THE DAY THE PRESIDENT CAME TO TOWN

    April of 1865 saw the end of the bloodiest and most divisive four years in American History.  Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet fled Richmond one week before General Lee's surrender at Appomattox.   Davis's plan called for an escape to Texas where the remaining Confederate forces would combine to fight a guerilla type war against the North.   This week marks the 150th anniversary of the day the President came to town.

   Jefferson Davis arrived on May 4th in Washington, Ga. where the Confederate Cabinet held its last session.  Davis and his family headed in two different directions.  The main party paused at Warthen and went south to Sandersville around noon on the 6th of May. Acting Confederate Treasury Secretary John Reagan transacted the last business of the Confederacy in Sandersville.  Davis moved on toward the Oconee River in the area east of Ball's Ferry, with the intentions of camping there for the night.  Shortly after their arrival at Ball's Ferry on the Irwinton to Wrightsville Road, President Davis, whom it has been said were planning a westward course,  and his escorts learned of a plan to attack the wagon train of Mrs. Davis which was pressing southward on a converging path.

   Fearing for his family's safety, Davis pressed south along the river road.  Whenever possible they had to travel off the edge of the road in order to hide their trail and prevent visual observation.  After several hours of difficult travel through thick pine woods Davis and his party arrived just before dawn in the Mt. Pleasant and Frog Level communities,near the Laurens County home of E.J. Blackshear.  As the two parties came together, each, at first thought the other was the enemy.  Davis’s pickets discovered that it was Mrs. Davis, the children, and the rest of the party who arrived at the Blackshear home earlier that evening.   After a short reunion, the Davis family had breakfast and then made their plans to resume their journey.  By then,  they knew that Union forces would not be far behind.

     The Union Army had already begun to search for Jefferson Davis.  The best cavalry regiment was selected to proceed east toward Dublin where they would cross the Oconee River and hopefully pick up the trail of Davis's wagon train.  Davis's train of light wagons and ambulances crossed at the Dublin ferry early on the morning of the seventh of May.  From there they proceeded into the center of town.  As was the case of his previous traveling habits, Jefferson Davis traveled separately from the train.  He crossed below  the Dublin Ferry mounted on a fine bay horse.  Davis then proceeded to the southeastern edge of town. 

     Davis never came into town but remained in the area now bounded on the north by Madison Street, east by Decatur Street, south by the railroad, and west by South Franklin Street. 

     The wagon train pulled into Dublin late Sunday morning.  In those days,  Dublin was a small village which had practically died out during the war.  A Confederate officer dismounted and approached the store of Freeman H. Rowe.  Freeman Rowe, a native of Connecticut, operated his mercantile store on the southwest corner of the courthouse square in the spot where the Hicks Building now stands.  Rowe, who had been in Dublin nearly twenty years, advised the officer of the terrain and roads in the county.  He advised the party to proceed south down the Jacksonville Road, which is today known as the Glenwood Road.  While the party was stopped, the Davis's carriage driver, John Davis, noticed a young black girl, Della Conway, approaching him.  After the eventual capture of Jefferson Davis, John Davis would return to Laurens County where he would find and marry Della Conway.  They would live  in Laurens County for forty years before moving to Dodge County where they lived the rest of their lives.  Mr. Rowe extended an invitation to Davis to dine at his house at the southwest corner of Rowe Street and Academy Avenue. Owing to the necessity of pressing on, the officer graciously declined the invitation,  but he did accept freshly cooked food from the Rowe kitchen.  

A detail was sent down to the President to advise him of the direction of travel.  They joined Davis a few miles south of town and proceeded down toward Turkey Creek.  The wagon train first started down the Jacksonville Road (Georgia Highway 19) but shortly moved over to the Telfair Road (U.S. Highway 441). 

 According to the maps of the Union Army Corps of Engineers,  the main road south would have been the Telfair Road (U.S.Highway 441) down to Turkey Creek, after crossing the creek, Davis and his party turned more to the southwest near or along the present day Payne Road and the City of Rentz. Following Snow Hill Church Road and the Old Eastman Road south from the Cadwell area, Davis and his band camped in the forks of Alligator Creek, most likely on the high ground  just below the Laurens-Dodge County line. 

Through the eastern portion of then Pulaski County, Davis continued on along the present day Airport Road.  After crossing the current Highway 46, Davis maintained his southwesterly course until he ran headlong into a overflowing Gum Swamp Creek, a major tributary of the Little Ocmulgee River.  The President’s forward observers found a place to attempt a crossing in the swollen waters of a wide and treacherous swamp.   

After a long day of arduous travel of less than 15 miles, the Confederates came to rest on the western side of the creek, west of Parkerson Church.  The spot was marked in the 1920s by Davis’s carriage John Davis, who returned to the area to mark the exact spot of the camp site, located on the southeast corner of Jefferson Davis Memorial Road and Parkerson Church Road.

From that point, Davis and his band left early on the morning of the 9th along or near Friiendship Baptist Church Road toward the Five Points community arrived at noon at the Levi Harrell farm.  During the rest of the day, the caravan moved south to Rhine, where they turned west  toward Abbeville. 

     As Jefferson Davis was leaving the campsite at the Blackshear Plantation, Col. Harnden and the Wisconsin Cavalry were preparing to leave their campsite near Marion in Twiggs County.  The cavalry pushed down the Old Macon Road until they came to it’s intersection with the Hawkinsville Road.  The crossroads was then and is now known as Thomas Cross Roads.  The Hawkinsville Road, also known as the Blackshear Trail or Blackshear's Ferry Road, followed an old Uchee Indian trail from Augusta to southern Alabama.  As the Federals were approaching the crossroads, they learned that a contingent of several hundred paroled Confederate cavalry soldiers from General Johnston's army had just passed through there on their way home. This information seemed to be a little alarming to Col. Harnden because the men were mounted and as a precautionary measure he sent Lieutenant Orson P. Clinton and twenty men southwest to Laurens Hill on the Hawkinsville Road to reconnoiter that area.  During the war,  Laurens Hill had been the location of a Confederate commissary of arms and supplies.   As the cavalry approached Laurens County, they ran into small groups of Confederates. 

Harnden proceeded to the ferry where he arrived at 5:00 o'clock in the evening of May 7th.  It was just a few miles north of the ferry where Davis had camped the night before.

         Just as Davis was passing through Laurens County, so were John C. Breckinridge, a Confederate field offficer and the former Vice President of the United States under James Buchanan. Breckinridge hid out on the east side of the river, opposite Dublin and made his way down to Jacksonville, Georgia, the county seat of Telfair County.  The lackluster general, managed to escape to Florida, Cuba, Great Britain and Canada. 

