Last week, I focused on some of the more tragic souls buried at Alta Vista Cemetery. To wrap up this series, I’m going to simply share a mix of grave sites with interesting markers and stories. No theme this time!

I like Green Roper’s monument because not only is it a Woodmen of the World tree, it also has a detail (while faded) that few have.

Green Roper’s Woodmen of the World monument has a special feature on it.

A native of South Carolina, Green married Callie Frances Reynolds in October 1888 in Hall County, Ga. During their marriage, they had seven children. Although he came from a farming background, Green spent his life working for the railroad.

The handcar is a faded but signifies Green Roper’s dedication to his job.

Thanks to Ancestry, I located Green’s will. It was drawn up in July 1919, only a handful of months before his death in December. Was Green ill at the time, wanting to provide for his family in the event he died?

Green owned a home on Gainesville’s East Spring Street and a 290-acre farm in the “Tom Bell District of Hall County on the Chattahoochee River”. He left it all to Callie and his children, along with a life insurance policy. I’m guessing it was with Woodmen of the World, who may have provided the marker.

Benjamin Perry “B.P.” Byrd was a native of South Carolina as well but spent most of his life in Gainesville and Athens. He was likely related to Green Roper in some way because B.P.’s mother was a Roper. He married Maggie Roper in December 1895. From what I could tell, B.P and Maggie had two children.

B.P. Byrd was a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Lodge 696. The “GM” inscribed on the locomotive below the two small windows stands for the Gainesville Midland Railroad.

Founded in Michigan in 1863, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) was a labor union originally called the Brotherhood of the Footboard. It was the first permanent trade organization for railroad workers in the U.S. A year later, it was renamed the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (B of LE).

Locomotive No. 116 of the Gainesville Midland Railroad is on display in Jefferson, Ga. near the city’s high school. It was built in 1907 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, Pa.

From B.P.’s World War I draft card, I learned that near the time of his death he worked for the Gainesville Midland (GM) Railway Company. Chartered in 1904, the GM purchased most of the property of the Gainesville, Jefferson & Southern Railroad under a foreclosure sale the same year. It acquired a two-pronged, narrow-gauge line connecting Gainesville, Jefferson, and Monroe.

In 1906, the GM constructed a extension south from Jefferson to a connection with the Seaboard Air Line (SAL) two miles west of Athens at Fowler Junction. From there, GM trains continued to Athens through a trackage rights agreement with SAL. Business directories list B.P. and his family living in the Athens/Monroe area at that time.

Unlike Green, B.P. left no will that I could find. He died in November 1918 of pneumonia at the age of 43.

A curious marker at Alta Vista got my attention. Beside his military marker, Cooper Scott also has a stone stating that (according to his obituary) he fired the first cannon at Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C. at the start of the Civil War.

Cooper B. Scott, who fought with the First South Carolina Infantry, Company G (Butler’s First Regulars), during the Civil War.

I learned that several people have claimed this distinction over the years. But it appears that many of Cooper’s friends, war comrades and family believed it.

Scott’s grand daughter said in an article, “When Cooper fired the cannon, he did so because he saw ‘movement’ at Fort Sumter. He was immediately thrown into the brig for opening fire without an order. He was released the next morning when the Union soldiers surrendered.”

According to the application for a military marker for Scott in the 1940s from the Gainesville chapter of the United Daughter of the Confederacy, Scott was not only a corporal with the First South Carolina Infantry but also the musician of the regiment.

I think one of the saddest markers I’ve ever encountered was the for the one for “Crippled” Jim Smith.

Jim Smith was a beloved member of the Gainesville community.

The only information I could find about Jim Smith was from a Gainesville Times newspaper clipping that someone had posted on his Find a Grave memorial page. Nothing about his parents or family was included.

Altlhough Jim was born disabled, that didn’t prevent him from working hard to earn a living by repairing broken chairs that needed the seats redone. The clipping noted that he had been in poor health the last year of his life. It’s possible that his customers paid for his gravesite and humble marker.

I can’t respectfully finish this series about Alta Vista Cemetery without featuring the man that left his mark on Gainesville in ways still being felt today.

