Newspaper Page Text
Page 6
— Griffin Daily News Thursday, July 8,1976
By Quimby Melton, Jr.
Copyright 107*. All right* reserved.
Reconstruction
Chapter Twelve
As pointed out so many times in recent years, the South had
no Marshall Plan to help it rebuild after the Civil War.
Conditions were particularly severe in Georgia, through
which Sherman had cut a path of destruction from Atlanta to
the sea. Cooper describes the situation (on Page 90, volume
HI) thus:
“At the end of a long and bloody conflict the people of
Georgia, bled white by war, stripped of their resources and
surrounded by heart-breaking desolation, were suddenly
confronted with economic and political revolutions involving
tasks and problems whose magnitude, difficulty and
complication it is hard to understand or appreciate in this
far-off time.”
Griffin and Spalding County were no exceptions.
Colonel Ira W. Foster was the Union commander in this
district. Upon his instructions, S. W. Mangham, a prominent
resident of Griffin and a former Confederate soldier,
conducted a census to determine the status of the people.
Documents on file in the office of the Clerk of Superior Court
show that this census found that nearly 37 percent of the
population of Spalding County was totally destitute and that
478 more white people had no more than ten days supplies. It
also showed that Griffin had a white population of 1,630 and
that rural areas had 2,800, a total white population in
Spalding County of 4,430. It shows the Negro population as
1,212 in Griffin and 2,030 in the country, a total of 3,242. Thus,
the total population of the county both white and Negro,
was 7,672. Os these 2,735 were totally destitute.
As bad as conditions were in 1865, worse years were to
follow.
Andrew Johnson became President of the United States
after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He appointed
James Johnson, of Columbus, Georgia, provisional governor
of Georgia in June of 1865 and the provisional governor called
a convention of delegates elected by the people to meet in
Milledgeville in October. Those who took the amnesty oath
and those who had not fought in the war were permitted to
vote. Most of the white citizens took the oath and voted, so the
convention was a representative one. However, those who
had served as Confederate civil officers, military officers
above the rank of colonel, naval officers above the rank of
lieutenants, governors, congressmen, judges, West Point
officers, and citizens worth over $20,000 were not allowed to
take the oath and were refused the right to vote.
The amnesty oath was: “I do solemnly swear to affirm in
the presence of Almighty God that I will henceforth faithfully
support, protect, and defend the constitution of the United
States and the union of the states thereunder, and that I will,
in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all laws and
proclamations which have been made during the existing
rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves—So
help me God.”
The Georgia Legislature met in December of 1865, and
ratified the thirteenth amendment which abolished slavery.
Charles J. Jenkins had been elected governor and President'
Johnson allowed him to be seated. By now, however, radical
congressmen such as Thadeus Stephens were demanding the
last pound of the South’s flesh. Congress, the judge of the
qualifications of its members, refused to allow the duly
elected representatives from Georgia and other Southern
states to be seated.
President Johnson took the position that the Southern
states could not secede, and thus they still were members of
the union. But Charles Sumner and Thadeus Stephens did
their work effectively. President Johnson and Congress
fought a bitter and continuing feud while the wounded South
bled.
In his History of Georgia, Colonel I. W. Avery, a
Confederate veteran, said, “Those reconstruction days were
venomous times, spiteful, acrid, ferocious, absolutely
unreasoning. It was an epoch of state history that no
Georgian can ever wish to see repeated. War has its glories,
its stirring delirium, its triumphs, its renown. But that
horrible era of reconstruction has nothing but bitter
memories, unredeemed by a single element of alloy.”
Now picture Griffin and Spalding under such
circumstances.
The people of this town and county were not to escape the
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A Beautiful Diamond Solitaire /
set in 14 carat white or
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"?Si«J» Phone 227-4087
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DIAMONDS CNIAtGED TO SHOW DETAIL
History of Griffin
scalawags. Carpetbaggers were those who came in from
another |>lace. Many were Yankees who swarmed into the
defeated states to plunder them but not all Northerners who
came here were in this category. Some were honorable
people.
A scalawag was a native Southerner who turned against his
own and thus reaped temporary reward. The chief one in
Griffin was a man by the name of J.C. “Jones.” (We have
changed his name to avoid embarrassment to innocent
descendants. | *
On December 16, 1866, the Tri-Weekly Star, published in
Griffin by Logan, Fitch & Co., said, “We have a population of
4,000 white folks, 3,000 ‘niggers,’ and one mongrel which does
not belong to any particular nation.”
JCPenney
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Hie “mongrel” was J.C. “Jones.”
The first notice of him came in the August 16,1866 issue of
the Southern Herald, another Griffin newspaper. The Herald
said:
“A VERY BOLD MOVEMENT.-A number of freed men
of this place—having been organized into a military company
at the instance and sanction, it is asserted, of the agent of the
Bureau, J. Clarke “Jones”—commenced drilling through the
streets of Griffin on last Saturday. Capt. Ehlers very
promptly had the whole thing suppressed—and had he
ordered Capt. “Jones” to be tried before a proper tribunal,
for felony or lunacy, or both, he would have completely
performed his duty. It is gratifying that not a union man in
the whole community but condemns most emphatically this
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hi
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S S Now 11.00
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movement inaugurated by the Bureau officials at this place.
‘Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad.’”
We Will Close For 1 Week Beginning '
July sth Re-open Monday Inly 12th
? SALKutvicejL v
122 W. Taylor St. Phone 228-8786
Larry Oldag Wallace Russell
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LADIES'
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Now
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Shop Early For Best
Selections On That
Still To Come
Vacation Wear.