    Following on a more westerly course was Judah P.  Benjamin. Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State and a United States Senator from Louisiana,  left Davis and his party and too moving quietly and almost alone.  Benjamin managed to escape to Florida within a week or so, escaping to Europe and safety.

Upon arriving in Dublin, Harnden noticed that the people were considerably excited at their presence.  In an effort to disguise their true reason for being in Dublin, Harnden instructed his men to tell the townspeople that they were establishing courier posts between Macon and Savannah.  The First Wisconsin bivouacked on the flat area between the town and the river, probably along the main road down to the ferry.  Today that road would have been Jackson Street down to Dudley’s Motel and from that point running behind the motel to East Gaines Street to the Dublin ferry, which was located at the mouth of Town Creek just above the Riverwalk Amphitheater.  Colonel Harnden was approached by several of the town’s gentlemen, who insisted that he spend the night in their homes. Colonel Harnden, suspicious and not used to such attention, kindly declined their invitations and remained with his men.

The gentlemen’s insistent requests aroused Harnden’s suspicions that something big was going on.  Questions brought about evasive answers.  Harnden, still oblivious to the fact that he had missed Davis by slightly more than a half day, concluded that it must have been some more important members of Johnston’s army.  Dublin was filled with Confederate officers, all still in uniform, though the war had been effectively over for four weeks.  The officers stood in small groups, eyeing every movement of Harnden’s men with foreboding glances.  Uneasy and dead tired from riding twenty four out of the last thirty six hours, Harnden and his men bedded down for the night.

As Harnden was on the verge of collapsing into sleep, his servant, Bill,  came into his tent to awaken the Colonel with some important news.  Bill, who had been a slave belonging to a staff officer under the command of Confederate general Braxton Bragg and who had waited on General Bragg personally, was left behind when Bragg’s forces were dislodged from Tennessee in 1863. Harnden described Bill as “homely as a hedge hog, but a perfect tyrant over the other darkies.” Harnden trusted Bill, whom he also described as “being true as steel and very intelligent.”  Bill told Colonel Harnden that he found a colored man who wanted to tell him something.  “What is it?” the Colonel asked as he strained to see the man in the pitch black dark night.  Harnden managed to see some of his eyes and knew that he had important information.  The man told Harnden that Jefferson Davis had been in town that day.  Harnden asked the man how he knew it was Jeff Davis.  “Well,” he said, “all the gentlemen called him ‘President Davis’ and he had his wife with him and she was called, ‘Mrs. Davis’.”  (Above) The man told Harnden that Davis had come over the river on a ferry on a nice number of wagons and fine horses.   He added that another large party came into town but did not cross the river.  This group may have been the party of Gen. J.C. Breckenridge, a Confederate General and former Vice President of the United States, who was hiding out in East Dublin.  Gen. Breckinridge barely escaped capture in Laurens Co. and hid out in Telfair Co. for a few days. He later escaped to England.  

Harnden’s suspicions about the gentlemen in Dublin were confirmed when Judge Freeman Rowe, (Rowe House left) who had offered the hospitality of his home to him, had offered the same hospitality to Davis earlier that morning.    Harnden was fearful that the Negro man’s testimony was a ruse to get him to follow the wrong trail, much the same as Judge Rowe had attempted to do.  Harnden trusted Bill’s opinion on the veracity of the informant’s statement.  Bill told the Colonel, “Certain, sure, Colonel, you can believe him, he’s telling God’s truth.”  

To verify the man’s statement, Harnden sent a couple of men down to the ferry to query the ferryman as to who was brought across the river.  “He was either too stupid, ignorant, or obstinate to give us any information of importance,” lamented Harnden, who regretted not complying with the wishes of his sergeant who wanted to “throw the old scamp into the river.”  Harnden returned to his bivouac and summoned Lt. Hewitt, who had been sent to Laurens Hill with thirty men to reconnoiter the area which had once housed a Confederate commissary. 

   Harnden ordered Lt. Lane to remain in Dublin with forty-five men.  Lane’s mission was to scout up and down both sides of the river in hopes of gaining further information as to Davis’s route. Harnden set out with seventy-five men following the trail which had been given to him.  There were no good roads, only trails.  It was dark, very dark.  The cavalrymen were going in circles and during the night, they wound back up in Dublin. 

Despite the misdirection from F.H. Rowe, they proceeded down the Jacksonville Road.  At Turkey Creek, a woman confirmed that a wagon train had passed the afternoon before.  From this point the cavalry entered the unpopulated pine regions of southern Laurens County. They saw few people and quickly lost track of the wagons due to the rain.  While the calvary were attempting to find the trail, a man approached on horseback. Denying that he knew anything,  the man confessed upon threats by the cavalry. He disclosed that the wagon train stopped for the night about eleven miles away.  He guided the cavalry to that spot in the forks of Alligator Creek.  Col. Harden picked up the trail, followed it for a short time and eventually lost it again.  Shortly thereafter the cavalry came upon another guide who,  upon payment for his knowledge,  guided the cavalry to the southern side of the forks of Alligator Creek,  where the trail was again revealed.  After they crossed Gum Swamp Creek, the cavalry stopped for the night as nightfall approached. 

  

Davis left the rest of the party moving southwesterly toward Abbeville on the morning of the 8th.  The torrential rains continued to cripple his escape, but allowed Davis to delay his capture by a day because even the faster cavalry units could not follow washed out trails.  Davis reached the banks of the Ocmulgee in the late evening.  After he  crossed the river, Davis made his camp in a deserted house on the outskirts of Abbeville.  Most of the townspeople knew nothing of his presence due to the heavy rainfall.   The rest of the wagon train crossed the ferry just after midnight.  About 3:00 o'clock on the morning of the ninth a courier was sent by President Davis warning the wagon train of the presence of Union Cavalry in Hawkinsville - only a few miles to the northwest.   

On the last full day of freedom and with only a few moments of sleep the members of the Confederate wagon train pulled out of camp from Abbeville early in the morning of the 9th.  They stopped to rest and a cook a sunrise breakfast about eight to ten miles below Abbeville.  The relentless rains continued to plague the flight of the Confederates.  Davis caught up with the rest of the party in the late afternoon.  With the men and horses completely exhausted, the party crossed a small creek north of Irwinville to camp for the night. 

    It became increasingly apparent that in order to escape to the Trans Mississippi area that President Davis and his party should go ahead before camping for the night.  Davis promised that he would move ahead after a quick meal.  With the last reports of the Union Army in Hawkinsville and no sign of any pursuit, Davis decided to stay with the party for one more night.  

