OUT OF THE PAST
By no means all the leading citizens of Atlanta were in a frame of mind
to welcome General Sherman when, ten or a dozen years after the Civil
War, he revisited the city. Captain Evan P. Howell, a former Confederate
officer, then publisher of the Atlanta "Constitution," was, however, not
one of the Atlantans who ignored the general's visit. Taking his young
son, Clark, he called upon the general at the old Kimball House (later
destroyed by fire), and had an interesting talk with him. Clark Howell,
who has since succeeded his father as publisher of the "Constitution,"
was born while the latter was fighting at Chickamauga, and was
consequently old enough, at the time of the call on Sherman, to remember
much of what was said. He heard the general tell Captain Howell why he
had made such a point of taking Atlanta, and as Sherman's military
reasons for desiring possession of the Georgia city explain, to a large
extent, Atlanta's subsequent development, I shall quote them as Clark
Howell gave them to me.
First however, it is perhaps worth while to remind the reader of the
bare circumstances preceding the fall of Atlanta. After the defeat of
the Confederate forces at Chattanooga, General Joseph E. Johnston's army
fell back slowly on Atlanta, much as the French fell back on Paris at
the beginning of the European War, shortening their own lines of
communication while those of the advancing Germans were being
continually attenuated. As the Germans kept after the French, Sherman
kept after Johnston; and as Joffre was beginning to be criticized for
failing to make a stand against the enemy, so was Johnston criticized as
he continued to retire without giving battle. One of the chief
differences between Joffre's retirement and Johnston's lies, however, in
the length of time consumed; for whereas the French retreat on Paris
covered a few days only, the Confederate retreat on Atlanta covered
weeks and months, giving the Confederate Government time to become
impatient with Johnston and finally to remove him from command before
the time arrived when, in his judgment, the stand against Sherman should
be made. Nor is it inconceivable that, had the French retreat lasted as
long as Johnston's, Joffre would have been removed and would have lost
the opportunity to justify his Fabian policy, as he did so gloriously at
the Battle of the Marne.
Though Atlanta was, at the time of the war, a city of less than 10,000
inhabitants, it was the chief base of supply for men and munitions in
the Far South.
"When my father asked him why all his effort and power had been
centered, after Chickamauga, on the capture of Atlanta," said Clark
Howell, "I remember that General Sherman extended one hand with the
fingers spread apart, explaining the strategic situation by imagining
Atlanta as occupying a position where the wrist joins the hand, while
the thumb and fingers represented, successively, New Orleans, Mobile,
Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk. 'If I held Atlanta,' he said, 'I was
only one day's journey from these chief cities of the South.'"
In spite, therefore, of the assertion, which I have heard made, that the
prosperity of Atlanta is "founded on insurance premiums, coca-cola, and
hot air," it seems to me that it is founded on something very much more
solid. Nor do I refer to the layer of granite which underlies the city.
The prosperity of Atlanta is based upon the very feature which made its
capture seem to Sherman so desirable: its strategic position as a
central point in the Far South.
Neither in Atlanta nor in any other part of Georgia is General Sherman
remembered with a feeling that can properly be described as
affectionate, though it may be added that Atlanta has good reason for
remembering him warmly. The burning of Atlanta by Sherman did not,
however, prove an unalloyed disaster, for the war came to an end soon
after, and the rebuilding of the city supplied work for thousands of
former Confederate soldiers, and also drew to Atlanta many of the strong
men who played leading parts in the subsequent commercial upbuilding of
the place: such men as the late General Alfred Austell, Captain James W.
English, and the three Inman brothers, Samuel, John, and Hugh--to
mention but a few names. The First National Bank, established by General
Austell, is, I believe, Atlanta's largest bank to-day, and was literally
the first national bank established in Georgia, if not in the whole
South, after the war.
Woodrow Wilson was admitted to the bar in Atlanta, and, if I mistake
not, practised law in an office not far from that meeting place of
highways called Five Points. Here, at Five Points, two important trails
crossed, long before there was any Atlanta: the north-and-south trail
between Savannah and Ross's Landing, and the east-and-west trail, which
followed the old Indian trails between Charleston and New Orleans. When
people from this part of the country wished to go to Ohio, Indiana, or
the Mississippi Valley, they would take the old north-and-south trail to
Ross's Landing, follow the Tennessee River to where it empties into the
Ohio, near Paducah, Kentucky, and proceed thence to Mississippi.
