57th Georgia Digression

Strangely enough, a suprising amount of interest has been expressed in the context of that 57th GA photo in a previous post. (I thought this was a 1st TN blog!). My thanks to those of you who helped me with some Georgia research that was decidedly out of my reach.

First off, the photo is credited to Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, where a descendant of Capt. Bonner (center) was a longtime history professor. It has been reprinted in numerous volumes. Most recently it was in a decent regimental history of the 57th. Scott Walker's Hell's Broke Loose in Georgia: Survival in a Civil War Regiment (UGA Press, 2005).

Now for what we know about the photo subjects themselves. Archibald McKinley (left), whose family owned Scott, kept a journal in the years after the war. It has been edited and republished by UGA as The Journal of Archibald C. McKinely (1991). Scott makes one appearance in the journal, on the day he died.

April 17, 1870

Sunday...During the afternoon I received news of the very sudden death of my former faithful slave, SCOTT. He died about one o'clock to-day apparently in perfect health. After eating very largely during the morning, he smoked his pipe and laid down on his bed to take a nap-in a few minutes he had a spasm and died in a few minutes more, without speaking. Poor fellow, he was one of the few negroes who was a friend of the whites. He followed me into the army, as a camp servant, in October 1861 and remained with me, true as steel, until May 1865, or the end of the War. He followed me through "Bragg's Kentucky Campaign" in 1862, was with me at the battle of Baker's Creel (Champion Hill), the siege and surrender of Vicksburg-crying when he heard it reported that I had been killed at the above named battle, but finding that I was only wounded he nursed me with the greatest care and tenderness until I recovered. When Vicksburg fell he followed me in spite of Yankee threats and promises of freedom and good situations, back into the Confederate lines, remaining with me through the Georgia campaign of 1864, and through Genl. Hood's advance on and disasterous retreat from Nashville in the same year. And lastly through the North Carolina campaign of 1865-being true and faithful to me and the Cause I fought for, until the day of his death. He as about forty-five years old when he died, and was an old family servant, his father (Peter) having been a slave of my Mother's father. I am proud to record the fact he was liked and befriended by all his true Southern white aquaintances, and his death lamented by all of them. After the war, in consideration of his good conduct and attachment to me, my Father gave him a house and twenty acres of land for his (scott's) life, and he was cultivating the land industriously.

The hard numbers on our photo set, census data:
Lt. Archibald McKinley-
1860- 18, Student of Law. Lives at home with his father, William, 50, Attorney at Law from SC, $5,000 real property, $50,000 personal property. 66 slaves in 2 locations, one headed by a 37 year old black male. I'm betting that is Scott.
1870- Don't find him. But Daddy's still around. Still a Lawyer, $50,000 real $5,000 personal property. Wonder where all that personal property went and where all that land came from? Looks to me like daddy's sharecropping Scott and the other former slaves. You bet Daddy "gave" him some land which he was "cultivating industriously." Things don't look so rosy when you get beyond the veneer of benevolence and paternalistic care that McKinley throws out in his journal.

Capt. John R. Bonner-
1860- 19, att. school. Lives with father, Oliver, Planter, $9,000 real, $31,380 personal property. 39 slaves.
1870- Not found. Little bro. Charles is still around, though.
A fun tidbit: Bonner will stick around till the bitter end and end up commanding a brigade at Bentonville... as a Captain. That tell you something about how depleted the AoT had become after Hood wrecked it?

Sgt. Wm. Stetson-
1860- 16, Clerk. Lives with father, Daniel, Merchant from Massachusetts, $10,000 real $8,000 personal. 9 slaves.
1870- Not found. Not surprising, I imagine he moved on to greener mercantile pastures as did so many young merchants after the war.

So, who do we have there? We have a sampling of the sons of the upper class, the planter elite in the cases of the former two, and a prominent local merchant in the latter. It looks like the connections between this set of men and those of the 1st Tennessee go far more than skin deep.