Jesse Jewell revolutionized the poultry industry in Gainesville. (Photo Source: Georgia Agricultural Hall of Fame, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Georgia.)

Born in Gainesville in 1902, Jesse Dickson Jewell was the son of a feed store owner (who died when Jesse was 7) and an art teacher. After graduating from Gainesville High School, Jewell studied civil engineering at Georgia Tech and the University of Alabama. In 1922, he began working in the family feed business, along with his mother and stepfather, Leonard Loudermilk. In 1928, Jesse married Anna Lou Dorough.

When Loudermilk died in 1930, Jewell took over the family business. As the Great Depression hammered the country, he tried a new approach to boost feed sales. He bought baby chicks and supplied them (along with chicken feed) on credit to cash-poor farmers. After the chicks were grown, Jesse bought them back at a price that covered feed costs and guaranteed farmers a profit. As a result, more Hall County farmers chose to contract to grow chickens for Jesse.

By the late 1930s, Jesse was adding the elements that would make J. D. Jewell, Inc. the largest integrated chicken producer in the world. In 1940, he opened his own hatchery and then a processing plant in 1941. By 1954, Jesse had added his own feed mill and rendering plant. This vertically integrated corporation set the standard for poultry processors everywhere, as did Jewell’s trademark frozen chicken.

A 1950s advertisement promotes the trademark frozen chicken of J. D. Jewell, Inc.

Jewell was a founder and the first president of the National Broiler Council, president of the Southeastern Poultry and Egg Association, and a U.S. delegate to the 1951 World Poultry Expo.

Jesse Jewell left behind a business legacy that is still making an impact today.

Alta Vista Cemetery is well worth more than one visit.

Over the next weeks, I’ll be sharing my visits to cemeteries in South Carolina, Maine, and Iowa. I hope you can come “hop” with me on these new adventures!

Last week, our eyes were on the skies at Gainesville, Ga.’s Alta Vista Cemetery. This week in Part III, I’m focusing on some of the more tragic tales. One involves Gainesville’s mysterious “Ladies of the Lake” who disappeared on an April night in 1958. But I’ll get to them later.

Austin Hammett was the son of Willie Dexter “Deck” Hammett and Jessie Abigail “Abbie” Hammett. When they married in 1909, Deck (a native of North Carolina) was 31 and Jessie was 15. He worked as a “loom fixer” at a cotton mill in nearby Jackson County.

Austin was only six when he died. His mother would pass away only a few years later.

Deck and Jessie had six children during their 13-year marriage. Austin, their second child, died at the age of five in 1918. It’s possible he died from the Spanish Flu that was raging across the country. An unnamed infant died a few years later. Jessie died in 1922 and is buried beside Austin and her baby. Deck moved back to the Carolinas with his children and married Cleopatra Rogers, with whom he had several children before his death in 1935.

Dressed in clothing appropriate for the time in which he lived, Austin’s figure leans against a tree stump. This often means a life cut short. On the stump, you can see oak leaves and a single acorn, which can stand for power, authority or victory.

One of the most stunning monuments I saw during my visit was of Sarah Elizabeth “Lizzie” Blalock Estes.

Notice at the top of the monument there is a winged hourglass, signifying that “time flies.” Christians believe that trumpet-shaped Easter lilies announce the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Fern fronds often symbolize sincerity and sorrow.

The daughter of Lewis Frank Blalock and Hester Clements Blalock, Lizzie grew up in my hometown of Fayetteville, Ga. On Nov. 5, 1879, she married lawyer Claud Estes in Fayetteville. She was 20 and he was 22. They shared a home with Claud’s parents, John Baylis Estes (also an attorney) and Catherine “Fannie” Bryan Estes.

The details of the statue, from the cross at her throat to the buttons on her gown, are skillfully done.

Lizzie died less than four years later in 1883. The only evidence that she and Claud had children is from a marker nearby that simply says “Our Babies, Infants of Claud and Lizzie Estes” with no year on it. It’s possible she died in childbirth.