   Just before light on the morning of the ninth, Col. Harnden broke camp and moved toward the Ocmulgee.  He then quickly moved down the river road to Abbeville.  There they were overtaken by the advance scouts of the 4th Mich. Cavalry, under the command of Lt. Col. Ben Pritchard.  Col. Harnden sent Lt. Clinton to the point while he returned to Abbeville.  They continued on the Irwinville Road until nine o'clock that evening.  After traveling forty five miles and not wanting to warn Davis of his presence with a noisy river crossing, the Wisconsin Cavalry halted for the night in a field on the north side a small creek a little over a mile from the Confederates.  The Mich. Cavalry moved north from Irwinville.  Three hours before dawn the Wisconsin and Michigan cavalry soldiers were poised to surround the camp.  Neither regiment knew of the other's presence.  Shots rang out!  The Union Soldiers were firing at each other.  Two men were killed.

     While the two Union regiments were violently bringing the search for Davis to an end, the actual capture of Jefferson Davis was peaceful.  At the instant the firing on the north side of the creek began,  the Michigan Cavalry charged through the Davis's campsite. Davis gave himself up when he felt his wife was being threatened. The Confederates were arrested and taken to Macon.  From Macon, Jefferson Davis was sent to Fortress Monroe Prison in Virginia. 

     While the southern half of Middle Georgia escaped the ravages of battle, it was the site of the last major event of Civil War.  The most critical event in the capture occurred in Dublin, where the Wisconsin Cavalry first learned of Davis's route.  If Col. Harnden had been here a day earlier, then the capture would have been made in Laurens County.  If he been delayed by a couple of days, the capture may have never occurred. 

Ironically, Henry Harnden was a southerner by birth.  The Harndens, a well respected family of Wilmington, North Carolina, served in the forefront of the defense of the port city during the American Revolution.  Born in Wilmington in 1823, Harden moved to Wisconsin in early adulthood.  He enlisted as a private in Company D of the First Wisconsin.  For his acts of valor and meritorious service, Harnden quickly promoted up the chain of  command.  Harnden led a charge against a superior force at Scatterville in 1862, capturing a large number of Confederate prisoners and munitions.   He was severely wounded while leading an attack at Burnt Hickory.  In March of 1865, Harnden was temporarily breveted a Brigadier General in the Union Army.  After the end of his military career, Col. Harnden served in the Wisconsin state assembly.  He served as a trustee of the Soldier’s Orphan Home, a United States Assessor, and a Collector of Internal Revenue.  Harnden spent the last year of his life as Commander of the Wisconsin Department of the Grand Army of the Republic.  He died in 1900 and was buried in the Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison.

As Davis and his party attempted to elude capture by Federal authorities along their secretive and meandering path through the countryside of the Carolinas and Georgia, Davis rode with John Taylor Wood, John H. Reagan, Francis Lubbock and William Preston Johnston,  four remarkable members  of President Davis’s senior staff.   This  quartet of Davis’s most trusted and experienced aides provided invaluable services to the President, his family, and members of his staff.   With his primary destination being Texas, Davis assembled a group, which included three Texans and one naval officer, just in case the alternate plan of fleeing by ship to England was necessary.   When Davis was informed of a possible attack on his family in the main wagon train, Colonels Wood, Lubbock and Johnston aided Davis in his frantic and eventually successful search for his family, which culminated at the home of E.J. Blackshear at the intersection of the current day Ben Hall Lake Road and Willie Wood Road.   Secretary Reagan remained with Mrs. Davis and her children during the ordeal and acted as the leader of the wagon train when the group approached the Dublin store of Freeman H. Rowe in the mid morning of May 7th seeking directions as to the best and most direct route to the southwest.  

John Taylor Wood graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1853.  Wood, a son of an Army surgeon, served in the Mexican War and in the Mediterranean Sea.  In April 1861, the native of Minnesota, resigned his commission in the Federal navy to assume a neutral stance in the burgeoning conflict.  Six months later, Wood received a commission as a First Lieutenant in the Confederate Navy.    Lieutenant Wood was assigned to duty along the eastern shore of Virginia.   He served aboard the ironclad C.S.S. Virginia, aka C.S.S. Merrimac, which was destroyed in its legendary encounter with the U.S.S. Monitor.  During the next two years, Wood led a series of successful raids against Union ships along the Virginia coastline.  For his valuable service to Confederate President Davis, Lt. Wood was promoted to Commander.  At the same time, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel in the Confederate Calvary, a unique distinction in any military force.   

Known for his daring military exploits, Wood played a vital role as a liaison between the two branches of the Confederate military and the civilian government.  In the last summer of the war, Commander Wood took command of the CSS Tallahassee and made effective attacks on Federal ships along the Atlantic coast.  Near the end of the war, Wood was promoted to the rank of Captain.  As the government of the Confederacy began to crumble in the last weeks of the war, Captain Wood was summoned to Richmond to aid Davis and his cabinet in their attempted escape from Federal authorities.  While most members of Davis’s cabinet left Davis during his flight, Wood remained with Davis all the way to Irwinville, where he was captured.  Wood managed to escape a long prison sentence and made his way to Cuba and then to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he became a businessman.  Wood died at the age of seventy-four in 1904. 

John H. Reagan floundered around during his youth before he set out for Texas to seek his fortune.  Reagan served as a soldier, surveyor and scout before he became an attorney. Reagan rose in the political ranks first as a county judge, a member of the 2nd Texas Legislature and finally as a United States Congressman in 1857. Upon the secession of the Confederate States in January 1861, Cong. Reagan resigned his seat in Congress and returned to Texas.  Reagan represented Texas in the Secession Convention in Montgomery.  He was appointed by the Confederate government as Postmaster General of the Confederacy.  His tight management of the Postal Service led to criticism by the Southern people.  After the resignation of George A. Trenholm, Reagan briefly assumed the duty of Treasury Secretary of the Confederacy until he was captured along with Davis near Irwinville.  

Reagan was confined to solitary confinement along with Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens for twenty-two weeks at Fort Warren.    After urging his fellow Texans to cooperate with the Federal occupation of their state, he returned in political disgrace.   The opinions of is fellow politicians and constituents reversed and Reagan was returned to the favor of the Democratic party.   He was easily elected to Congress in 1874 and remained in office until 1887.  Cong. Reagan served a brief stint as a United States Senator before resigning to become the first Railroad Commissioner of Texas.  Commissioner Reagan served as Commissioner of Railroads until 1903.  At the age of eighty-six, Reagan, “The Old Roman of Texas,” died in Palestine, Texas in January 1905.  

