CHAPTER XXXII

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.

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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.

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