John C. Kirkpatrick, just eighteen, went into the service from Augusta with the Oglethorpe Infantry. With him were his cousin, William Dabney (now a Presbyterian minister in Virginia), and his friend, Frank Stone. This was in 1862, and John remained in the service until the close of the war, having been in severe battles (for he was in Cleburne’s Division), including that of Jonesboro. In this engagement were other Decatur boys in other commands. Mr. John B. Swanton, but seventeen years old, was in that battle, and says that by his side stood, when mortally wounded, Franklin Williams, the brother of Mr. Hiram J. Williams. Says Mr. Swanton: “He was so near me I could have touched him with my hand.” Three sons of Mrs. Martha Morgan, and cousins of DeWitt Morgan, were all in the service, Henry, Daniel, and Joseph Morgan. Jesse Chewning and Samuel Mann were in the 64th Georgia.
Josiah J. Willard, the only son of Mr. Levi Willard, while a sprightly, active youth, was near-sighted. He had a position in the commissary department at Camp Randolph, near Decatur, and went with it to Macon, July 11th, 1864, and remained there until the place surrendered after the fall of Richmond. He, also, is mentioned in other sketches.
There were also several companies of old men and boys who went into the State service when the last call for troops was made by the Confederate government.
Before the DeKalb soldiers go to meet the fortunes of war, let us recall some incidents that preceded their departure. On the northern side of the court-house square there stood a large building, the residence of Mr. Ezekiel Mason. Here, day after day, a band of devoted women met to make the uniforms for the DeKalb Light Infantry. These uniforms had been cut by a tailor, but they were to be made by women’s hands. Among the leading and directing spirits in this work were Mrs. Jonathan B. Wilson, Mrs. Jane Morgan, Mrs. Ezekiel Mason, Mrs. Levi Willard, Miss Anna Davis, Mrs. James McCulloch, and Miss Lou Fowler. The most of this sewing was done by hand.
To the DeKalb Light Infantry, the day before its departure, a beautiful silken banner was given. The ladies of the village furnished the material. The address of presentation was made by Miss Mollie G. Brown. In September, of that same year, my sister was invited to present a banner to Captain William Wright’s Company. Her modest little address was responded to in behalf of the company by Rev. Mr. Mashburn, of the Methodist Church. In March, 1862, there was another banner presented from the piazza of “the Mason Corner”—this time to the Fowler Guards, by Miss Georgia Hoyle. This banner was made by the fair hands of Miss Anna E. Davis. By this time the spirit of independence of the outside world had begun to show itself in the Southern-made grey jeans of the soldiers, and in the homespun dress of Miss Hoyle.
This banner, so skillfully made by Miss Anna Davis, had a circle of white stars upon a field of blue, and the usual bars of red and white—two broad red bars with a white one between. The banner of this pattern was known as the “stars and bars,” and was the first kind used by the Confederate States. In May, 1863, the Confederate Congress adopted a National Flag, which had a crimson field with white stars in a blue-grounded diagonal cross, the remainder of the flag being white. But, when falling limp around the staff, and only the white showing, it could easily be mistaken for a flag of truce; therefore in March, 1865, the final change was made by putting a red bar across the end of the flag.
But what of the fate of these gallant young men, going forth so full of hope and courage, with tender and loving farewells lingering in their hearts?
Soon, ah! so soon, some of them fell upon the crimson fields of Virginia. James L. George (“Jimmie,” as his friends lovingly called him) was killed in the first battle of Manassas. “Billy” Morgan died soon after the battle, and was buried with military honors in a private cemetery near Manassas. Two years after, his brother, De Witt Morgan, worn out in the siege of Vicksburg, was buried on an island in Mobile Bay. At the second battle of Manassas, James W. McCulloch and James L. Davis were both killed. Later on W. J. Mason, William Carroll, John M. Eads, H. H. Norman, Billy Wilson, and Norman Adams, were numbered among the slain. Among the wounded were Henry Gentry, Mose Brown, John McCulloch, W. W. Brimm, Dave Chandler, Riley Lawhorn, and Bill Herring.
A volume could easily be written concerning the bravery and the sufferings of the DeKalb county troops; but I must forbear. Concerning Warren Morton, of the 36th Georgia Regiment, who went into the service at the age of fifteen, and suffered so severely, I will refer my readers to a sketch in the latter part of this book. Of William M. Durham, so young, so gallant, who enlisted in Company K., 42nd Georgia Regiment, much of interest will be found in another chapter.
Among the Decatur members of Cobb’s Legion was Mr. John J. McKoy, who went out in the Stephens Rifles when not more than nineteen years old. He was in the battle of Yorktown, Seven Pines, and in the Seven Days Fight around Richmond. Owing to illness, and to business arising from the attainment of his majority, he came home in 1863, and, hiring a substitute when the conscript law was passed, went to work at the Passport Office in Atlanta. In this same year he was married to Miss Laura Williams of Decatur. Having raised Company A., for the 64th Georgia Regiment, Mr. McKoy was with it when it was sent to Florida, and was in the battle of Olustee or Ocean Pond, in February 1864, where General Alfred H. Colquitt won the title of “The Hero of Olustee.” Mr. McKoy remembers to have seen on that eventful day, Col. George W. Scott, then of Florida, but now of Decatur. At the battle of Olustee, Col. Scott was in command of a regiment of Cavalry. The banner of the regiment is now in possession of his daughter, Mrs. Thomas Cooper.