James S. Clark owned and operated J.S. Clark & Co. Monument Works of Louisville, Ky.

Claud spared no expense on Lizzie’s monument, paying prestigious J.S. Clark & Co. in Louisville, Ky. to create it. Clark’s name appears on monuments throughout cemeteries in the South but his most noted is “Heroes of the Alamo” in Austin, Texas.

Illustration of J.S. Clark & Co. Marble and Granite Works in Louisville, Ky. Photo Source: “The industries of Louisville, Kentucky, and of New Albany, Indiana” (1886)

Lizzie’s monument is a collection of symbols, from the Easter lilies that stand for the Resurrection of Christ to the winged hourglass at the top signifying that “time flies.” It’s possible Claud saw the monument in a catalog and had it adapted to wishes.

The inscription on the back is no less vivid than the sculpture on the front. I’ve never seen a monument before that listed both the deceased’s last “expression” and last word (which was “darling”.)

Lizzie’s last word was (according to her monument) “Darling.”

Claud remarried a few years later to Fannie Jones in Bibb County, Ga. They had several children while he continued his law practice in Macon, Ga. He died in 1917 and is buried in Macon’s Rose Hill Cemetery with Fannie, who died in 1935.

Located just behind Lizzie’s large monument is a much smaller, humbler stone in the shape of a house. It marks the gravesites of the Walker twins. Ella and Ileta were the daughters of twice-elected Gainesville mayor George W. Walker and his wife, Ella I. Smith Walker.

Ella and Ileta Walker were the daughters of Gainesville Mayor George W. Walker and Ella I. Smith Walker.

Born in 1845, George Walker was trained to be a blacksmith and eventually opened his own carriage factory in Gainesville in 1876. He married Ella in 1869. In 1885, he was elected mayor for one term, having served on the city council for two years before that. He was re-elected mayor in 1893.

George Walker operated his carriage factory on 53 South Main Street in Gainesville in 1876.

Ella and Ileta were born on Nov. 7, 1886. The twins had two older brothers, William, 14, and Harry, 9. Ella died first on Oct. 21, 1895. On her side of the little house, the marker reads:

4 little feet trod the streets of gold
4 little hands the harps of angels hold
4 little lips lisp the new made song
2 little girls in the angel throng.

“Two little girls in the angel throng.”

Ileta died 27 days later on Nov. 17, 1895. Her inscription on the other side of the house reads:

God knoweth best whom to call to go
God knoweth best whom to leave below
Blest be the name of our God we say
Blest when he gives
when he takes away.

According to the 1900 Census, the Walkers had 11 children but only five survived. All lived long lives except for Rebie (born in 1892), who died at the age of 30. I could not find the graves of George and Ella. George died in 1919 in Gainesville but he is not listed on Find a Grave. I don’t know when Ella died.

Finally, the “Ladies of the Lake” are a Gainesville tragedy many locals know about. Two mothers decided to go out to at a local roadhouse one night and never came home.

Delia Parker Young worked at the Riverside Military Academy. She borrowed a blue dress to wear on her night out dancing.

On April 16, 1958, Susie Smallwood Roberts (37) picked up Delia Mae Parker Young (23) in her 1954 blue Ford for a night out. Delia borrowed a blue dress just for the occasion.

After spending some time at a Dalton County roadhouse called the Three Gables, they were spotted at a nearby gas station where they allegedly left without paying. There were reportedly skid marks on the road near the Dawsonville Highway bridge over Lake Lanier, indicating the car crossed the center line and went off the road.

Police searched the water but could find nothing. About 18 months later, a body that had floated up from the water was discovered by a fisherman under the Dawsonville Highway bridge. Identification from dental work was not possible because the body had dentures. But it was missing two toes on the left foot and had no hands. The body was buried in an unmarked grave at Alta Vista.

Susie Roberts’ family thought she was in the lake but never knew until 1990.

Some Gainesville residents say they’ve seen a woman in a blue dress who seemed to have no hands wandering on that bridge at night.

Over the years, Susie Roberts’ family wondered what had happened to her. Had she driven away with Delia? Had she been injured and lost her memory? Her husband, Frank, died in 1972, never knowing where she was.

Her son, James, said in a news article, “”We believed she was in the lake, but then we heard she might be in Chicago, then in Florida. We wondered if she survived but had amnesia and never knew where to go.”

In November 1990, workers doing construction on the bridge found a blue 1950s Ford sedan with a body inside. The car’s 1958 license plate was identified as his mother’s by James Roberts. A watch found on the body was also identified as Susie’s.

Susie Roberts’ Ford wasn’t found until 1990. Photo source: Gainesville Times

As a result, it was determined that the body in the unmarked grave must belong to Delia Mae Young. Her family provided a marker for her. She had left behind a husband and infant daughter, who died in 1985 at the age of 28.

Delia Young lay in an unmarked grave until the discovery of Susie Roberts’ remains confirmed her identity.

For many years, the Roberts family only had a cenotaph marking Susie’s final resting place because her body had not been found. She was buried there soon after her remains were found and a small stone was placed above it that reads: “Died April 1958 – Found Nov. 1990”.

The Ladies of the Lake were finally home.

The family of Susie Roberts was finally able to lay her to rest.

I’ll wrap things up next week in Part IV.

Last week, I wrote an entire post about Confederate General James Longstreet, Alta Vista Cemetery’s most noted resident. The people I’m featuring today are just as important but there’s not as much known about most of them. However, they all share a common theme in that something from above, good or bad, had an impact on their lives.

One bit of Gainesville history that packed a major punch was the tornado of 1936, or rather, tornadoes. On April 6, 1936, residents awoke to find the sky growing dark and threatening. At about 8:15 a.m., an F4 tornado touched down southwest of Gainesville, destroying homes and businesses as it moved northeast.

A second funnel was spotted west of town and at 8:27 a.m., the two paths met in downtown Gainesville, heading toward St. Michael Catholic Church on Spring Street. Amazingly, the church was spared when the combined tornadoes veered around it and returned to its original path, taking aim on the downtown square.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt would make an unscheduled stop in Gainesville three days after the 1936 tornado to offer his support while on his way home to Washington, D.C. after visiting Warm Springs.

The tornado caused a fire in the collapsed multi-story building that housed the Cooper Pants factory, killing some 70 workers. School children seeking shelter in a downtown department store died when the building collapsed.

An estimated 203 lives were lost in the Gainesville storms and $13 million in physical damage. More than 1,600 people would be injured in Gainesville and throughout Hall County. More than 750 houses were damaged or destroyed. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was in Warm Springs further south when the tornadoes hit, made an impromptu stop in Gainesville on his way back to Washington, D.C. to talk to local officials about relief efforts.

Gainesville Courthouse Square after the tornadoes of April 6, 1936. Photo Source: New Deal Network

Many tornado victims are buried at Alta Vista, some unidentified. In a small corner lot, there is a memorial stone from 1936.

This small plaque is in memory of those unknown victims who perished in the 1936 tornado.

Not very far away is an obelisk honoring prominent Gainesville resident Minor W. Brown. His monument gets your attention from its visual impact more than anything else.

Born in 1797, Minor W. Brown became Gainesville’s second postmaster, operating from a store he owned and operated. Brown also owned more than 1,000 acres in Hall County and quite a bit of acreage in surrounding counties.

I’ve seen this motif before on a few other graves (mostly members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows) but not in quite this context. Sometimes it’s contained within a triangle (as you’d see on currency) to represent the “all seeing” Eye of God within the Trinity. In this case, it’s contained within a cloud and shining over an open Bible.

Minor Winn Brown was the second postmaster of Gainesville and owned a great deal of land in Hall County. He also built the first bridge over the Chattahoochee River at the Hall-Forsyth County line. Fluctuating river levels interfered with the river crossing, so Brown was allowed to build a toll bridge in 1829.

One one side of Brown’s monument, Matthew 5:8 reads: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Floods and storms destroyed the bridge several times, but it retained the Brown name, even when it was sold to Bester Allen. Hall and Forsyth Counties later bought it from him for $1,600 to make it toll free.

