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THE WAR RECORD OF DEKALB COUNTY.

DeKalb county, Georgia, of which Decatur is the county site, was among the first to enroll troops for Confederate service. The first volunteers from Decatur were James L. George, Hardy Randall, L. J. Winn and Beattie Wilson, who went with the Atlanta Greys the last of May, 1861.

The first company from DeKalb county was that of Captain John W. Fowler. It was called the DeKalb Light Infantry, and was mustered into service in Atlanta, as part of the 7th Georgia Volunteers, and left for Virginia on the 1st of June, 1861. Those going from DeKalb county in this company were: First Lieutenant, John J. Powell; Second Lieutenant, John M. Hawkins; Third Lieutenant, James L. Wilson; First Sergeant, M. L. Brown; Second Sergeant, D. C. Morgan; Third Sergeant, D. E. Jackson; Fourth Sergeant, John W. Fowler, jr.; Corporals—H. H. Norman, R. F. Davis, C. W. L. Powell; Privates—W. W. Bradbury (afterwards captain), E. M. Chamberlain, W. W. Morgan, W. L. Herron, P. H. Pate, C. E. McCulloch, James W. McCulloch, L. C. Powell, H. G. Woodall, J. S. Woodall, A. W. Mashburn, V. A. Wilson, W. J. Mason, J. V. Austin, W. M. Austin, John Eads, E. A. Davis, Dr. A. S. Mason, John W. Norman, E. L. Morton, Henry Gentry, W. M. Cochran, J. B. Cochran, James Hunter (promoted captain), W. W. Brimm, William Carroll, C. W. McAllister, J. O. McAllister, and many others from the county, making it a full company.

The second company from DeKalb was the Stephens Rifles, captain, L. J. Glenn. They went into Cobb’s Legion about August, 1861. Dr. Liddell, Frank Herron, Norman Adams, John McCulloch, John J. McKoy, and some others, went from Decatur in this company.

The third company was the Murphey Guards, captain, John Y. Flowers. They came from the upper part of the county, near Doraville. This company was named in memory of Hon. Charles Murphey, of DeKalb county, a prominent lawyer and member of Congress, but then recently deceased. The company had been uniformed by the people of the county, a large share being contributed by Mr. and Mrs. Milton A. Candler, and Mr. and Mrs. Ezekiel Mason. Mrs. Candler, whose maiden name was Eliza Murphey, the only child of Charles Murphey, gave the banner, upon which was inscribed, “The God of Jacob is with us.”

The Fourth Company was The Bartow Avengers, Captain William Wright, from the lower part of the county about South River. The Fifth Company, Captain Rankin, was from Stone Mountain. These three last mentioned companies went into the 38th Georgia Regiment, in September, 1861, and belonged to the Virginia Army. The Sixth Company, Captain E. L. Morton’s, entered service the last of August, 1861, in the 36th Georgia Regiment, and was with the Western Army under Johnston. The Seventh Company, the Fowler Guards, Captain Clay, went into the 42nd Georgia Regiment in the early part of 1862, and was also in the Western Army.

There were several companies, mostly composed of DeKalb County men, that were made up and went from the camp of instruction near Decatur. Moses L. Brown was Captain of one, and L. D. Belisle of another. Besides the companies already named, all of which went into the infantry, there were many soldiers from DeKalb that went into the Cavalry and Artillery service of the regular army.

In the year 1863, when Georgia was threatened by Rosecrans coming into the State on its northern border, special troops were raised for its defence. Major General Howell Cobb commanded the division; General Henry R. Jackson one of the brigades. In Jackson’s Brigade, in the 10th Georgia Regiment State Guards (Col. John J. Glenn and Lieutenant-Colonel J. N. Glenn), we find Company A of Cavalry troops. Of this company Milton A. Candler had command. These troops served through 1863 and 1864.

In April, 1863, Paul P. Winn, now a Presbyterian minister, then a mere youth, went into the army in the 45th Georgia Regiment, commanded by Col. Thomas J. Simmons. Other Decatur boys went into the service from other sections where the war found them located. Among these were Dr. James J. Winn, who enlisted at Clayton, Alabama, with the Barker Greys, and was in the battle of Bull Run. After a year or two he received a surgeon’s commission, being the youngest surgeon in the army.