Francis Lubbock, a native of Beaufort, South Carolina, migrated to Texas in 1836. Lubbock was first appointed Clerk of the House of Representatives and later  as Comptroller of the Republic of Texas by President Sam Houston.   Lubbock resigned his position to serve a sixteen-year term as the district clerk of Harris County, Texas.   In 1857, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of the “Lone Star” state.  After the secession of the Southern states in 1861, Lubbock was elected Governor of Texas.   

 Gov. Lubbock opted not to seek a second term as governor and seek a post in the Confederate military instead.  After serving a brief term in Louisiana,    Lubbock was made a Colonel and given a position on the staff of President Davis.  The two developed a close personal relationship. Col. Lubbock  was with the President when he was captured in Irwinville.  After nearly eight months of solitary confinement in a Federal prison, Lubbock returned to Texas for a career in ranching and business.  He served as State Treasurer from 1878 to 1891.   Gov. Lubbock died in June 1905 at the age of eighty-nine.

William Preston Johnston, a native of Kentucky, was raised by his maternal grandfather General William Preston.  Johnston’s father General Albert Sidney Johnston, a former Secretary of War of the Republic of Texas and a military hero in his own right, was one of the most revered and admired generals in the Confederate Army until he was killed at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.  William Johnston graduated from Yale in 1852 and studied law at the University of Louisville at Louisville, Kentucky, where he took up the practice of law.    During the war, Johnston was given a position as an aide-de-camp to Jefferson Davis. Johnston was with the president until the final moment of his capture at Irwinville.

After the war, Johnston accepted a position chair of the history and English departments at Washington & Lee University by that’s school’s first president, Gen. Robert E.  Lee.  After ten years of teaching at the Virginia college, Johnston moved to Louisiana, where in 1880, he accepted the presidency of Louisiana State University.  In 1884, he became the first president of Tulane University.   During his teaching career, Johnston published several volumes of poetry, wrote numerous magazine articles and authored a biography of his father.  He died in 1899 and was buried in Lexington, Virginia. 

Decades after the capture, Col. Henry Harnden pointed to the moment that a Negro slave walked into his tent between the courthouse and ferry in Dublin and told the Wisconsin cavalryman of Jefferson Davis’ recent presence as the key to his capture.  Had that man not come forward, Harnden doubted if he would have ever captured the fleeing Confederate leader. 

Jefferson Davis Highway Marker

in front of Dublin's Southside Fire Station

Intersection of S. Jefferson Street and 

Saxon Street. 

ALTERNATE VERSION OF THE ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS





An Alternate Version of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln







Most of us know the story of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. Or do we know the real reason that John Wilkes Booth slipped into Ford’s Theater and shot the President in the back of the head at point blank range. One Dublin man, Robert A. Beall, had his own version of Booth’s motive. The story is not a new one. It has been around for many years, but few people have heard the Beall’s family story about why John Wilkes Booth fired the shot that changed the future of America.



Robert Andrew Beall was born in Sparta, Georgia on January 31, 1836. He enlisted in Company K of the 15^th Georgia Infantry (The Hancock Confederate Guards) on July 15, 1861. He transferred to Co. A of the 48^th Georgia Infantry (The Gibson Guards). He was elected Junior Second Lieutenant on January 30, 1863. During the battle of Gettysburg, Beall led his company’s charge up the slopes of Cemetery Ridge in an attack on the Union center. The 48^th Georgia, attached to Wright’s Brigade, managed to break the northern lines late in the afternoon of the second day of the battle. The brigade suffered horrific casualties when adjoining Confederate forces failed to cover their flanks as the Union army recovered and surrounded them. Beall was shot in his leg just above the knee and taken to a field hospital, where he was later captured and imprisoned at Point Lookout, Maryland. Lt. Beall was exchanged on October 14, 1864. He surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia on April 9, 1865, just five days before the assassination. Robert Beall moved to Dublin, where he died on May 20, 1920.



Eight years before his death, Beall reminisced about his service in the Confederate army and his experiences in prison. He also related a fascinating story of the true reason that John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln. The story revolved around John Young Beall, a relative of Lt. Beall, later called Capt. Beall, because he was a captain in the local unit of the United Confederate Veterans.



John Young Beall, a 30 year old Virginian, was one of the first in his native county of Jefferson to enlist in the 2^nd Virginia Infantry, which was attached to "The Stonewall Brigade" under the command of Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. At the time of the beginning of the war, he was studying law at the University of Virginia. At the Battle of Falling Waters in October 1861, Lt. Beall was seriously wounded when he was shot in the chest during a charge on a Union position. While Beall was convalescing in a Richmond hospital, he came up with an idea to release Confederate prisoners who were being held on Johnson’s Island. Lt. Beall met with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who gave temporary approval of the plan pending the approval by S.R. Mallory, Secretary of the Confederate Navy. Secretary Mallory conceded the plan might work, but tolled its execution.

Beall transferred to the Navy and was given command of a vessel which operated in the waters of the lower Potomac River. Captain Beall led several successful raids on Union positions. Beall’s mind returned to his plan to liberate his fellow Confederate soldiers being held prisoner at Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie. On September 19, 1864, Beall and several other men boarded the Philo Parsons, a vessel out of Sandwich, Michigan. At the first stop, Beall and his comrades commandeered the boat. One Federal gunboat, the U.S.S. Michigan, guarded the prison at Johnson’s Island. Beall arranged to have the officers of the Michigan to attend a party in Sandusky, Ohio. The plan was eventually called off when the signal of the officer’s absence failed to materialize. Beall and his men returned to the safety of Canada.



Three months later in December 1864, Capt. Beall was captured while leading a raid to release Confederate prisoners being transferred to Fort Warren. Beall was tried for his actions and found guilty by a military court martial. Despite the fact he received letters of support from several influential citizens and congressmen of West Virginia and Maryland, as well as some northern congressmen, Beall was sentenced to death by the court, which was affirmed by Secretary of State William Seward. On February 24, 1865, Captain Beall was escorted to the gallows of a prison in New York City. He was calm with full faith that he would go to Heaven under the grace of Christ. He declared in a calm but firm voice that his execution was "contrary to the laws of civilized warfare."



In the decade following the death of Abraham Lincoln, a story began to circulate through the newspapers of the country of a strong personal bond between John Young Beall and John Wilkes Booth. The story goes that the two men were best friends, and that upon Beall’s capture, Booth arranged to have Beall released from prison. Booth, a southern sympathizer who spent most of the war acting in the northern states, purportedly contacted three men, including John P. Hale, a United States Senator from New Hampshire, to go to President Lincoln and plead his case for a stay of execution. The story goes on to say that Booth went with the men to the White House during the middle of the night to meet with the President. After Booth plead his case, it was said that there was not a dry eye in the house. Lincoln acceded to Booth’s request and agreed to pardon Captain Beall. Then, at the instance of Secretary Seward, who supposedly wanted to make an example out of the captain, convinced Lincoln to proceed with the execution. Incensed at Lincoln’s betrayal, Booth began his plan to kill the President.