A 1947 flood washed the bridge onto the Hall County side of the river, and it was replaced by a military-style Bailey steel bridge. The bridge that now spans Lake Lanier is about a mile upstream from the original Brown’s Bridge. Brown’s Bridge Road (State Route 369) is also named for him.

The grave marker for Manley Lanier “Sonny” Carter, Jr. is much humbler than Minor W. Brown’s. You would never known by looking at it that as a human being, he came closer to reaching the Heavens than most humans do while still living.

Dr. Sonny Carter only flew one mission on the Space Shuttle in 1989.

Born in 1947, Sonny Carter was a native of Macon, Ga. He received a chemistry degree in 1969, and his medical degree in 1973, both from Emory University. During that time, he also played professional soccer from 1970 to 1973 for the Atlanta Chiefs.

In 1974, Dr. Carter entered the Navy and completed flight surgeon school in Florida. After serving tours as a flight surgeon with the First and Third Marine Aircraft Wings, he returned to flight training in Texas and was designated a Naval Aviator on April 28, 1978. During his Navy career, he logged 3,000 flying hours and 160 carrier landings.

Selected by NASA in May 1984, Dr. Carter became an astronaut in June 1985, qualifying for assignment as a Mission Specialist on future Space Shuttle flight crews. He was assigned as Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) Representative for the Mission Development Branch of the Astronaut Office when selected to the crew of STS-33.

A talented physician and athlete, Dr. Carter died tragically in a plane crash in 1991.

The STS-33 crew launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 22, 1989, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. After 79 orbits of the Earth, the five-day mission ended on Nov. 27, 1989 at Edwards Air Force Based in California. Carter logged 120 hours in space.

Tragically, Dr. Carter was killed in the April 5, 1991 crash of Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) Flight 2311 in Brunswick, Ga. while traveling for NASA. He was survived by his wife and two daughters. I remember the crash at the time because it also killed John Tower, a former Texas Senator who gained notoriety when he was rejected by the Senate as President George H. W. Bush’s nominee for Secretary of Defense in 1989.

Maude Mooney also soared through the air (but not quite as high) as a circus performer known for her acrobatics. Her specialty was spinning from a rope by her teeth (as you can see on her marker), which earned her the nickname “Mille Vortex”. Some think that was meant to be “Millie Vortex” but I don’t know. Little is known about her.

Little is known about former circus performer Maude Mooney, who died in 1942. But her grave marker is definitely one of a kind.

The story that comes up most often about Maude was that she died when the circus she was working with came through Gainesville. The only problem with that theory is Maude was 50 years old when she passed away. I truly doubt she was still physically able to perform such acts.

My other proof is that according to the 1940 U.S. Census, she actually lived in Gainesville for a time with her husband, Mike, in 1935. There is no listing of her working, but a 1939 business directory lists Mike as an instructor at Gainesville’s Riverside Military Academy. They had moved to Albany by 1940, where Mike worked as general secretary of the local YMCA.

I actually found much more information about Mike, who had a very colorful past that included several marriages. He was a circus acrobat like Maude in his younger days, but also graduated from seminary and taught gymnastics at many colleges and YMCAs. He died in 1961 and is buried in Forest Meadows Memorial Gardens in Gainesville, Fla.

The last person I’m going to feature is someone who isn’t even buried at Alta Vista. That’s because the remains of Harold W. Telford have never been found.

The eldest son of Gainesville banker James Telford and Laura Jane Thomas Telford, Harold W. Telford was born in 1881. The 1900 U.S. Census lists him as working as a clerk in a dry good store. I found a listing for him as a student at Harvard University in 1902.

Harold Telford reached some of Europe’s highest peaks but never returned.

Harold was still a student when he traveled to Switzerland in the fall of 1907. His visa application indicates he was in Zurich at the American Consulate on Nov. 3. His intention was to hike in the Swiss Alps. I don’t know if he was part of a group or alone at the time.

An article about Harold’s disappearnce from the Sept. 20, 1907 edition of the Atlanta Constitution.