John C. Kirkpatrick, just eighteen, went into the service from Augusta with the Oglethorpe Infantry. With him were his cousin, William Dabney (now a Presbyterian minister in Virginia), and his friend, Frank Stone. This was in 1862, and John remained in the service until the close of the war, having been in severe battles (for he was in Cleburne’s Division), including that of Jonesboro. In this engagement were other Decatur boys in other commands. Mr. John B. Swanton, but seventeen years old, was in that battle, and says that by his side stood, when mortally wounded, Franklin Williams, the brother of Mr. Hiram J. Williams. Says Mr. Swanton: “He was so near me I could have touched him with my hand.” Three sons of Mrs. Martha Morgan, and cousins of DeWitt Morgan, were all in the service, Henry, Daniel, and Joseph Morgan. Jesse Chewning and Samuel Mann were in the 64th Georgia.

Josiah J. Willard, the only son of Mr. Levi Willard, while a sprightly, active youth, was near-sighted. He had a position in the commissary department at Camp Randolph, near Decatur, and went with it to Macon, July 11th, 1864, and remained there until the place surrendered after the fall of Richmond. He, also, is mentioned in other sketches.

There were also several companies of old men and boys who went into the State service when the last call for troops was made by the Confederate government.

Before the DeKalb soldiers go to meet the fortunes of war, let us recall some incidents that preceded their departure. On the northern side of the court-house square there stood a large building, the residence of Mr. Ezekiel Mason. Here, day after day, a band of devoted women met to make the uniforms for the DeKalb Light Infantry. These uniforms had been cut by a tailor, but they were to be made by women’s hands. Among the leading and directing spirits in this work were Mrs. Jonathan B. Wilson, Mrs. Jane Morgan, Mrs. Ezekiel Mason, Mrs. Levi Willard, Miss Anna Davis, Mrs. James McCulloch, and Miss Lou Fowler. The most of this sewing was done by hand.

To the DeKalb Light Infantry, the day before its departure, a beautiful silken banner was given. The ladies of the village furnished the material. The address of presentation was made by Miss Mollie G. Brown. In September, of that same year, my sister was invited to present a banner to Captain William Wright’s Company. Her modest little address was responded to in behalf of the company by Rev. Mr. Mashburn, of the Methodist Church. In March, 1862, there was another banner presented from the piazza of “the Mason Corner”—this time to the Fowler Guards, by Miss Georgia Hoyle. This banner was made by the fair hands of Miss Anna E. Davis. By this time the spirit of independence of the outside world had begun to show itself in the Southern-made grey jeans of the soldiers, and in the homespun dress of Miss Hoyle.

This banner, so skillfully made by Miss Anna Davis, had a circle of white stars upon a field of blue, and the usual bars of red and white—two broad red bars with a white one between. The banner of this pattern was known as the “stars and bars,” and was the first kind used by the Confederate States. In May, 1863, the Confederate Congress adopted a National Flag, which had a crimson field with white stars in a blue-grounded diagonal cross, the remainder of the flag being white. But, when falling limp around the staff, and only the white showing, it could easily be mistaken for a flag of truce; therefore in March, 1865, the final change was made by putting a red bar across the end of the flag.

But what of the fate of these gallant young men, going forth so full of hope and courage, with tender and loving farewells lingering in their hearts?

Soon, ah! so soon, some of them fell upon the crimson fields of Virginia. James L. George (“Jimmie,” as his friends lovingly called him) was killed in the first battle of Manassas. “Billy” Morgan died soon after the battle, and was buried with military honors in a private cemetery near Manassas. Two years after, his brother, De Witt Morgan, worn out in the siege of Vicksburg, was buried on an island in Mobile Bay. At the second battle of Manassas, James W. McCulloch and James L. Davis were both killed. Later on W. J. Mason, William Carroll, John M. Eads, H. H. Norman, Billy Wilson, and Norman Adams, were numbered among the slain. Among the wounded were Henry Gentry, Mose Brown, John McCulloch, W. W. Brimm, Dave Chandler, Riley Lawhorn, and Bill Herring.

