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January 1, 2014
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^Reporter
Opinion
Declare among the nations,
and publish, and set up a standard;
publish, and conceal not;
Jeremiah 50:2
On the Porch
Things you may not know about 2013
Last week the Reporter gave
readers our annual Monroe County
Year in Review, but it didn’t seem
complete without some analysis
that you may not know about,
offered here. Warning: If you do not
have a warped, sarcastic sense of
humor, please do not read this col
umn. It may seem offensive in the
wrong hands.
January
In January, county com
missioners dedicate the
courthouse grounds in
honor of long-time superior
court judge Hugh Sosebee
Sr. To mark the occa
sion, commissioner
Larry Evans cuts
down the remaining trees on the
courthouse square, trees he said
he “accidentally overlooked” when
he mowed down the rest of them
four years ago, much in the same
manner that he “accidentally over
looked” paying his taxes and filing
his campaign disclosure forms.
Commissioners also break
ground on a new $750,000 state
patrol headquarters in Forsyth,
which will be built on the same
site as the old one. Commissioner
Joe Proctor marks the occasion
by recalling his memories from
the day the first automobile
came to Forsyth. Asked why the
county tore down the old state
patrol post to build a new one in
the same location, commissioner
Jim Ham said it’s because they
needed to update their technol
ogy to include the interwebs, fi-wi,
8-track cassettes and drone-based
speed detectors. It has since been
learned that for every speeding
ticket troopers issue out of the new
building, commissioners will add
a channel to the post’s Direct TV
lineup.
Dexter Webb, owner of Forsyth’s
Sugar Shack, demands to know
why local authorities “raided” his
club on Sunday and issued 100
of his “patrons” $200 citations
just for drinking and having a
good time. Apparently his voice is
heard. By year’s end the city legal
izes Sunday alcohol in restaurants,
Sunday package sales, red wine
for Holy Communion, pub crawls,
Jello shooters and keg stands in
Forsyth.
City attorney Bobby Melton tells
the city council to fold like a cheap
suit in its standoff with electrical
employee Wendell Rutherford,
who wins a $160,000 settlement
because “his manager looked at
him funnjf’. Soon 58 other city
employees file grievances claim
ing their manager ‘looked at them
funny”.
February
Forsyth’s oldest bar C.T.’s
Lounge shocks the county when it
announces it’s dropping long
time country crooner and local
magistrate judge Buck Wilder
and instead is installing a pole
for pole dancing. Management
explains that this will be a
“classy” pole for “silhouette”
dancing. The management
later explains that hav
ing the magistrate judge
at the bar makes some
patrons nervous, but they try to
make amends by having a special
“Twerk for Buck” night on the pole
with half price Coors.
The city of Forsyth opts to priva
tize garbage pickup in the city to
save money, but then explains
that it will keep all nine sanita
tion workers on the payroll to ride
around town all day smoking ciga
rettes so they will remain eligible
for $165,000 payoffs for discrimi
nation complaints.
Bank of America announces it is
closing its Forsyth branch to pro
test the recent raid on the nearby
Sugar Shack.
March
Longtime city councilman James
Calloway convinces second term
councilman Desi Hansford to join
him in shaking down the city’s
water contractor for bribes. When
the FBI confronts Calloway, he
agrees to “be a rat” and help them
catch Hansford too if it means
less time for him in the pen. The
plan backfires though as Hansford
returns the bribe when he realizes
it would also require him to attend
Atlanta Falcons games.
Monroe County’s school board,
fresh off hiking taxes on voters for
a fourth straight year, calls for a
sales tax referendum in March,
when nothing else is on the ballot,
because they really, really want a
lot of people to “participate in the
process” for “the boys and girls”.
Taxpayers oblige as 57 people cast
ballots, which is almost half the
number of coaches for the Mary
Persons football team.
April
Forsyth mayor John Howard is
the deciding vote in shooting down
a proposal to return mayor and
council pay to what it was before
a huge increase was voted in last
year. The mayor explains that he
really needs the money because
he quit his full-time job in order
to be a part-time mayor and also
has a lot of city bills that he really
doesn’t need to pay.
May
Monroe County schools say
they’ll investigate after a second
photo surfaces of transporta
tion director John Courson
allegedly working on a personal
vehicle at the school system bus
shop. Courson is later cleared of
wrongdoing as the school sys
tem announces that he “cares
a lot about the boys and girls”.
Meanwhile, five bus drivers are
fired under suspicion of having
unlawfully made eye contact with
employees of the Monroe County
Reporter.
June
Mary Persons apologizes for
naming the wrong valedictorian
and salutatorian at graduation
due to a math error. The school
releases a statement saying that
while the error is embarrassing,
“Inglish has always been our
stronger subjeck anyhoo.”
Pea Ridge Road residents pack a
Monroe County commission meet
ing to oppose a proposed conve
nience store right off 1-75 in their
area. Residents said when they
want lottery tickets, cigarettes,
beer and pom, they’d rather just
drive to the nearest exit so they
don’t risk being seen.
July
Rain forces cancellation of the
city’s Independence Day fireworks
on three different occasions before
organizers finally move the show
indoors, to the horror of Forsyth
firefighters.
A Monroe County sheriffs office
jail secretary is charged with cru
elty to animals after a dead, ema
ciated dog is found tied to a leash
on her property. She said after
seeing what the sheriffs office paid
for dog food for its K-9 units she
just didn’t think she could afford to
feed him.
Guests at the Forsyth Days
Inn are shocked to discover a
live 4-foot gator in the parking
lot while trying to check into the
hotel. It’s later learned that the
gator is actually the University of
Florida mascot seeking asylum in
Georgia because he’s seen Coach
Will Muschamp’s team “workout”
in the summer and he’s tired of
being yelled at.
August
Monroe County road superin
tendent Sid Banks announces he’s
canceling his retirement plans
after getting a $5,000 raise from
county commissioners. He said he
plans to retire every year for the
next, five years, or at least until his
salary hits $100,000.
A Monroe County grand jury
opts not to prosecute three
Forsythians on voter fraud charg
es. Jurors said the state investiga
tor wasn’t very convincing when
he yawned his way through the
evidence, tossed the folder in front
of them and asked rhetorically,
“Do you really want to crucify your
neighbors for merely exercising
their right to vote and misunder
standing this very confusing law?”
Comedian Adam Sandler stops
at the Forsyth Waffle House to get
food for his family and water for
his dog as they head toward the
beach for a break from filming in
Atlanta. Sandler said he hopes his
new movie will be as deeply dra
matic and intellectually stimulat
ing as his other thought-provoking
films like “Happy Gilmore” and
“Waterboy”.
September
A new school year has begun,
and Monroe County schools
announce that they’re changing
meals to comply with tough new
federal guidelines, and may even
inspect lunchboxes brought from
home to make sure they’re nutri
tionally correct. Meanwhile, the
school system is forced to hire an
additional custodian at each school
to carry out trash cans full of
uneaten food.
October
Monroe County deputies fire
12 shots in town in pursuit of
Mark Sligh, who runs out of the
courthouse and takes off in a
truck after being sentenced to 20
years in prison for stealing four
wheelers. Sligh wrecks and then
somehow steals a deputy’s patrol
car at the scene and flees again
before being captured in front of
El Tejado Mexican Restaurant.
Commissioner Larry Evans said
deputies never would’ve caught
him if he hadn’t cut down trees
on the courthouse square, leaving
him no place to hide.
Landlord Otis Ingram announces
that he’ll bring Tractor Supply to
Forsyth if the city will close part
of East Main Street for the store’s
outdoor display. But city zoning
board chairman Martin Presley
worries that putting Tractor
Supply there will block local resi
dents from their historic, bucolic
front-porch view of Dollar General
and a nail salon.
Former assistant principal
Fletcher Johnson sues the school
system again, saying that his prin
cipal Dick Bazemore sent him an
offensive Valentine’s Day email
about chocolate. School adminis
trators around Monroe County
hurriedly scan their work email
outboxes to make sure they hadn’t
forwarded any jokes to Johnson,
then create separate private email
accounts for passing on jokes.
November
Forsyth voters shock the Forsyth
voters by electing three business-
minded newcomers, Greg Goolsby,
Jimmy Jones and Julius Stroud
III to city council, rather than the
usual jail bait. Months of hot talk
of consolidating Monroe County
and Forsyth dies in one night.
Billions of honeybees swarm
1-75 in Forsyth after a tractor
trailer wreck on the interstate.
Beekeepers call it the worst day
for yellow jackets since, well, every
Saturday after Thanksgiving for
the past five years.
Forsyth’s city council asks the
sheriffs office to investigate how
mayor John Howard kept service
for seven months despite not
paying his city cable and utility
bills. As information about the
mayor’s bills is released, the public
is furious to learn that Howard
ordered the Ultimate Fighting
Championship pay per view fight
in October and didn’t invite them
over to watch.
December
The federal government
announces it’s dropping its
requirement that Monroe and
other counties use a special low-
sulfur gas, raising hopes for lower
gas prices in Forsyth next, sum
mer. Local gas stations release
a joint, statement, assuring locals
that, any losses from lower gas
prices will be made up with
higher prices on their video poker
machines.
Carolyn’s Corner
Will return to this space next week.
Happy New Year!
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Will Davis, president
Robert M. Williams Jr., vice president
Cheryl S. Williams, secretary-treasurer
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Publication No. USPS 997-840)
Civil War in Monroe County - 150 Years
Rebel ranks thinned
BY RALPH BASS
N ew Year’s Day 150 years
ago found Confederate
soldiers from Monroe
County concentrated in
Virginia. Men from this
county tended to belong to six compa
nies in five different, regiments: the
14t.h, the 31st., the 32nd, the
53rd, and the 45t.h, which
had two companies of men
from Monroe County.
The first, day of the new
year in 1864 saw the 53rd
Regiment,, then under Gen.
James Longstreet., languish
ing in Tennessee, after the
Confederate failure to take
Knoxville from the Federals.
By the beginning of 1864, Company
K of the 53rd, whose core was the
ante helium Quitman Guards from
Monroe County, had lost about 46
percent, of the men who had once
been on its rolls. Some 12 percent,
of those had been killed in action or
died from wounds received in battle,
including Gettysburg.
Company A of the 14th Georgia
had planned to settle into its win
ter cabins at, Orange Court, House
in Virginia by mid-December 1863,
but, then the regiment, received
orders to go to Staunton. James
Madison Folsom reported that, “The
remainder of the winter of 1863 and
1864 was spent in marching and
countermarching up and down the
[Shenandoah] Valley...The season
was intensely cold, and the com
mand being destitute of tents were
compelled to bivouac in the open air,
frequently on snow and ice.”
The war had taken its toll on the
men in Company A since Dr. John
Hunter Etheridge organized it, as
the “Confederate Volunteers” in July
1861. Deaths from battle casualties
or from battle wounds had taken
about, 18 percent, of the men who had
joined the company.
The “Monroe Crowders,” Company
D of the 31st,, in January 1864
showed significant, reduction
in its numbers, too. Of the
men who had joined, 46 per
cent, were gone for one rea
son or another by January
1864. Some 10 percent, of
them had died from disease
BASS a nd an almost, equal num
ber, 11 percent,, had been
killed in action or died from
battle wounds.
Contributing to the loss of men
in this company was the number of
soldiers declared disabled and then
discharged. As many of these were
dismissed at, Beaulieu, a military
camp just south of Savannah, it may
have been that, some men, such as
Elijah H. English and William David
Peurifoy who volunteered for the
Crowders in the enthusiasm of July
1861, were not, militarily fit,. Their
incapacity for service became quickly
apparent, and they went, home before
seeing action.
Company H of the 32nd Regiment,
had experienced the least, reduction
in its forces. None had been disabled
in battle; none had died in fighting
since its organization in the fall of
1861. Eight, of every 10 soldiers who
had joined Company H were still in
ranks at, the first, of 1864.
That, the company was so intact,
would change within two months.
In February 1864, they would
engage Federal forces in the Battle
most by...
of Olustee (Ocean Pond) in northern
Florida. That, battle took a toll on
Company H in deaths and disabling
injuries.
The two companies of men
from Monroe County in the 45t,h
Regiment,, the Rutland Volunteers
and the McCowen Guards, reflected
significant losses by January 1864
too. Roughly 63 percent, of the sol
diers who had joined these compa
nies remained. In the case of the
McCowen Guards, disease had killed
more of its men (16 percent) than its
battles, including Gettysburg.
In addition, over the years a
number of men from the McCowen
Guards had received discharges
because of such conditions as “con
stitutional debility and chronic diar
rhea” and “chronic hepatitis and
diarrhea.”
By January 1864, the 45t,h
Regiment, was in the Valley in
Virginia near Strasburg. As the old
year ended, Captain Daniel Searcy
wrote in his diary, “sit, up a part, of
the night, and end the year rainy, cold
and on picket,. I pray another New
Year’s Day I will be with my Clara
[his wife] in peace.”
Before the spring was out,, the
ranks of the 45t,h would be further
reduced with their fighting at, the
Wilderness and Spotsylvania.
Of course, 150 years ago, the men
from Monroe County did not, know
what, the next, 12 months would
bring. Many of them in the cold of
Virginia could only recognize their
weariness and the loss through casu
alties over the past, 33 months.
Ralph Bass Jr. writes about Monroe
County history for the Reporter.
E-mail him at ralphbassjr@gmail.