In preparing the pages that follow, the writer has had in view the
desirability of familiarizing the youth of Georgia with the salient
facts of the State's history in a way that shall make the further study
of that history a delight instead of a task. The ground has been gone
over before by various writers, but the narratives that are here retold,
and the characterizations that are here attempted, have not been brought
together heretofore. They lie wide apart in volumes that are little
known and out of print.
The stories and the characterizations have been grouped together so
as to form a series of connecting links in the rise and progress of
Georgia; yet it must not be forgotten that these links are themselves
connected with facts and events in the State's development that are
quite as interesting, and of as far-reaching importance, as those that
have been narrated here. Some such suggestion as this, it is hoped,
will cross the minds of young students, and lead them to investigate for
themselves the interesting intervals that lie between.
It is unfortunately true that there is no history of Georgia in which
the dry bones of facts have been clothed with the flesh and blood of
popular narrative. Colonel Charles C. Jones saw what was needed,
and entered upon the task of writing the history of the State with
characteristic enthusiasm. He had not proceeded far, however, when the
fact dawned upon his mind that such a work as he contemplated must be
for the most part a labor of love. He felt the influence of cold neglect
from every source that might have been expected to afford him aid and
encouragement. He was almost compelled to confine himself to a bare
recital of facts, for he had reason to know that, at the end of his
task, public inappreciation was awaiting him.
And yet it seems to the present writer that every person interested
in the growth and development of the republic should turn with eager
attention to a narrative embodying the events that have marked the
progress of Georgia. It was in this State that some of the most
surprising and spectacular scenes of the Revolution took place. In one
corner of Georgia those who were fighting for the independence of the
republic made their last desperate stand; and if they had surrendered to
the odds that faced them, the battle of King's Mountain would never have
been fought, Greene's southern campaign would have been crippled, and
the struggle for liberty in the south would have ended in smoke.
It is to illustrate the larger events that these stories have been
written; and while some of them may seem far away from this point of
view, they all have one common purpose and tend to one common end.