A volume could easily be written concerning the bravery and the sufferings of the DeKalb county troops; but I must forbear. Concerning Warren Morton, of the 36th Georgia Regiment, who went into the service at the age of fifteen, and suffered so severely, I will refer my readers to a sketch in the latter part of this book. Of William M. Durham, so young, so gallant, who enlisted in Company K., 42nd Georgia Regiment, much of interest will be found in another chapter.

Among the Decatur members of Cobb’s Legion was Mr. John J. McKoy, who went out in the Stephens Rifles when not more than nineteen years old. He was in the battle of Yorktown, Seven Pines, and in the Seven Days Fight around Richmond. Owing to illness, and to business arising from the attainment of his majority, he came home in 1863, and, hiring a substitute when the conscript law was passed, went to work at the Passport Office in Atlanta. In this same year he was married to Miss Laura Williams of Decatur. Having raised Company A., for the 64th Georgia Regiment, Mr. McKoy was with it when it was sent to Florida, and was in the battle of Olustee or Ocean Pond, in February 1864, where General Alfred H. Colquitt won the title of “The Hero of Olustee.” Mr. McKoy remembers to have seen on that eventful day, Col. George W. Scott, then of Florida, but now of Decatur. At the battle of Olustee, Col. Scott was in command of a regiment of Cavalry. The banner of the regiment is now in possession of his daughter, Mrs. Thomas Cooper.

The 64th Georgia was then sent to Virginia in General Wright’s brigade. A few days after “The Mine Explosion,” or undermining of the Confederate works, an engagement occurred at Deep Bottom. Here, General Girardy, of Augusta, was killed, and several hundred of the Confederates were captured, among the number being Mr. McKoy. This was in July, 1864. He was sent to Fort Delaware, where he remained in prison until the close of the war. Here he spent a whole winter without a fire, and was subject to all that Fort Delaware meant. To escape the horrors of that prison, many of the two thousand officers there confined, took the oath not to fight against the United States. But Mr. McKoy and thirty-four others remained in prison, firm and loyal, even after the surrender, believing and hoping, up to July, 1865, that the war would be carried on west of the Mississippi river.

The soldiers who went to Virginia knew from their own experience the scenes of Manassas, Malvern Hill, Fort Harrison, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and the Wilderness. Yet some of them were left to be surrendered by Lee at Appomatox Court House. The companies which were in the Western Army were in the leading battles of that Division, and were equally brave and abiding in their devotion to the cause.

For many of the foregoing facts concerning the troops from DeKalb, I am greatly indebted to Mr. Robert F. Davis, who went with DeKalb’s first company, and who, after braving the perils of the war, came off unscathed. He still lives near Decatur, and is an elder in the Presbyterian Church.

I greatly regret my inability, even if I had the space, to give the names of all the soldiers who went from DeKalb, and to tell of their deeds of bravery and endurance. It has not been intentional that many are wholly omitted. It has been my privilege to see but one muster-roll of our county troops—that of Company K, 38th Georgia Regiment, kindly furnished by Mr. F. L. Hudgins, of Clarkston, a brave soldier who was in command of the Company when Lee surrendered. This muster-roll shows that out of the 118 names, forty-six were killed (or died), and seventeen were wounded; that its first Captain, William Wright, resigned, and that three other Captains by promotion were all killed, i. e., Gustin E. Goodwin, George W. Stubbs and R. H. Fletcher. Indeed, in nearly every instance, promotion in this Company meant death upon the battle field. And can we wonder that both the commissioned and the noncommissioned fell, when some of the principal battles in which they were engaged bore such names as Cold Harbor, Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Winchester, Gettysburg, The Wilderness, Spottsylvania Courthouse, Mechanicsville, Fisher’s Hill, Cedar Creek, Louise Courthouse and High Bridge?

In memory of the dead, for the sake of the living and for the descendants of all mentioned therein, I copy the muster-roll of this company:

Company K., 38th Georgia Regiment: