One hundred and forty five years ago this week, the killing stopped. The dead, estimated to be around six hundred twenty thousand, if laid end to end would span a distance of more than six hundred and sixty miles. For four years, the young men of the United States and the Confederate States battled each other, often in hand to hand combat, from Pennsylvania to Texas. The majority of the people in Laurens County did everything they could to avoid the bloodshed. The people of eastern Middle Georgia favored remaining in the Union. However, when the time came, they left their homes and families to fight for Georgia.
The Battle of Gettysburg was so bloody - fifty thousand men were killed and wounded in three days - that the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee and the Army of the Potomac under George Meade had to rest for ten months. A new Union General, Ulysses S. Grant took command during the winter of 1863-4. Grant launched one assault after another on Lee's Army. The number of dead, especially Grant's people as they were called by General Lee, soared. During the summer of 1864, when Atlanta fell, Grant laid siege to the Confederate capital of Richmond and its sister city, to the south at Petersburg. Lee allowed many of his men to come home on leave during the last winter of the war. Fighting in winter was simply not an option. Many of the men never came back. As the sun crossed the equator and headed north, both armies knew the end was near.
Grant's final thrust at Fort Steadman broke the Confederate lines. Lee's only hope was to move west and then south in hopes of joining Gen. Johnston's Army of the Tennessee. Johnston's army was moving away from General Sherman's army, who was pursuing them from the south. Petersburg fell on April 2, 1865. Company G of the 49th Georgia Infantry, "The Laurens Volunteers," was occupying the last line of the Confederates. When the Union army broke through, John W. Barnett, Jesse A. Bracewell, Thomas D. Dixon, Henry Hollingsworth, James B. Jones, James L. Kinchen, William H. Kinchen, Samuel Y. Lee, William H. Mullis, Thomas B. Towson, Byron Whitehead, and William H. Wright were captured. Each of the men were taken to prison camps where they remained for nearly three months. Samuel Y. Lee was the exception. He died before he could be released. The "Blackshear Guards," known as Company H, 14th Georgia Infantry, were along the side of the "Guards." Both of the companies were assigned to Gen. E.L. Thomas's Brigade. William G. B. Faulk, Henry Gay, John McCant, Josiah Padgett, T.S. Register, and Benjamin Shepard were taken to the coast for imprisonment, primarily at Point Lookout, Maryland.
Lee's Army pulled away from the trenches around Petersburg - a place they had called home for more than eight months. Leroy J. Collins, a future resident of Laurens County, was taken prisoner at the High Bridge over the Appomattox River on April 6th. James N. McLeod, a native of Telfair County who subsequently moved to Laurens County, was the last Laurens Countian in the Army of Northern Virginia to suffer a battlefield wound. He was wounded on the 8th of April as Lee's Army was cut off near the tiny county courthouse village of Appomattox, Virginia. Lee's Army had no where to go - Yankees in their front, Yankees in their rear. Their food was almost gone. Their uniforms and their shoes, if they still had them, were shredded.
April 9th, 1865, was a Sunday, Palm Sunday. Gen. John B. Gordon, a future U.S. Senator from Georgia, a Georgia governor, and an extremely popular politician with the voters of Laurens County, led one last gallant attempt to break the Union lines in Lee's front. Gordon broke through only to realize that a sea of blue was approaching his men from three sides. There was nowhere to go. When he reported back to Lee, the gray-haired general remarked, "There is nothing left for me to do but go to see Gen. Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths."
Robert E. Lee, who had brought the southern army to within sight of a complete victory over the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg, decided that it was over. He sent messages announcing his intentions across the lines to General Grant. The two antagonists arranged a meeting in the home of Wilbur McLean near the courthouse. McLean had only lived in the house for a little less than four years. He moved there to get away from the battlefields of Eastern Virginia. His previous home was at Manassas, Virginia, where the first battle of the Civil War was fought in July, 1861. The original home no longer stands. It was dismantled in the 1890s with the idea of reconstructing it on the mall in Washington, D.C. as a monument to the end of the war. The financiers of the project ran out of the money and the parts of the house were left on the site, for every souvenir hunter and do-it-yourself home builder to come by and spirit away. Thankfully, detailed plans of the house were made during the dismantling phase, and a duplicate house was constructed by the National Park Service.
Lee arrived first in his best and cleanest dress uniform. Grant sauntered in a half hour later in a uniform spattered with mud and dirt. The two men reminisced with each other about their days in the Mexican War. Grant was uncharacteristically generous in his surrender terms. After all, he had viciously attacked the Rebel army for more than three years every time he could. Grant allowed the Confederate officers to keep their side arms and personal possessions. Those men who had horses could keep them for the long journey home. Each man was paroled with a promise of not being detained on their way back home. Lee and Grant shook hands, and Lee rode away on his horse "Traveler." These men worshiped General Lee. They would follow him to their deaths without any question. Tears trickled down Lee's cheeks into his white beard. "Cheers changed to choking sobs as with streaming eyes and many cries of affection they waived their hats. Each group began in the same way with cheers and ended in the same way with sobs, all the way to his quarters. Grim-hearted men threw themselves on the ground, covered their faces with their hands and wept like children. Officers of all ranks made no attempt to hide their feelings, but sat on their horses and cried," said a witness to the event.
In July of 1861, the Blackshear Guards and the Laurens Volunteers began preparations to go to Virginia to begin the war. Each company contained between one hundred and one hundred and twenty men. They were proud. They were strong. The process of disarming the Confederate Army and issuing paroles took several days. The Guards counted only sixteen members. L.C. Perry was in command. His men, about 1/8 of their original strength were Benjamin Atkinson, O.J. Beall, Lewis Coleman, Henry Currell, T.R. Dixon, John Dominy, John Hutchinson, John Jones, Thomas Jones, Thomas Register, William Robinson, Jethro Scarborough, Wm. Scarborough, Wm. Smith, H.M. Stanley, W.A. Williams, and Bill Yopp, a former slave who was the company drummer. The Volunteers counted William H. Ashley, J. Barnett, Elijah Curl, Thomas Daniel, Valentine Fulford, Jefferson Fuller, Ben Fuqua, James Hester, Warren Johnson, Daniel Lee, Kinchen Massey, William B. Spivey, and Joshua Studstill. John B. Roberts was the company captain. Among the other Laurens Countians in other units were: Miles Brack, Allen Cowart, Wm. Tillery, Meredith Graham, Cicero Marchman, Henry Watson, John Dixon, John Ussery, Jackson Saturday, Henry Beacham, G.W. Belcher, Noel Camp, Ellis Johnson, Ervin Lovett, Thomas Pritchett, W.J. Stafford, Wade Wright, James Jones, John F. Nelson, John C. Parker, Drew E. Williams, John D. Sanders, Roland Tidwell, and James B. Duggan. It was a long walk back to Laurens County. Their strength was gone, but they remained proud, like one of their neighbors from Washington County, who said, "You may leave the South if you want to, but I am going to Sandersville, kiss my wife, and raise a crop, and if the Yankees fool with me anymore, I'll whip 'em again."
