Dixie, Sweet Land Of Dixie Eliza Dowling · Monuments Across Dixie October 28, 2020 · This is the grave of an 11-year old girl who is buried at Mt. Moriah Cemetery, Paulding County, Georgia, just north of the Dallas and New Hope Church battlefields. She was a victim of war crimes perpetrated by Federal soldiers who invaded the area in 1864. Rosanna Twilley experienced seizures from head injuries she had received in a fall. One day she had such a seizure, and fell into a fire. She was badly burned. As her mother, Priscilla, tried to nurse her back to health, the mother noticed that the only nourishment her daughter could keep down was milk from their family cow.
When Yankee troops marched through the area in 1864, they wrought devastation upon the neighborhood by destroying property and stealing everything they could carry off. When Ms. Priscilla saw Yankee soldiers outside, walking off with her cow, she ran and caught them, desperately pleading to them not to take it, because her daughter was very sick. She told them that Rosanna would die from starvation if she could not get any milk from the cow. The Yankee soldiers responded by shooting the cow in the head, tearing out its liver, and leaving the carcass there in the Twilley’s front yard.
Rosanna was buried in Mt. Moriah Baptist Church Cemetery in Paulding County. In 1984, a collection was taken up, and a suitable marker was erected over her grave. Rosanna Twilley was only one victim of many atrocities the Federal army perpetrated on Georgia’s civilians during wartime.
Written by Angie Riley As the commander of the Col. Allen R. Witt Camp #615 Sons of Confederate Veterans stated: "We Southerners don't live with hate, but you ask why we don't forget? This is why."