After his visit to the American Consulate, he seemed to vanish. Local authorities believe he became lost while in the Alps and that he met his demise there. This cenotaph at Alta Vista was created to honor his life and laid next to the markers of his parents. His mother, Laura, had died when he was a toddler. His father, James, died in 1917.

Next week, I’ll wrap up my visit to Alta Vista. There are too many stories still to share from here to stop now!

Wife and mother Susie Roberts was missing for decades.

Lately, there’s been a lot of debate about how we should treat Confederate history. I live in Georgia so it hits pretty close to home.

I’m not going to discuss Charlottesville or statues or protests. Many others have done so. I write about cemeteries and the people buried in them.

However, today I’m sharing the story of the most famous man buried in Gainesville, Ga.’s Alta Vista Cemetery: the controversial and often forgotten Confederate General James Longstreet. How did a man once greatly revered by his peers for his military shrewdness come to live in a sort of exile in a little known Georgia town?

Visiting Alta Vista was not planned. While our son was at Camp Grandma/Grandpa in Knoxville back in July, my husband and I decided to enjoy a quick getaway to the Beechwood Inn in Clayton, Ga. Our anniversary was coming up (Aug. 16) so why not celebrate it a little early?

On the way home, Chris generously offered to stop at any cemetery I wanted to visit. Since we weren’t far from Gainesville, I knew Alta Vista was where I wanted to go.

Originally named Mule Camp Springs, Gainesville got it current name in 1821 from General Edmund P. Gaines. He was a hero of the War of 1812, in addition to a noted military surveyor and road builder.

A postcard of Gainesville’s public square, year unknown.

A nearby gold rush in the 1830s brought more settlers and the beginning of a business community. In 1849, Gainesville became established as a resort center, with people attracted to the springs. Unfortunately in 1851, much of the small city was destroyed by fire.

After the Civil War, the Georgia Southern Railroad began stopping in Gainesville, stimulating business and population growth. From 1870 to 1900, the population increased from 1,000 to over 5,000. Newly built textile mills increased revenues at the turn of the century. A tornado in 1936 nearly wiped out the town again, a topic I’ll discuss in more detail in Part II next week.

Life changed in Gainesville after World War II when businessman Jesse Jewell started the poultry industry in north Georgia. Chickens have since become the state’s largest agricultural crop. This $1 billion-a-year industry has given Gainesville the title “Poultry Capital of the World”. They even have a statue of a chicken atop a 25-foot high marble obelisk in the downtown business district.

Few cities have a chicken statue gracing its business district.

The words Alta Vista may send some of you flashing back to the 1990s when the Internet search engine Alta Vista was all the rage. The words Alta Vista are actually a Spanish/Portuguese expression meaning “a view from above.” That’s probably what the founders had in mind when they named the cemetery that.

Established in 1872, Alta Vista currently makes up about 75 developed acres. It consists of the original cemetery, a private cemetery (formerly known as Woodlawn Cemetery) and at least one family cemetery. Thanks to a recent expansion, the cemetery is still active.

Alta Vista is fairly flat without many trees.

While Alta Vista is the burial place for a number of notable people, the most prominent is Confederate General James Longstreet. You’ve probably never heard of him but ask any Civil War historian and they’ll have plenty to say.

Longstreet’s initial tie to Gainesville was that his family owned a plantation there. Born in South Carolina, Longstreet was one of the most prominent Confederate generals of the Civil War. General Robert E. Lee, under whom he served as a corp commander, called Longstreet his “Old War Horse”.

Confederate General James Longstreet’s marker is situated among his family beneath the American flag.

After graduating from West Point, Longstreet served in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and was wounded at the Battle of Chapultepec. Afterward, he married his first wife, Louise Garland. During Longstreet’s marriage to Louise, they had 10 children but only five would survive to adulthood. A scarlet fever epidemic in Richmond, Va. would devastate the couple when three of their children died within eight days of each other.

Throughout the 1850s, he served on frontier duty in the Southwest. In June 1861, Longstreet resigned his U.S. Army commission and joined the Confederate Army. He served with Lee with the Army of Northern Virginia in the Eastern Theater but also with Gen. Braxton Bragg in the Amy of the Tennessee.