The story seems to have originated in a weekly newspaper "Pomeroy’s Democrat." There is extant evidence to prove that Booth began his plan to kill Lincoln and Seward even before Captain Beall led the failed raid on Johnson’s Island. No evidence has ever been found to indicate the longtime friendship between Beall and Booth. A week after the assassination, Booth wrote in his diary that he "knew of no private wrong. I struck for my country and that alone."



The story of John Young Beall and his connection to John Wilkes Booth is an interesting one, but it also indicates that not all articles written in newspapers, especially old ones, are always true. Sometimes the stories are based on speculation or out of a desire to make a political point. In this case, the story is alleged to have come from an attempt to sensationalize the death of Lincoln and of course sell newspapers in the process. In a way, it may have only been a story comparable to those found in "The National Enquirer" and other tabloids of that ilk.



Nevertheless, the heroism and dedication of Captain Robert A. Beall, should not go disappear into oblivion. This man survived the horrors of war and imprisonment and returned to rebuild his state, a task made even more difficult by the senseless execution of Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theater, one hundred and thirty eight years ago.

APPOMATTOX AFTERMATH

The Question Remains Why

　

The Civil War is a part of our lives. It will always be a part of our lives. What we must do is keep asking ourselves, "why?"

As a historian, I am often asked my opinion on the Civil War. People ask me "Was the war fought about slavery or about state rights, or both?" On this eve of the 150th anniversary of the effective end of the American Civil War, I will not answer that or any other questions. In fact, I will ask you the questions and all of those questions begin or end with "why?"

If you want to start a spirited discussion, you can talk about religion, politics or you can ask what was the main cause of the Civil War. For some Americans, there is a desire to relive that horrible war - its battles, its causes, its results, and its combatants. There are some who say that slavery had absolutely nothing to do with the war while there are others who boldly proclaim that the cruel bondage of human beings had all and everything to do with the war. I do expect you to be spirited and confident in your thoughts, but I do hope you can be civil in your discussions. Remember that's what started that terrible, most uncivil war.

Other than religion, more books have been written about the American Civil War. We can't seem to agree even what to call it: "The War Between The States," "The Civil War," "The War of Northern Aggression," "The War for Southern Independence." Officially the four-year war was named "The War of the Rebellion," by the victors, our Federal government.

In many of the battles between the Army of the Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac, there was a disagreement as to the name of the battles. The Union armies named their battles after the nearest water feature (Antietam, Bull Run) while the Confederates named their fights after the nearest town (Sharpsburg, Manassas.)

"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we may grow too fond of it," remarked General Robert E. Lee as he surveyed the 8000 or so dead and dying Union soldiers lying at the base of Marye's Heights after the Battle of Fredericksburg.

For a century and one half since the surrender of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865 and Gen. Joseph Johnston's Army of the Tennessee in Greensboro, N.C. on April 26, 1865, generation after generation has figuratively fought the war over and over again. There are those who speculate, "What would have happened at Gettysburg had Stonewall Jackson been Lee's right arm during the climatic battle?" "What would have happened if England had entered the war on the side of the South? What would have happened if the Union Forces didn't run from Bull Run? What would have happened if Abraham Lincoln had never been elected?

As a journalist, it is my mission to seek out the facts and write about the who, what, where, when and why. Well, we know who fought and died, what were the results of the battles, where the battles were fought and when the firing began and when it ceased. What we can't seem to answer and as a people agree on is why?

Why did the racist blacksmith from New York City fire artillery shells randomly into Fredericksburg, with no idea of where his cannister may have landed? Just to free slave? Why did the preacher from North Alabama fire his rifle into the face of a young father of three from Michigan? Just so his wealthy neighbor could keep getting wealthier?

On this 150th anniversary of the General Lee's surrender at Appomattox, we should no longer celebrate the war, but commemorate it and study it, for the Civil War (with the American Revolution and World War II coming in right behind) is the most defining event in American History.

All of us look back at the war through the scope of what were taught about the war when we were young and what impact the war had on our family. My scope is filtered by the thought that if David Douglas, of Emanuel County, Georgia, and Benjamin H. Brantley, of Washington County, Georgia, had not been mortally wounded at Gettysburg and Sharpsburg respectively, their widows would have never remarried two of my great-great grandfathers. Why did they die so that I and all of those in my family, so dear to me, could live?

Why would my gigantic 14-year-old great grandfather, William A. Scott, Jr., masquerade as an adult and ride with Col. John S. Mosby, "The Gray Ghost," as he stole and pillaged northern farms and storehouses and then abruptly leave Virginia Military Institute as a 16-year-old to return home to fight the armies of George Armstrong Custer and Phillip Sheridan as they attacked his homeland? Why, especially would this kid be willing to die in defense of his home when after the war, his thoughts turned totally against the war as one of God's most Christian of soldiers? Why?

I ask myself why did my nineteen-year- old great-great uncle James Powell Scott have to die at the crossroads of Five Forks, Virginia on April Fool's day, some eight days before the end of the war? Why did a Union soldier pick up the prayer book of this young lieutenant, just a boy, and deliver it to my great-great grandmother on his route home? I ask myself why? Why were his two oldest brothers spared after they were sentenced to death by firing squad?

Why would my great, great grandfather John A. Braswell, a nineteen-year-old whose father died in the war, leave the Confederate army and steal a horse to go back home? The answer was simply that he was sick, scared and tired - sick of washing horse manure to retrieve undigested grains of corn just to find something to eat, scared of dying with his whole life in front of him and tired of running away from General Sherman's vastly superior army.

Depending on whose figures you believe, approximately 600,000 men were killed during the war. Laying the corpses of these men head to toe, the line would stretch nearly 650 miles, the distance between Dublin and Washington, D.C. Ask yourselves, why were nearly two-thirds of a million men killed in four years? Why did they die? Why were they willing to die?

Why was General Ulysses S. Grant, known to his own men as "The Butcher," so magnanimous in the terms of his surrender demands at Appomattox? Why was General William T. Sherman, considered by several generations of Georgians as the Devil himself, even more generous when he simply allowed the Confederate Army of the Tennessee to simply go home?

Why were so many highly ranking Confederate officers like James Longstreet, Joseph Johnston, Joseph Wheeler, and John S. Mosby asked to serve in Federal government positions by those very same men whom they fought against? Why was the bond between Free and Accepted Masons stronger than the missions of war? Why a slave like Bill Yopp of Laurens County, not cross the picket lines and stay with his white comrades until he surrendered at Appomattox?

