Civil war fort at Fort Gaines GA

 I promised several days ago to tell you about the third fort at Fort Gaines GA.

 A historic marker which says:

 CONFEDERATE FORT - To protect Fort Gaines from Federal gunboats, Confederate Army engineers in 1863 laid out a fort here, commanding a full view of the river for two miles below. A large magazine of lumber and sand was built about 60 feet from the bluff with trenches running north and south to cannon. Breastworks were thrown up along the bluff. Below, on the river bank, was a magazine and a cannon. Of the three cannons, one remains at the site. John Seales, Dr. James Mandeville, Dr. Gaston, Capt. John B. Johnson, a recent graduate of West Point, were among the officers in charge. As southwest Georgia was not invaded the fort was never used.

WAYSIDE HOME - After the Battle of Olustee in N Florida, casualties were brought up the river to Fort Gaines, where all available churches, stores and other buildings became temporary hospitals. Most outstanding of these was “Wayside Home” in the old Masonic Building, on the site of the present one.

UNKNOWN SOLDIERS - Nine unknown Confederate soldiers who died in temporary hospitals here are buried in New Park Cemetery. Their graves are decorated each Memorial Day.

FEDERAL PRISONERS - A number of prisoners, overflow from the prison at Andersonville, were brought to Fort Gaines and kept under guard in the yard of the old County Court House. (1)

Another site gives this information about Fort Gaines:

Fort Gaines, the seat of Clay County, sits on a 130-foot bluff overlooking the Chattahoochee River and the plains of Alabama. Originally part of the fifth land district of Early County, Clay County was created in 1854 by an act of the state legislature, which also made Fort Gaines the county seat. The town is located approximately sixty-five miles south of Columbus and fifty miles west of Albany.  Fort Gaines, was once called the "Queen City of the Chattahoochee" because of its importance to the riverboat trade.(2)

(1) Historic Marker, "In the Confederacy." Fort Gaines, GA

(2) Fort Gaines, Linda Morgan, Calhoun County Library, New Georgia Encyclopedia, 04/15/2005

Now I'll resume my research about my southern ancestors...thanks for your patience.  I enjoy pulling together what I can find on-line with the ancestry records.

Today's quote:

“These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” — Najwa Zebian, Poet.

 

Civil War and Reconstruction

Following the Civil War, how did this country change so that southern states could again become part of the United States?  "Reconstruction" is described in a free online Yale lecture series by Dr. Blight HERE.

 I've enjoyed learning a lot more in-depth facts about the politics of the reconstruction times from these lectures by Dr. Blight.  Many of us scratch our heads, trying to remember what if anything we learned in our history classes about how the Civil War impacted the people of the south following the war...how did they again become part of the government? How did the people receive any help after being occupied by Union troops? We heard about the freed slaves, and a constitutional amendment giving the vote to all males, and maybe how carpetbaggers took advantage of the freedmen and set them into positions that they could use them as puppets for their own greed, but what about the former slave owners? Not oppressors nor losers but just ordinary family members, suddenly not part of a culture they had grown up in, also suddenly starving.

Not my ancestors' home in Fort Gaines GA, but similar to how cotton was king in the South

My ancestors lived through the Civil War   Did they have children during the 1860s? Did someone die during that time, or during the 1870s, and had they served the Confederacy? I know they had slaves, so did freeing the slaves change their lives much?  Did they move during or after the end of the war?

Nothing about slavery was good

There were southern whites as well as blacks who starved both during the war and afterwards. How was the division of land and businesses effected by the freeing of the slaves?

Texas History has just published this:

On this day in 1867, (January 24) Joseph Barr Kiddoo was replaced as superintendent of the Freedmen's Bureau in Texas. Kiddoo, born in Pennsylvania in 1840, was appointed superintendent in 1866, following distinguished military service during the Civil War. During his tenure he was sympathetic to both planters and blacks. Kiddoo imposed heavy fines on whites caught enticing freedmen away from employers with whom they were under contract, limited bureau interference in the civil courts, and instituted free education for blacks in Galveston and Houston. Under Kiddoo's program perhaps 10,000 blacks learned to read and write. Although Texas planters recognized that Kiddoo was changing the social structure of the state by his reforms, many appreciated his attempts to help planters and freedmen work together. Eventually, however, because he thought the laws reduced blacks to a condition of involuntary servitude, he suspended some sections of the state's black codes, whereupon Gen. Charles Griffin relieved Kiddoo as superintendent; the excuse was that an old wound received during the war prevented him from fulfilling his duties. Kiddoo retired from the army in 1870 and died in 1880. (2)

Picking  cotton, a crop that ruined the soil, but brought incomes to the south

I've also learned that sharecropping became a way to survive, where those who had land rented it out to poor families (black or white) who would then pay their rent by giving half the crop to the land owners.  Nobody really benefited, but it promised survival.