Military portrait of Confederate General James Longstreet. Ulysses S. Grant, his classmate at West Point, married one of Longstreet’s cousins.

Longstreet’s talents made significant contributions to the Confederate victories at Second Bull Run (Second Manassas), Fredericksburg and Chickamauga. His most controversial service was at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he openly disagreed with Lee on the tactics employed and reluctantly supervised the disastrous infantry assault known as Pickett’s Charge. His criticism of Lee would be only one of many reasons he drew the ire of his comrades after the Civil War.

Following the Confederacy’s defeat, Longstreet moved to New Orleans where he worked as a cotton broker. He also joined the Republican Party, a move that provoked many to call him a traitor or “scalawag”. Longstreet also endorsed former Union general-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant for President, a classmate of Longstreet at West Point that married one of Longstreet’s cousins.

In September 1874, Longstreet commanded the largely black Louisiana state police that went up against the Crescent City White League during a riot later called the Battle of Liberty Place. He was shot and briefly held prisoner during the violence. The Crescent City White League was a white supremacist organization attempting to overthrow the government of Louisiana. Federal troops eventually restored order.

The Battle of Liberty Place in 1874 was a clash between the racially integrated city police/militia and the segregationist Crescent City White League on Canal Street in New Orleans, La.

Longstreet’s role in the riot, along with his continued wish to move forward into reuniting the country, only further branded him an enemy in the eyes of his former Confederate supporters.

Fearing for his family’s safety, Longstreet and Louise moved to Gainesville to live out the rest of their days in a sort of exile. The Longstreets lived as respected citizens of Gainesville, and he continued to deflect accusations from Confederate Army general, lawyer and politician Jubal Early, and other former Confederates, intent on casting the blame for the loss at Gettysburg on Longstreet.

Longstreet was appointed deputy collector of internal revenue in Georgia in 1878 and later he was appointed postmaster. In 1880, Longstreet was nominated ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) by President Rutherford B. Hayes, a position he held until June 1881. After that, he was appointed U.S. marshal for Georgia until 1884.

The return of a Democratic administration ended Longstreet’s political career and he went into semi-retirement on a 65-acre farm near Gainesville, where he raised turkeys and planted orchards and vineyards on terraced ground that neighbors referred to jokingly as “Gettysburg.” His home in Gainesville, called Parkhill, burned to the ground in 1889. Louise Longstreet died that same year.

At the time of their marriage, James Longstreet was 76 and Helen Dortch was 34.

At the age of 76 in 1897, Longstreet married Helen Dortch, who has quite a history of her own worth reading. Only 34 when she married Longstreet, Helen lived until 1962. Together, they managed the Piedmont Hotel. On January 2, 1904, Longstreet died and was buried at Alta Vista. Louise is buried beside him. Helen is interred in the Westview Cemetery Abbey Mausoleum in Atlanta.

James Longstreet’s role in the Civil War and his later affiliation with the Republican Party is still debated to this day.

As far as I know, there are only two statues of James Longstreet in existence. One stands on the site of his former Gainesville home, Park Hill and was installed in the 1990s. The other one, installed in 1998, is at Gettysburg National Military Park and is an equestrian statue by sculptor Gary Casteel. He is shown riding his favorite horse, Hero, at ground level in a grove of trees in Pitzer Woods.

This statue of James Longstreet is located at the site of his home, Park Hill, which burned to the ground in 1889. Photo source: ExploreGeorgia.org

Longstreet is remembered in Gainesville through a few places that bear his name, including Longstreet Bridge and a portion of U.S. Route 129 that crosses the Chattahoochee River (later dammed to form Lake Lanier). Located in the restored Piedmont Hotel, the Longstreet Society is an organization and museum in Gainesville dedicated to the celebration and study of his life and career.

Next week, I’ll spend time sharing the stories of other folks buried at Alta Vista. From a circus performer to an astronaut to a poultry pioneer, there’s plenty more to discover about this special place.

The marker for Crippled Jim Smith matches his humble life as a chair mender.