By Dr. Charles Pendley
Contributing Writer
Part 1 of this column ran in the October 20, 2021 edition.
This year, 2021, is our county’s Bicentennial year, marking 200 years since our County’s founding by an act of the state legislature on May 15, 1821. It is altogether fitting to look back on the last two centuries, on the people and events that made Henry County what it is today and – hopefully – to draw some lessons from our county’s history.
The last two articles in the series told how our County was carved out of Creek Indian lands and was opened to settlement by white families followed by the reign of “King Cotton,” the coming of railroads with their “Iron Horses,” and the plantation system, which was based on the use of slave labor.
This article will look at the divisive anti-union politics that led the county into the destruction and devastation of the Civil War.
By the late 1850s, divisive national and state politics over the question of slavery had begun to infect public sentiment in the county. Throughout much of the 1850s, most Georgians, and it can be assumed most white residents of Henry County, either supported the Union or were apathetic toward the issue of slavery. However, during the late 1850s, politics in the country became more polarized and divisive.
In the last presidential election in 1860 before the outbreak of the Civil War, 1,235 (mainly white) males voted in Henry County. John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party, who was against seceding from the Union because of slavery, received the largest number (53.3 percent) of the votes in the county, while the Southern Democratic Party received 42.3 percent. Stephen Douglas, of the (northern) Democratic Party, received only 5.4 per cent of the vote. The Republican Party’s candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was not even on the ballot.
Joeseph Brown, a “progressive Southern Rights Democrat” from north Georgia, was elected governor in 1857 and served four terms until 1865. “Joe” Brown was an enthusiastic believer in and promoter of states rights and influenced the state legislature to follow South Carolina to secede from the union. He undertook recruiting drives to strengthen Georgia’s militia and in early 1861 several military units were formed in Henry County, among which were the “Weems Guards” and “Zachry Rangers,” who drilled at Shingleroof Campground.
“Joe” Brown was an enthusiastic advocate of state’s rights and influenced the state legislature, whose members were mainly wealthy planters to follow South Carolina to secede from the union. On January 2, 1861, months before Fort Sumter, Governor Brown ordered Georgia state troops to seize Fort Pulaski at the entrance to the port of Savannah. The next fateful chapter in Henry County’s history had begun.
The Weems family included several wealthy, influential planters in Henry County. The three men claimed five sons and many close relatives in the ranks. Captain Peebles also married a Weems girl, the daughter of Samuel Weems. “Weems Guards” was chosen as the company’s nickname. By March of 1862 more men had joined, bringing unit strength to just over a hundred.
Captain Peebles assembled his men at Bear Creek Station on March 10, 1862 for physical examinations, most likely with the assistance of Jesse Turnipseed, a physician who also enlisted in the Weems Guards.
Patriotic fervor all too soon gave way to the gruesome realities of a bloody war. After mustering at Bear Creek, the men of the Weems Guards reported to Camp Stevens in Griffin, where they were enrolled as Company A in the 44th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment. From Camp Stevens the Weems Guards underwent a brief training period in North Carolina, after which they joined General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Their trial of fire would soon begin.