My ancestors again...

Samuel Gainer and Mary Phillips Gainer lived in Fort Gaines, GA at least until 1858, when their granddaughter was born there. (She became my great grandmother.) Mary Phillips Gainer's son William Phillips had married (1855) Mary Granger (from Massachusetts) and lived with her in Texas. They returned to GA for the birth of her first baby, which has been confirmed through correspondence I have between Mary Granger Phillips and her mother-in-law Mary Phillips Gainer.  (Just the name confusion is enough to go a bit crazy!)

There was no information in the 1850 Census of the Gainer family of any slaves.  That census only listed the free whites, however, living in Georgia prior to the civil war, it is highly likely that a household would have some slaves, which is proved by a gift of a slave to Mrs. Gainer's first grand daughter.

Among the correspondence saved by my family, was the document of a gift of a girl slave from grandmother Mary Gainer to her granddaughter, Zulieka Granger Phillips, born 1858 in Fort Gaines GA.(3)

The future Mrs. William Phillips, Mary Hull Granger had moved to Texas from Newburyport, MA with her father, mother, brother and two sisters in 1854-55. Her father was still listed in the Newburyport, MA business directory of 1854.  The 4 children were all adults.   (4)

Early East Texas home

I just obtained information that William Phillips married Mary Granger in Galveston, Texas, in 1855. I  always wondered how a southern man and a northern woman met.  Remember that much trade was done by ships, and Galveston was a booming city at that time. (5)

Hotel Galvez, $1,000,000 Beach Hotel, overlooking the Great Galveston Sea Wall and Gulf of Mexico, Galveston, Texas

Galveston TX

The 1860 census of Tyler, Texas lists William Phillips as the head of household, with both the senior Gainers from Georgia now living with them. (6) This is important in that Samuel Gainer had been a leading citizen in Fort Gaines GA as an attorney. Thus their going to Texas with their son and his family must have been an opportunity or perhaps a way to avoid the struggles of the coming conflict.  However, I believe the Gainers weren't with the Phillips when Mary Granger Phillips had her second child in 1861, based on letters to her family.

I've already spoken HERE  from letters about how when Mary Granger Phillips died following the birth of her second daughter in 1861, and husband William soon joined the Confederacy.(7)  Their life in East Texas when it was the frontier, and starting a farm prior to the war is reflected HERE in letters. (7)

Lumber industry in East Texas

I'll share more about the lives of the Gainers, Grangers, and Phillips during and following the Civil War...soon!

Remains of an East Texas home

I'm including this post with Sepia Saturday which has a meme for which I have no photos or stories that match.

Today's Quote:

“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” — Jean-Paul-Sartre, Philosopher.

(1) Yale Courses: The Civil War and Reconstruction with David Blight (on YouTube)

"This course explores the causes, course, and consequences of the American Civil War, from the 1840s to 1877. The primary goal of the course is to understand the multiple meanings of a transforming event in American history. Those meanings may be defined in many ways: national, sectional, racial, constitutional, individual, social, intellectual, or moral. Four broad themes are closely examined: the crisis of union and disunion in an expanding republic; slavery, race, and emancipation as national problem, personal experience, and social process; the experience of modern, total war for individuals and society; and the political and social challenges of Reconstruction."

(2) Texas History On Line

 (3) Document hand written by Mary C. Gainer, Nov. 16, 1858, giving her 15 year old negro girl to her grand daughter Zulieka Phillips, now visiting from Jefferson Parish, Texas, "for her own use and benefit." Entered as a court document by clerk of court, Fort Gaines, GA

(4) Newburyport MA business Directory, 1854, and US Census 1860 Galveston Texas

(5) Record # 1008865, marriage of William Phillips and Mary Granger in Galveston, TX, 1855, Texas Select County Marriage Index, 1847-1965.

(6) My blog "When I Was 69" by link to Aug. 5, 2013 about the letter of  Dec. 9, 1861 

(7) op. cit. link to Feb 7, 2014 about 2 letters, 1872 and 1860 about the piano

 

Mary Phillips Gainer and John Dill in Fort Gaines GA

Some of my direct ancestors were in Fort Gaines, Early County, GA, which I began talking about a few days ago, HERE. They were Mary C. Phillips Gainer, her two sons, and her second husband, Samuel Gainer.  Looking again at their lives just before the Civil War and whatever can be found during and afterwards...today I consider the US Census of 1850.