Why did the end of the war and resulting constitutional amendments not bring about equality of the races? Why did Southerners object to the abolition of slavery in new western territories when it would have given the South the decided economic advantage? Why did the men of Montgomery County, Georgia, who were almost unanimously against secession and war, suffer ninety-percent casualties during the war?

I will ask you one final question. Will you please not forget the war? To forget it would make you forget the evil and ignore the good which happened during and after the war. Ignoring the question of slavery versus state rights versus sectional economic domination may doom us to another war in the not too distant future. For all of us, of all races, the war changed the destiny of the entire world, so you must always keeping asking yourself why? To the millions of us who lost family members, we askw hy? Ask yourselves did all of these men die to secure the freedom of slaves or keep them in eternal bondage? Or, was it something more? The question remains, why?

THE BATTLE OF THE LIGHTWOOD KNOT BRIDGE

DR. JAMES BARNES DUGGAN

In the grand lore of Laurens County, no legend has been more celebrated than the acts of a young Confederate Surgeon and his valiant effort to protect the resources of Chappell's  Mill during General William T. Sherman's cataclysmic "March to the Sea" near the end of the Civil War.  Despite reports to the contrary that his efforts were unsuccessful, Duggan and his lone aide did accomplish their objective, protecting the mill.  In his private life, Dr. James Barnes Duggan was a guiding force behind the establishment of one of  the county's oldest and most important institutions, the Laurens County Library.  

James Barnes Duggan, a s son of Archelaus and Elizabeth Walker Duggan was born in Washington County on November 1, 1833.  One of five brothers, Duggan graduated from the University Medical College in Knoxville, Tennessee.  Duggan began his practice in Wilkinson County and supplemented his income through large farming interests.  Duggan was married three times.  His first wife Nancy Jackson bore him four sons; Isaac Jackson, William Lee, James Henry and Paul Franklin.  His last two wives were a Miss Brown and Emma Bass, sister-in-law of Dr. Benjamin Franklin Stanley, a Confederate surgeon whose family operated Chappell's Mill, then called Stanley's Mill.

On March 4, 1862, during a massive organization of military companies of the Georgia Volunteer Infantry, James B.  Duggan was elected First Lieutenant of Company A,  "The Wilkinson Rifles," of the 49th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment.   His company first saw action during the Battles of the Seven Days on the Virginia Peninsula in late June and early July of 1862.  Following the battles of Cedar Mountain and the Second Manassas  Lt. Duggan replaced Captain Samuel T. Player, who was elevated to Major of the Regiment.  A soldier in Duggan's regiment, was given credit for killing the highest ranking Union officer killed during the war,  General Phillip Kearney, at the Battle of Chantilly.   Capt. Duggan led the company while guarding prisoners at Harper's Ferry during the horrific Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam).  Duggan led his company to victory at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. His company was held in reserve in the climatic battle of Gettysburg.  The Wilkinson Rifles participated in the bloody retreating battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Courthouse before retreating to a defensive position around Richmond and Petersburg.    On June 11, 1864, Capt.  Duggan was elected as Major of the 49th Georgia replacing Major John A. Durham, who died from wounds that he suffered at Jerico Ford.

After the long hot summer of 1864, Grant's overpowering forces were poised in a strangle hold against the embattled defenders of the Confederate capital at Richmond and its neighbor to the south, the strategic city of Petersburg.  During the late fall and winter,  when the armies basically took off from the war, Dr. Duggan was granted a leave to return back to his home.

The date was November 25, 1864.  The advance elements of the Union Calvary already reached Ball's Ferry on the Oconee River in Wilkinson County.  Ball's Ferry is located about 1/4 mile north of the present Georgia Highway No. 57 bridge over the river.  The cavalry unit was dispatched to the ferry to secure it for passage by the 15th and 17th Army Corps.  These two corps, composed of nearly sixty thousand men, were the Right Wing of Gen. William T. Sherman's army.

     As the Right Wing approached the ferry on the 25th, patrols were sent down major roads to reconnoiter the area for signs of Gen. Joseph Wheeler's Confederate cavalry.  General Osterhaus ordered the First Division under Gen. Charles Woods to march toward the Lightwood Knot Bridges on Big Sandy Creek.  The 29th Missouri (mounted) was dispatched to destroy the bridges and to guard all crossings along the road to Dublin.  General Wheeler and nearly four thousand cavalry men had just crossed the Oconee at Blackshear's Ferry the day before.

Major Duggan was acutely aware that grist mills were prime targets of Gen. Sherman's men.  The local mill, then known as Stanley's Mill and now known as Chappell's Mill, was also serving as a cotton warehouse with a few hundred bales in storage.  He became aware of the fact that "Yaller Jim," a mulatto servant belonging to the family which owned the mill, had run off to join the Yankees.  Upon hearing of the approach of the Union Cavalry, Dr. Duggan mounted his horse and dashed off toward the Toomsboro Road.  He arrived at the Lightwood Knot Bridges over a swollen Big Sandy Creek.  Legend has it that the bridges were named because the Indians, who once populated the area, bridged the creek by piling a long row of "fat lightered" stumps in the creek.

     Dr. Duggan fell back toward a house where he found an elderly black woman washing clothes in a boiling pot.  Dr. Duggan formulated a plan to deter the cavalry.  He briefed the lady about his plan.  She agreed to help if the good doctor would insure the safety of her home.  The Major and the lady then set fire to the bridge and its trestles.

     Just then four cavalrymen with "Yaller Jim" on a mule approached from the northeast.  They dismounted and attempted to put out the fire.  Major Duggan and the lady began to open fire on the perplexed cavalrymen, who managed to get off a few return shots.  Through the smoke they saw Major Duggan waving his arms appearing to be ordering his men into action.  The cavalry, fearing they had found that Gen. Wheeler's Cavalry had  double backed and returned to Ball's Ferry, reported to their superiors that they had completed a successful mission by destroying the bridges.  "Yaller Jim" lost his mule and ran into the woods - never to be seen or heard from again.  Dr. Duggan dashed off to his home and found it safely intact.  He returned back toward the bridges and put out the fires.  He graciously  rewarded  the woman who had helped him save Stanley's Mill from destruction by Sherman's "Bummers."

     Dr. Duggan returned to his regiment and surrendered with the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Courthouse.  Duggan served in the Georgia Legislature from 1875 to 1876. Dr. Duggan later moved to Laurens County and built a home known as "Elmwood."  A community bearing that name is centered around the intersection of Ga. Highway 338 and Claxton Dairy/Mt. Olive Road.   He died on September 29, 1915 and is buried in the Stanley Family Cemetery, affectionately known as "The Ditch," which lies only a short distance from Chappell's Mill.

