of short rations; enemy in and around Decatur (Ga.) have stolen every particle of provisions they could find in hands of citizens. Their excuse for this conduct was that they have not had meat for ten days and were now living on quarter rations, coffee and crackers.
August 23.-Only a few shell were thrown into the city to-day. The enemy have employed a strong force of negroes to fortify Kenesaw Mountain and strengthen the works around Marietta.
OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 1, vol 14, Part 1 (Secessionville) Chapter XXVI. ATTACK ON DARIEN, GA. Page 317
HDQRS. TWENTIETH BATTALION GEORGIA CAVALRY,
Camp Jackson, June 19, 1863.
Captain WILLIAM A. LANE,
Commanding Company D:
CAPTAIN: I am directed by the major commanding to call on your for a written statement of the landing at and burning of Darien by the enemy on the 11th instant.
You will particularly state the number of the enemy and the means used by yourself in defeating their purpose of landing and burning the town.
Respectfully, captain, your obedient servant,
M. E. WILLIAMS,
Adjutant Twentieth Battalion.
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Page 318 -- Numbers 2. Report of Captain William A. Lane, Twentieth Battalion Georgia Cavalry.
CAMP JACKSON, June 19, 1863.
MAJOR: In compliance with your order I proceed to give a statement of about affair at Darien:
------When they reached the Alabama, however, instead of proceeding southward they turned in the direction of Darien, and in a few minutes were vigorously shelling our pickets just east of the town, and in thirty minutes from the commencement if the shelling the town of Darien was being burned. The position of said picket being open and exposed, they retired and took position on the Ridge road out of sight of the gunboats -------
-------There were no white people living in Darien; all of its former inhabitants who remain in that vicinity are at the ridge. -------
Respectfully, major, your obedient servant,
W. M. LANE,
Captain Company D.
Major JOHN M. MILLEN,
Commanding Battalion.
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Page 318 - 319 Numbers 3. Report of Captain W. G. Thomson, Twentieth Battalion Georgia Cavalry.
HDQRS. TWENTIETH BATTALION GEORGIA CAVALRY,
Camp Jackson, June 13, 1863.
GENERAL: I have to report that the enemy have burnt Darien to the ground; there is only one church and two or three small buildings standing. ----
The officer in command of the picket states that between 150 to 200 negroes, under white officers, landed and burnt the town. They captured a pilot-boat, with about 60 bales of cotton on board. the men aboard of the pilot-boat state they did not have time to burn her; that they hardly escaped themselves. They carried off some few negroes - most of them were free - the number not known. They also captured 2 white woman, but afterward released them, telling them that they intend to come back and burn the whole of the houses on the ridge and along the coast. They the returned down the river and now lie outside of Doboy Island.
Respectfully, general, your obedient servant,
W. G. THOMSON,
Captain, Commanding Battalion.
JOURNAL
OF THE SENATE
OF THE
Extra Session of the General Assembly,
OF THE
STATE OF GEORGIA,
Convened by Proclamation of the Governor,
AT MACON,
FEBRUARY 15TH, 1865.
BOUGHTON, NISBET, BARNES & MOORE, STATE PRINTERS,
MILLEDGEVILLE, GA.,
1865.
Page 7
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
Macon, Ga., February 15, 1865.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
Since your adjournment in November, the army of invasion, led by a bold and skillful General, have passed through our State, laid waste our fields, burned many dwelling houses, destroyed county records, applied the torch to ginhouses, cotton, and other property, occupied and desecrated the capitol, and now hold the city of Savannah, which gives them a water base from which they may in future operate upon the interior of the State.
The army of Tennessee, which contained a large number of Georgia troops, and was relied on as the only barrier to Sherman's advance, the removal of which left Georgia at the mercy of the enemy, was ordered off beyond the Tennessee river upon a campaign which has terminated in disaster. In the midst of these misfortunes Georgia has been taunted by some of the public journals of other States because her people did not drive back and destroy the army of the enemy. Those who do us this injustice fail to state the well known fact that of all the tens of thousands of veteran infantry, including most of the vigor and manhood of the State, which she had furnished for Confederate service, but a single regiment (the Georgia Regulars,) of about three hundred effective men, was permitted to be upon her soil during the march of General Sherman from her North-western border to the city of Savannah; and even that gallant regiment was kept upon one of our islands most of the time; and not permitted to unite with those who met the enemy. Nor were the places of our absent sons filled by troops from other States. One brigade of Confederate troops was sent by the President from North Carolina, which reached Georgia after her capitol was in the possession of the enemy.
Thus abandoned to her fate and neglected by the Confederate authorities, the State was left to defend herself as best she could against a victorious army of nearly fifty thousand of the best trained veteran troops of the United States, with only the Georgia reserves and militia, consisting of a few thousand old men and boys, while her army of able-bodied gallant sons were held for the defence of other States, and denied the privilege to return and strike an honest blow for the protection of their homes, their property, their wives and their children.
While the Confederate reserves in other States have been but little of their time in the field on active duty, and the militia, consisting of boys between sixteen and seventeen, and old men between fifty and sixty, and agriculturalists detailed by the Confederate government, have not in most of the States been called out at all, the Confederate reserves, the reserve militia, the detailed men, the exempts from Confederate service, and most of the State officers, civil as well as military, have in this State been kept in the field almost constantly for the last eight months.
These troops of classes not ordered out elsewhere, were placed under the control of the Confederate General commanding the department, and have participated in every important fight from Kennesaw in this State to Grahamville or Honey Hill in South Carolina. The important victory at the latter place was achieved by the Georgia militia, the Georgia reserves, the Georgia State line, the Forty-seventh Georgia Regiment, and a very small number of South Carolinians, all commanded by that able and accomplished officer, Major General G. W. Smith, of the Georgia militia. As I have seen no Confederate official account of this important engagement, which gives the credit where it is justly due, I mention these facts as part of the history of our State.
If all the sons of Georgia under arms in other States, of which nearly fifty regiments were in Virginia, besides those in the Carolinas, Florida and Tennessee, had been permitted to meet the foe opon her own soil, without other assistance, General Sherman's army could never have passed from her mountains to her seaboard, and destroyed their property and their homes. He had nearly four hundred miles to march over an enemy's country; he was entirely dependent upon the wagon train which he carried with him for a supply of ammunition, without the possibility of replenishing after what he had was consumed. Had he been resisted from the start by a competent force, and compelled to fight, his ordnance stores must soon have been exhausted, and he forced to an unconditional surrender. Such another opportunity to strike the enemy a stunning blow will not probably occur during the war. The destruction of this army would have re-inspired our people with hope, depressed the spirits of our enemies, and might have prepared the way speedily for the negotiation of an honorable peace. It could have been done by the Georgia troops if permitted. It should have been done at the expense, if necessary, of the evacuation of Richmond, and the use of Gen. Lee's whole army thrown rapidly into Georgia for that purpose.
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