We know Mary Phillips Gainer's birth year of 1803, and her sons: Marion Phillips, born in 1823, and William Philllips Jr. born in 1832.

Before he died as a Confederate Soldier during the Civil War, William Phillips Jr had two daughters. One of these daughters became my great-grandmother.

There are quite a few William Phillips' in Georgia in the 19th century, but by looking closely at birth years, I have determined one of them was the father William and one the son.  I've added the sufix Sr. and Jr. to their names for my own clarification.

 Mary C. Phillips married in 1841 to her second husband, Samuel Gainer (a lawyer as stated occupation on the census.)

They lived in the town limits of Fort Gaines.  How do I know this? A neighbor listed 2 away from their household on the census is General John Dill. (I had thought they were out on a plantation in my mind's visualization all these years, but there they are in the town itself. This of course doesn't mean they didn't also have a plantation.)

General John Dill had been the farsighted man (with his mercantile partner) who purchased all the lots that became Fort Gaines.  His home still stands..  There is a very interesting story associated with how he built this home, having married a widow who had been captured by Indians.  Elizabeth Stewart Dill lived with the Indians 4 months before being "recaptured" by American troops.  The "story" says she collected paper money while she had been captive, that the Indians didn't know its value, and following her return and then marrying John Dill, they built their beautiful home.

John Dill house

DILL HOUSE ~ John Dill (1788-1856) of S.C., military aide to Gen. Gaines, commander of Fort Gaines, and leading pioneer citizen, is said to have built this, “the finest home on the frontier,” with money his wife had saved while a captive of the Indians. Hoarding and hiding paper money, which her captors discarded after raids, she took it with her when she fled to freedom. The original part of the house, now a hotel, contains elaborate mantles and intricate carvings. Gen. Dill established a mercantile business with his partner, John W. Sutlive, in 1821. He added a tannery, one of the finest harness and shoe businesses in the South, a brick kiln, and cotton warehouses to his interests. He and his wife are buried in a cemetery on Carroll Street. 

Later General Dill's partnership dissolved.  The "tall tale" about her windfall during her Indian capture continues as seen in the paragraph quoted above. Toward the end of his life, General Dill tried to establish a lottery, which contributed to his losing his long term business partner.  General Dill apparently lost everything and became empoverished before he died in 1856, all his properties being auctioned by the sheriff.according to land records.

This information as posted in Ancestry, is from a 1986 letter from a Fort Gaines attorney, with sources of various books. He and others have published evidence that the Indians by the 1830s had been trading for a long time with Europeans and knew the value of paper money, thus exposing the paper money windfall legend as bogus.

US Census, 1850, Early County, GA

Which brings me back to the Dill House and the census of 1850. My ancestors, the Gaines/Phillips household were listed as family number 16, while the Dills were number 18, with just a single (unmarried) farmer between them as number 17 (or across the street.)

Great great grandpa William Phillips was just 18 at that time, and listed as a student.  His older brother Marion was 27 and his occupation was merchant. I'm not sure what the following values represent in the column named "Real Estate." Marion has 1000.  And his step father Samuel Gainer has 4975.  But look at General John Dill. He lists 10,000. I would guess this was before the fall of the Dill empire.

A question did occur to me, if the story about the Indians and paper money is false, how did the Dills obtain the money to build that beautiful house?  I'm thinking a man who did so much real estate wheeling and dealing, and who promoted lotteries, might have obtained the money in another way, which might not have been as colorful, or perhaps was more colorful.

I am trying to give the history as accurately as possible, but my own viewpoints will come through some of the time.  I am grateful to the historic society of Fort Gaines for having placed many historic markers about the town to provide much of the information I share with you here.


Quote for the day:

Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned. — Peter Marshall

 
Sources:

Letter from P.C. King, Jr, Attorney, Fort Gaines, Georgia dated Feb. 27, 1986, to Ms. Thelma Stevens of Barnwell, Alberta Canada following a telephone inquiry by her, in which he lists his  sources. He also talks about how the legend of Mrs. Elizabeth Stewart Dill and the Indians is being used to help sell the house when it was in need of rennovation.






Fort Gaines and Environs, by Mr. P. C. King, published 1976

The Legend of Mrs. John Dill, Builder of Fort Gaines Dill House, by Mrs. Elizabeth King Folger, (sister of P.C. King.)