In 1903, Duggan's initial pledge of $100.00 led to the building of Laurens County's first public library.  His portrait now hangs in the Heritage Center of the Laurens County Library as a reminder of his most enduring contribution to our community.

THE BATTLE OF BALL'S FERRY

THE BATTLE OF BALL'S FERRY, GEORGIA

   They were coming!  Sixty thousand Yankees in columns as far as you could see were marching to the sea.  Nothing in their reach was safe from the foraging parties.  Rails were twisted, livestock slaughtered, factories and mills were burned, and homes were ransacked for anything of military value.

  One hundred and fifty years ago today, The Battle of Ball's Ferry, Georgia took place on the Oconee River.

     On the afternoon of November 21, 1864, General Henry C. Wayne, C.S.A. realized that the defense of Gordon was futile and ordered his men to withdraw to the eastern banks of the Oconee River.  Their mission was to defend the Central of Georgia Railroad bridge near the small village of Oconee.  The Confederates built a fort with a commanding view of the bridge and the opposite bank of the river.  The area approaching the bridge on the west side of the river was nearly impassable.  Jackson's Ferry had been abandoned and the trestles along the western bank of the river were demolished by Wayne's men.

     The right wing of General William T. Sherman's Army, composed of the 15th and 17th Corps, were moving into Gordon on the 22nd - days after a difficult skirmish at Griswoldville with Confederate Cavalry.  Gen. Oliver Howard, U.S.A. was in command of the Right Wing.  The 15th Corps, with Gen.  Peter J. Osterhaus commanding,  arrived in Gordon on the 22nd hoping for a few days rest.  Generals  John E. Smith, John M. Corse, William B. Hazen and Charles R. Woods were in command of the 15th's four divisions.  Gen. Francis P. Blair, U.S.A. commanding the 17th Division moved his men forward from Gordon through McIntyre and eventually to Toombsboro - destroying tracks and depots along the way.  Generals Gustavas A. Smith and Mortimer D. Leggett were in command  of the 17th's two divisions.  The 17th Corps were instructed to move to Jackson's Ferry to secure the Oconee Bridge.  The 15th Corps moved to the right to secure the county seat of Irwinton and to follow the 17th Corps to the River.

     Gen. Gustavas Smith arrived at the Oconee Bridge on the 23rd.  He found that there was no Jackson's Ferry and certainly no approaches to the supposed site.  He found  Gen. Wayne's forces fully entrenched on the morning of the 23rd at Station 14 Central Railroad (Oconee) with six guns in place.  The guns were strategically placed with a commanding view of the opposite bank.  When the advance elements of the 17th Corps reached the western bank,  they found all roads impassable with no bridge in place.  They reported back that a crossing would be costly.  Little did they know that the opposing forces included a mixture of Georgia Military Institute Cadets, state prisoners, and local guards.  Gen. Wayne repeatedly begged Gen. McLaws for more men, ammunition, and rations.  Gen. McLaws sent eighty-five enlisted men, one hundred forty five cadets, and two hundred militia.  The cavalry and artillery horses arrived on the 22nd.

     General Smith found that the only way out of the swamp was to return to Toombsboro. He decided to move further south to join the 15th Corps at Ball's Ferry - sixteen miles through Toombsboro but only a couple down the river.  Before moving, the Union artillery shelled the Confederate Fort across the river inflicting as much damage as possible. Gen. Smith dispatched Col. Spencer and the 1st Alabama Union Cavalry to Ball's Ferry early on the 24th of November.  Their mission was to secure the ferry for passage by the Right Wing.  The cavalrymen found the ferry boat on the opposite side of the river.  A patrol was sent up the river crossing on makeshift rafts.  The patrol moved down to the east bank of the ferry and dislodged the Confederate pickets.

     Gen. Wayne dispatched Major A.L. Hartridge with two cavalry companies, eighty infantry soldiers, and two cannons to Ball's Ferry.  Major Hartridge arrived at 3 p.m., just in time to prevent the Alabama Cavalry from securing the ferry.  The Union cavalry suffered nearly a dozen casualties.  Major Hartridge set up positions along the east bank of the ferry.  That evening he returned to Oconee with part of his command.

     Lt. Colonel Andrew Young commanding the 30th Georgia Battalion arrived in Oconee on the 24th.  Gen. Joseph Wheeler led his four thousand cavalrymen along the right flank of the right wing.  They left Macon and swam across the Oconee River at Blackshear's Ferry. Lt. Col.  Gaines and his Alabama Cavalry were sent to Ball's Ferry. They strengthened the fortifications, preparing for the larger force which would soon come.  The remainder of Wheeler's force moved to Tennille.  On the night of the 25th the head of the 15th corps was camped in Irwinton with its rear in Gordon.  The head of the 17th corps was still camped near the Oconee River Bridge with its rear along the railroad back through Toombsboro.


     On the morning of the 25th,  the two corps began their march toward Ball's Ferry.  The 17th corps returned to Toombsboro on their way.  General Hazen's Division, 15th Corps led the way.  General Woods' Division was to move next detouring south toward the Lightwood Knot Bridges.   General Woods' mission was to protect the flank against an attack by Wheeler's Cavalry.  He sent the 29th Missouri (mounted) to destroy the bridges.  The cavalrymen reported resistance at the bridges.  They never knew the extent of the resistance.  The force that turned them away was a Confederate surgeon and an elderly slave woman.  The Confederate force set the bridges on fire and began screaming and firing weapons.  The cavalry,  satisfied that the bridges were destroyed, returned to the division, that is according to the local view of the incident.

     General Hazen arrived first around 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon.  He found the Confederates entrenched on the opposite bank with skirmishers up and down the stream.  As soon as the 12th Wisconsin Battery was set in place, the Confederate forces on east bank were besieged by artillery fire.  The 19th Illinois and the 97th Indiana were placed on picket duty along the river.  The 17th Corps arrived about dusk.  The 17th sent infantrymen to cross the river upstream and work their way down to the right flank of the Confederates.   Smith's and Corse's Divisions of the 15th Corps and the pontoon trains of the 1st Michigan Engineers arrived during the night.

     Col. Gaines realized the magnitude of the opposing force around midnight.  General Wayne's main force at Oconee had been outflanked. With no hopes of reinforcements, Wayne ordered a retreat to Tennille.  Commanding Gen. William J. Hardee ordered the army to move to a defensive position on the Ogeechee River.

