Fighting with General Joseph E. Johnston to the Bitter End

This imposing monument to Confederate General Joseph E. Johnson Stands on one of the most prominent intersections in downtown Dalton, Georgia. The inscription reads:

JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON

1807 - 1891

Brigadier General U.S.A.

General C.S.A.

Given command of the Confederate

Forces in Dalton in

1863. He directed the 79 days

Campaign to Atlanta, one of the

Most memorable in the annals of war.

Erected by Bryan M. Thomas

Chapter United Daughters of

Confederacy, Dalton, Georgia, 1912

*****

I am very proud to say that one of my great uncles, John Thomas Conn, fought with General Johnston during that Atlanta Campaign.  Uncle John Thomas was a native of Big Shanty, Georgia, later named Kennesaw.  He was literally fighting to defended his family and home against invading Yankee aggressors.  John Thomas, along with three of his brothers, volunteered for service in the Confederate army shortly after the outbreak of the War Between the States. 

By the time John Thomas came under the command of General Johnston, all three of his brothers, including my Great, Great Grandfather, William Elisha Conn, had been killed.  John Thomas himself had been captured at Perryville, Kentucky and spent time in two northern POW Camps, one in Indianapolis, Indiana and the other on Pea Patch Island in Delaware.  After being exchanged and released from prison, he immediately rejoined the War in the just and noble quest for Southern Independence.

John Thomas was faithful to the Confederate cause to the bitter end.  On April 26, 1865, he was still under General Johnston's command when, near Greensboro, North Carolina,  Johnston was finally forced to surrender the Army of Tennessee and all remaining Confederate forces  still active in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.  It was the largest surrender of the War, totaling 89,270 soldiers.  This was two and a half weeks after General Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.

John Thomas, like the majority of Confederate soldiers, was not a man of wealth or position.  He was a poor dirt farmer and laborer on the railroad who fought for one reason - his home, his family, and his very life was illegally and brutally attacked by an invading foreign army.  Following the War, John Thomas finally limped home, weary and worn in body and mind but still strong in faith.  He found many of his family members dead and the survivors destitute.  His home town of Big Shanty, at the foot of Kennesaw Mountain, had been wantonly burned to the ground by Union General William T. Sherman.  Crops and food stores had been destroyed.  Personal property of any value had been stolen.  Both his local community and the once sovereign state of Georgia were occupied by northern invaders who, for many ears to come, enforced the bitter and punitive policies which they called "Reconstruction."

Confederate Avenue and a Confederate Victory at the Battle of New Hope Church

Paulding County Courthouse

While passing through the town of Dallas, Georgia recently I was  very interested to notice that the main intersection of town is Confederate Avenue and Main Street.  Dallas is the county seat of Paulding County, which is in the  Atlanta metro area and one of the fastest growing counties in the United States.

Here in Paulding County during the War Between the States, Union General William T. Sherman's invading troops were soundly defeated by the Confederates, May 26-27, 1864, at the battle of New Hope Church.  The Yankees suffered 1,600 casualties at the hands of Confederate defenders under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston.  I'm proud to say that among the Confederates who mauled the Yankee hoards in Paulding County was one of my great, great uncles, Pvt. John Thomas Conn.  Unfortunately, Uncle John Thomas was the only one of four Conn brothers from Georgia who survived the War.  The Yankees had already killed three of his brothers - two of my uncles and my great, great grandfather. 

My Conn ancestors lived in Big Shanty (now Kennesaw), Georgia.   The town was called Big Shanty because it consisted of just a big cluster of shanties occupied by poor tenent farmers and railroad workers along the tracks where it skirts Kennesaw Mountain.  The only crime of the people of Big Shanty was that they dared to defend their homes (shanties) and their families against a brutal and merciless invading Union army.  After Sherman and his men murdered all the people they could in Big Shanty, they burned the town, leaving the survivors (women, children and feeble old men) destitute and homeless.

This Confederate Flag, now surrounded by the urban sprawl of Metropolitan Atlanta, still waves proudly. and defiantly, over the graves of Confederate dead at the New Hope Cemetery in Paulding County.

Deathbed of the Confederacy

It was here in the Burt-Stark Mansion, also known as the Armistead Burt House, Abbeville, South Carolina, that President Jefferson Davis met with his cabinet for the last Council of  War for the Confederate States of America, May 2, 1865.

Just three weeks earlier, on April 9, 1865 General Robert E. Lee had surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to General William T. Sherman at Appomattox Courthouse. Many people regard Lee's surrender as the end of the War Between the States, but actually only a portion of the Confederate Army surrendered at that time.

On April 26, 1869, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston followed Lee by surrendering his Army of Tennessee, also to General Sherman, near Greensboro, North Carolina. One of my great uncles, John Tomas Conn, was among those who surrendered with Johnston.

However, when the last Confederate Council of War met, there were still other very determined Confederate armies fighting in the field, including the Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana Department, the Trans-Mississippi (Texas) Department, and others. President Davis wanted to continue the struggle for Southern Independence. However, despite the righteousness of the Confederate cause, the Council persuaded Davis that to continue fighting against such overwhelming odds was futile and that the government should be.

Just two days later, May 4, 1865, Confederate Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor, son of former U.S. president Zachary Taylor, surrendered the Confederate Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana, with some 12,000 troops.

The last land fight of the War occurred May 12--13 May at Palmito Ranch, Texas, where 350 Confederates of the Trans-Mississippi Department were victorious over 800 invading Federals. Afterwards, upon learning that Richmond had fallen that General Robert E. Lee had surrendered, the Trans-Mississippi Confederates gave up their fight for Independence Most of the soldiers simply went home, but some 2000 of them fled into Mexico, alone or in scattered groups.

Last of the Confederate Generals to surrender was Brigadier General Stand Waite of Oklahoma. Stand Waite was also a Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Fighting until the bitter end, General Waite finally surrendered his battalion of Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and Osage Indians on June 23. 1865.

There was never a formal surrender by the Confederate States of America. No peace treaty or armistice was ever signed, and it could be argued that the Confederate States of America is still an occupied nation.

A week after that fateful last Council of War in Abbeville, President Davis and a large entourage traveling with him, was captured in Irwinsville, Georgia, by the Fourth Michigan Calvary during the early morning hours of May 10, 1865.

The Burt-Stark Mansion was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1992 because of its importance as the last meeting place of the leadership of the Confederate nation.

***

Incidentally, Abbeville, South Carolina lays claim to being both the birthplace and the deathbed of the Confederacy. I'll tell more of Abbeville as the birthplace in a future post.