Waycross Journal Herald

Saturday, December 29, 2007

William Tecumseh 'Satan' Forced Into Exile 400-Plus Roswell Women, Children In 1864

By Robert Latimer Hurst Special To The J-H -

Roaming along the overgrown path near Vickery Creek in Roswell, I could have sworn I heard their voices. They were shrill, anxious, sobbing sounds are pitiful to the ear; however, knowing the story of the 400 women and children, I could understand their plight. The cotton mill ruins offered no real clue about what happened here; the 144 years since General William Tecumseh Sherman had this place torched hides its evidence well, except for the one maintenance building somehow spared during that trying time.

July 1864 was especially hot. Not only was the climate bothersome, but the rumors that the Roswell citizens knew were facts heightened the temperatures even further. The Union Army in its quest to capture Atlanta was marching south with very little opposition. The nearby Chattahoochee River was the immediate target. It had been this waterway, in part, that had attracted Roswell King from his Pierce Butler's plantation manager position in Darien to found this village that now carried his name. Even though his disputes with Butler and, even more, with the absentee landlord's wife, the English actress and abolitionist, Fanny Kemble, over the cruel treatment of slaves had been a factor in his move, other reasons prevailed for the north Georgia emigration: the climate, free lands once owned by the Cherokees before the "Trail of Tears" and the idea of establishing a town where his textile mills would prosper.

So Roswell was laid out, and devout Presbyterians and industrialists began settling in this village by the Chattahoochee. Now, it was a target for Sherman during his March to the Sea in 1864, though he evidently planned to keep his arsonist plans to a minimum while here Ñ at first. General Joseph Johnston, with his Army of Tennessee, had fallen back across the Chattahoochee, leaving the mill town unprotected. Union General Kenner Garrard quickly guided his Second Cavalry Division to the productive Ivy Cotton-Woolen Factory, founded by the Roswell King family in 1839, and set it ablaze. As the flames died out during the night, Garrard reported to Sherman that flying above the main building was a French flag, signifying that this was a place of neutrality. Earlier, when the Roswell men had been sent to fight for the Confederacy, the women were determined to keep the mill in operation because they knew the need for the cloth and it would allow them to make money to survive. Garrard knew that this mill carried the reputation for making the "Roswell Greys," a material used in the Confederate uniforms. It would be quite an honor to let his fellow officers know that he had destroyed this enterprise. After rounding up as many Roswellians as he could and transporting them to other areas, he turned his attention to the already ruined factory flying the French flag. Then the truth was discovered. Theophile Roche, a mill employee and French citizen, had raised the flag, trying his best to save the mill from the arsonists. His plan might have worked, except for the sewn initials on the banner.

"Unfortunately, the letters 'CSA' were found on the material," writes Dianna Avena in her Roswell: History, Haunts and Legends. "His tactic saved the mill for two days, but on July 7, (1864) once his claim of neutrality was discovered as false, General Sherman charged everyone remaining in the city of Roswell with treason." Four hundred women and children, mostly mill workers, were singled out as those who must pay the price as traitors.

It was told that when General Sherman became angry he became demonic. This statement must have been true because his order left no room for compassion. Even northern newspaper readers gasped and criticized their military leader when the fate of the women and children was reported. "I have ordered General Garrard to arrest for treason all owners and employees, foreign and native (of the Roswell Mills), and send them under guard to Marietta, whence I will send them north." This punishment given for just weaving cloth!

When this news was heard, the women Ñ many poor, some pregnant, some simple-minded, panicked. What could they do They were being forced to leave families, men who would return from war and not know whether their wives or daughters were living or dead, fathers returning to see their newborn babies and finding that their children and wives had disappeared from the face of the Earth. Sherman ignored all pleas as he had the women and children forced walked to Marietta, and then herded into the boxcars on the train to Indiana or Illinois or Ohio Ñ "Anywhere north! Just send them north!" And "Anywhere north" became the destination where these people would be discharged without the proper clothing for the coming winter, without money to survive and without knowing anyone who would help them since they were in enemy territory.

Some few stories crept back south after the Civil War; however, for the most part, these women and children were lost. They never returned. Oh, there was the pregnant woman who found her way, after the birth of her daughter, to Chicago; then, five years later, she managed to get back to Roswell only to find that her husband, thinking her dead, had remarried. And there were stories of some elderly workers who, under the strain of this capture, died en route. An 1896 issue of the Confederate Veteran Magazine confirmed the earlier statement: "All these women were scattered to the four winds. Very few, if any, ever saw their native soil again."

A monument stands in the Historic Mill District of Roswell today, a broken column, symbolizing that the story of the lost mill workers will never be completed.

It reads: "Roswell Manufacturing Company
Incorporated December, 1839, by Roswell King Ñ Cotton Mills
Expanded by Barrington King (Roswell's son) Ivy Woolen Mill
Established 1867 by James and Thomas King
Suppliers of cloth and yarn to the Confederate government 1861-1864.
Seized by Federal Cavalry July 5, 1864, while the mill was under the flag of France.

The mills were burned July 6, 1864. Rebuilt and operated under various owners. Cotton Mill destroyed by fire in 1925 É Roswell Mills Camp No. 1547, Sons of Confederate Veterans, July 8, 2000."