SOLDIER BOYS OF BANKS AND FRANKLIN COUNTIES

Banks County Gazette, unknown day July, 1890.

 

“There was not a more gallant command in the Confederate Service than the Banks County Guards.”  Colonel Allen Candler expressed this opinion to a party of Georgia guests at his rooms the other night.

“Bill Charlton, whom you all know or ought to know gave the reputation they enjoyed as a raw, undisciplined mob, and Soc Pruitt-you all know Soc-was a sergeant in the company, and he added a big moiety to Charlton’s yarns.  As I have said, no better company of soldiers ever mustered to the tap of a drum.  They were attached to Summer’s regiment, the 2^nd Georgia, as senior company, and the Second was good metal, every man of it.  The Guards were organized principally in Franklin county, or what had been Franklin county, for Banks was cut almost bodily out of that county.   My father, Daniel G. Candler, was the first captain elected, I presume, because he had seen service in the Florida & Creek Indian Wars.  Bill Charlton was the 1^st Lieutenant.  Charlton held a clerkship here in Washington, in the treasury, under Howell Cobb, and had joined one of those fancy city companies, and had learned how to drill, so he was elected to the second office.  The story that my father had to dress the Guards against a warehouse down at Augusta when they were on their way to Va., was one of Charlton’s earliest jokes.  Bill gave them the reputation that clung to them throughout the whole war.  I remember I was on river picket July,-------copy torn and missing.

 

(continued)  The Guards were twelve months’ men originally.  My father retired when this term was up & Bill Charlton was their 2^nd Captain, and after him Joe Brewer, and after Brewer, John W. Owen, now the Mayor of Toccoa.  Owen entered the service young-a mere lad-and won his way up.  He was a chivalrous young soldier, and always ready for duty.”

Capt. Bill Charlton is still living.  I believe he is with Hon. Jim Smith, over in Oglethorpe.  He is well preserved, and is as full of humor as ever.  He has a remarkable history, and some of you newspaper folks ought to write it up.

--E. Speer in Atlanta Journal.

p. s. Joe Brewer never was Captain.  Mr. Owen succeeded Bill Charlton as Captain.--Toccoa News.

 

Transcribed 2005 by Jacqueline King from original newspaper, Historic Courthouse, Banks County, Georgia