In the thirties, Atlanta--or rather the site of Atlanta, for the city
was not founded until 1840--was on the border of white civilization in
northern Georgia, all the country to the north of the Chattahoochee
River, which flows a few miles distant from the city, having belonged to
the Cherokee Indians, who had been moved there from Florida. Even in
those times the Cherokees were civilized, as Indians go, for they lived
in huts and practised agriculture. Of course, however, their
civilization was not comparable with that of the white man. If they had
been as civilized as he, they might have driven him out of Florida,
instead of having been themselves driven out, and they might have driven
him out of Georgia, too, instead of having been pushed on, as they were,
to the Indian Territory--eighteen thousand of them, under military
supervision, on boats from Ross's Landing--leaving the beautiful white
Cherokee rose, which grows wild and in great profusion, in the spring,
as almost their sole memorial on Georgia soil.
As Georgia became settled the trails developed into wagon and stage
routes, and later they were followed, approximately, by the railroads.
After three railroads had reached Atlanta, the State of Georgia engaged
in what may have been the first adventure, in this country, along the
lines of government-owned railroads: namely, the building of the Western
& Atlantic, from Atlanta to Chattanooga, to form a link between the
lower South and the rapidly developing West. This road was built in the
forties, and it was along its line that Johnston retreated before
Sherman, from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Though it is now leased and
operated by the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad Company, it
is still owned by the State of Georgia. The lease, however, expires
soon, and (an interesting fact in view of the continued agitation in
other parts of the country for government ownership of corporations)
there is a strong sentiment in Georgia in favor of selling the railroad;
for it is estimated that, at a fair price, it would yield a sum
sufficient not only to wipe out the entire bonded indebtedness of the
State ($7,000,000), but to leave ten or twelve millions clear in the
State treasury.
* * * * *
At Roswell, Georgia, a sleepy little hamlet in the hills, not many miles
from Atlanta, stands Bulloch Hall, where Martha ("Mittie") Bulloch,
later Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, mother of the President, was born.
Roswell was originally settled, long ago, by people from Savannah,
Darien, and other towns of the flat, hot country near the coast, who
drove there in their carriages and remained during the summer. After a
time, however, three prosperous families--the Bullochs, Dunwoodys, and
Barrington Kings--made their permanent homes at Roswell.
Bulloch Hall is one of those old white southern colonial houses the
whole front of which consists of a great pillared portico, in the Greek
style, giving a look of dignity and hospitality. Almost all such houses
are, as they should be, surrounded by fine old trees; those at Bulloch
Hall are especially fine: tall cedars, ancient white oaks, giant osage
oranges, and a pair of holly trees, one at either side of the walk near
the front door.
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., and Mittie Bulloch met here when they were
respectively seventeen and fifteen years of age. A half sister of Miss
Mittie had married a relative of the Roosevelts and gone from Roswell to
live in Philadelphia, and it was while visiting at her home that young
Roosevelt, hearing a great deal of the South, conceived a desire to go
there. This resulted in his first visit to Bulloch Hall, and his
meeting with Mittie Bulloch. On his return to the North he was sent
abroad, but two or three years later when he went again to visit his
relatives in Philadelphia, Miss Mittie was also a guest at their house,
and this time the two became engaged.
Save that the Bulloch furniture is no longer there, the interior of the
old Georgia residence stands practically as it was when Theodore
Roosevelt and Mittie Bulloch were married in the dining room. Through
the center, from front to back, runs a wide hall, on either side of
which is a pair of spacious square rooms, each with a fireplace, each
with large windows looking out over the beautiful hilly country which
spreads all about. It is a lovely house in a lovely setting, and, though
the Bullochs reside there no longer, Miss Mittie Bulloch is not
forgotten in Roswell, for one of her bridesmaids, Miss Evelyn King, now
Mrs. Baker, still resides in Barrington Hall, not far distant from the
old Bulloch homestead.