     On the morning of the 26th, two pontoon bridges were laid across the river.  Generals Corse and Woods crossed first, moving to Irwin's Crossroads to camp for the night.  General Hazen moved ahead of General Smith, who remained behind to remove the pontoon bridges.  After the crossing was completed, Hazen and Smith moved to Irwin's Cross Roads.  After crossing the river, Blair's 17th Corps moved north toward Oconee to continue the destruction of the railroad.  The 17th Corps Headquarters was established at the intersection of the Oconee and Irwin's roads.  As the two corps rendezvoused near Irwin's,  elements of both continued the destruction of the railroad.  The right and left wings of Sherman's army came together at Sandersville and Tennille.  On the 28th Sherman's army entered the last four weeks of its March to the Sea.  By Christmas,  Savannah was controlled by General Sherman's forces.  

KILLER KILDEE

KILLER KILDEE
Or Just Another Tall Tale Teller

John West could tell a tale or two. He claimed he was the Confederacy's best rifleman having killed generals and scores of officers and privates as well. Is the story of John West, alias "Kildee," an accurate story of a sharpshooting soldier or just an inflated fable of early yellow journalism to sell books, or merely the boastful reminiscences of an aging veteran of a horrible war?

West was born in Twiggs County, Georgia. When the Civil War broke out, West enlisted in the Confederate Army in Louisiana, but decided that it was best for him to transfer back his native land to fight the Yankees. On July 9, 1861, John West enlisted as a private in the Twiggs Volunteers, officially known as Company C of the 4th Georgia Volunteer Infantry. Also known as "the "Jorees" because of the resemblance of their uniform coats with their three black stripes on the tails to a beautiful bird of the era, the Twiggs Volunteers were assigned to the brigade commanded by A.R. Wright of Georgia. Their first taste of battle and blood began in the last week of June 1862. In a series of engagements along the peninsula of Virginia east of Richmond, the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac slugged it out in a prelude of the deadly battles to come. The battles, known as the Seven Days' Battles, culminated on July 1, 1862 at a small prominence known as Malvern Hill. In the fighting, West suffered his first substantial wound.

Many of the rifles which were used by Confederate soldiers had a limited range. It was in 1862 when General Robert E. Lee received a shipment of thirteen English Whitworth rifles, guaranteed to kill a man at a range of 1,800 yards and arguably the finest rifle that a soldier could possess. West was selected among an elite group of marksmen to train for three months on how to handle the coveted weapon. As the training came to end, West was ahead of the other dozen sharpshooters. In the final test a white board with a two-foot square diamond in the center was placed 1500 yards away. Shooting through a stiff wind, West scored three bulls' eyes, with the remaining shots striking the board. As the winner of the contest, West was given the choice of a horse, a rifle, a saber, a revolver and all of the finest accouterments.

Sharpshooters were an integral part of military operations. The men were often placed at strategic points to kill officers, silencing batteries, and especially picking off the sharpshooters on the other side. Artillerymen were easy targets, but when riled, would turn their canon on a sharpshooter and blow him a way. On one occasion, West and a associate killed the entire compliment of soldiers in a battery, allowing the infantry to take command of that part of the field.

West told the editors of Camp Fire Sketches and Battlefield Echoes, "I soon became indifferent to anger and inured to hardships and privations. I have killed men from ten paces to a mile. I have no idea of how many I killed, but I made a good many bite the dust." The sharpshooter's greatest fear was another sharpshooter. In the days before the advent of camouflage material, a sharpshooter would climb a tree and pin leaves to disguise his uniform. When two sharpshooters encountered an enemy sharpshooter, one would raise a hat on a stick or his ramrod to draw his antagonist's fire. Once the opponent revealed his position, the second marksman would point his sight directly at his head and fire.

"I've shot 'em out of trees and seem 'em fall like coons," West boasted. Occasionally West would be called upon to pick off targets while lying in a bed of tall grasses. Sparks from the discharge of his rifle frequently ignited the dry grasses and alerted the enemy of his whereabouts. West would then roll his body rapidly while Union riflemen poured round after round into the smoke. West claimed that he killed two Union Generals, General James Shields and Nathaniel P. Banks. The crack shot was sure he got General Shields as he was the only sharpshooter on the line that day and only a round from his rifle could have killed a man at that range. Shields was in command of a Union division near Winchester, Virginia in the late summer of 1864. He was wounded, but he was not killed. He went on to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate and died fifteen years after his wound at Winchester. No record exists of any wounds suffered by General Nathaniel P. Banks, though his division was thwarted by Stonewall Jackson's Army at the Battle of Cedar Mountain in August 1862. Banks served ten terms in the U.S. Congress and lived for nearly three decades after the close of the war.

At Cold Harbor, Virginia, West found himself and a Colonel Brown on the wrong side of the Union lines. West and Brown, wearing blue coats, attempted to fool a Union officer into believing that they were officers and needed to pass in front of the Federal wagon train. When the ruse was revealed, Col. Brown fired his revolver striking the Yankee officer. A hail of bullets was heaped upon Brown and West, who were attempting to flee for their lives. Brown's horse went down and both men tumbled to the ground. Thought to be spies, Brown and West were put under a close guard during the night by four Union soldiers. Deciding that trying to dodge four bullets in the dark was preferable to twenty bullets of a firing squad at dawn, the captives crawled on their bellies evading the inattentive sentinels and made their way to freedom.

During the fighting at the second battle of Cold Harbor, West was positioned at the front of the Confederate lines. For hours, West futilely tried to pick off a Union sharpshooter who had been killing his comrades all day. " I was behind a large rock. Several times he shot at me. He was out there about 1,400 yards in the woods, but I couldn't see his smoke for the treetops," West lamented. After two hours of silence, General George Doles, of Milledgeville, Georgia, appeared on the scene and asked West to silence that devilish tormentor of his men. "He asked me to do my best, and I told him that had been trying to do that all day," John remembered. It was then that Doles stepped in front of West and exposed himself. West warned the general to look out and take cover. At that instant a mini ball struck the general in the right side and passed through his body killing him instantly. West carried General Doles from the field and escorted his body home for burial in Milledgeville.

Though he may have never killed a general, John West believed it was his gun which fired the fatal shot which killed Major General John Sedgwick at the Battle of Spotsylvania on May 9, 1864. While some doubted the story, West lent his gun to Charley Grace while he was in the hospital and it was true that Grace fired the fatal shot.

John West surrendered with his company at Appomattox C.H. on April 9, 1865. He tried to conceal his prized rifle in a blanket, but it was discovered and confiscated. He spent the rest of his life trying to get his gun back. After the war, West returned to Twiggs County to farm. West enjoyed attending Confederate reunions and telling stories of his days as one of the best sharpshooters in the army. He died in 1912 and is buried in the family cemetery on Fountain Road, 2.3 miles west of the intersection of Highway 18 and Fountain Road.