Two thirds of Stoneman’s troopers cut their way out and escaped to Gwinnett County, while Stoneman and the rest of his command became Confederate prisoners of war at Sunshine Church.  Upon learning the reason for Stoneman’s cavalry raid, a decision was made to move the Federal prisoners at Andersonville.  In October of 1864, a new prison was constructed off the Georgia Central Railroad above Millen, Georgia.  The prison camp was named Camp Lawton after the Georgia born Confederate General Alexander Lawton, who was the quartermaster general of the Confederacy.

In early December of 1864, General William T. Sherman’s Army of Georgia marched from Tennille and Sandersville along the Georgia Central Railroad to Millen, where they liberated the prisoners, and then destroyed this prison camp.  Major George Ward Nichols, in his book, The Story of the Great March, described the prison camp as a “hideous prison-pen”, which consisted of a “space of ground about three hundred feet square, enclosed by a stockade, without any covering whatsoever.”  The compound held around 10,000 Union prisoners of war.  The prisoners there were exposed to the elements without any covering whatsoever.  The prisoners were exposed to heavy dews, biting frosts, and pelting rains without any form of shelter.

Nichols stated that there was not so much as a board or a tent in the entire enclosed stockade.  He also stated that several prisoners had dug holes in the ground for their shelter.  He also stated that Sherman’s soldiers found evidence that over 750 Union prisoners had died there, on account of the wretched living conditions.  The prison camp was destroyed by Sherman’s troops after the prisoners were liberated.

In Major Henry Hitchcock’s book, Marching With Sherman, Major Hitchcock describes a scene at the hotel in Millen, where recently liberated Union prisoners of war from Camp Lawton attempted to purchase food at the dining room of the hotel, but were refused service by the proprietor.  These same soldiers then promptly set fire to the hotel, and burned it down.

In 2009, a 36 year old graduate student from Georgia Southern University named Kevin Chapman was offered a chance to find the exact location of Camp Lawton.  He conducted a controlled dig with state archaeologists at Magnolia Springs State Park above Millen.  In December of 2009, Chapman and his professor dug up stained soil which indicated the location of the 15 foot high pine posts used to form the walls of the prison.  They then found where the walls joined, and then excavated ground inside the walls of the stockade location, where they found artifacts such as horseshoes, uniform buttons, pipes, and eating utensils.  This discovery has stunned most state archaeologists, who had concluded that because Camp Lawton had not been in existence long before it was destroyed, that there would be little archaeological evidence left to find.

Now the prison site has been discovered and excavated, and the physical evidence of this prison can now be viewed by visitors at the Magnolia State Park near Millen.  The Associated Press and the Atlanta Journal Constitution have recently reported the success of Mr. Chapman’s archaeological find in east Georgia.  This was just another stop along General William T. Sherman’s historic March to the Sea.

Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.

He is the author of The Unionist,  A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. Both are available at  Amazon.com, and Barnes&Noble.com. You may email him at sharrell@comsouth.net.

A group of so-called conservative U.S. Senators, including Jon Kyl of Arizona, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have joined with some U.S. Congressmen, including John Boehner, to call for a repeal of the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  These politicians are pimping themselves out to pander to a select group of voters.  As a student of constitutional law, I am appalled by this suggestion, and believe that such talk should be squashed at once.

The 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted by the Congress on July 9, 1868.  It is one of the post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendments.  The 14^th Amendment contains several important clauses.  The Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Supreme Court decision of Dred Scott vs. Sandford  (1857), which held that black slaves could not become citizens of the United States.

Its Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving people of life, liberty, and property without due process of law.  Its Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all persons within its jurisdiction.

Section 1 {the Citizenship Clause} states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black was considered by many to be the only “strict constructionist” to ever sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.  He argued that the 14^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution “incorporated” all of the rights contained in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, and made those rights apply to state and local governments.  This man was no judicial activist, in any sense of that word.  He instead believed in a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and its amendments.  In reviewing this issue, we should defer to the wisdom of Justice Hugo Black, considered by many to be one of the great Supreme Court Justices of the 20^th Century.

His view of the constitution was recently reinforced in the recent U.S. Supreme Court case involving the Second Amendment.  Justice Alito, writing for the court in McDonald vs. City of Chicago, 08-1521, specifically held that the 14^th Amendment makes the Second Amendment right to bear arms fully applicable to the states.  In other words, our rights under the Second Amendment apply on a state level, because they are incorporated by the rights granted under the 14^th Amendment, as it applies to each of the states.

Where would we be without the 14^th Amendment?  Well, cities and states could ban the possession of handguns within their jurisdictions.  State and local governments could make public safety personnel work extra hours without paying them one dime of overtime pay.  State and local governments could rezone property using arbitrary or capricious procedures, and pay little or nothing to homeowners for the value of the land.  We would still have the county unit system in statewide elections in Georgia if the 14^th Amendment did not exist.  Public employees working for state or local governments could be terminated without cause if the 14^th Amendment did not exist.  Without the 14^th Amendment, prosecutors could violate a defendant’s right against self incrimination, and a defendant’s other rights in state criminal trials.  Without the 14^th Amendment, a private citizen’s property can be garnished or seized by a creditor before trial without a legal and fair hearing on the question of seizure.  These are some of the hundreds of examples I can give you on this topic.

Do we really want to repeal the 14^th Amendment, and turn back the clock on over 100 years of progress in our society?  I don’t believe so.

If these so-called conservative politicians want to really do something about illegal immigration in this country, they should get off their backsides and draft an immigration bill that actually works for America.  They should stop taking money from all of the fat cat contractors, poultry and meat packing companies, and agribusiness people that routinely employ undocumented workers.  They take campaign money from the groups that routinely exploit undocumented labor, and yet they squawk the most about illegal immigration in this country.  These guys are nothing less than hypocrites.

Instead of repealing the one single constitutional amendment that touches the very lives of every person in the U.S., these misguided politicians should roll up their sleeves and draft an immigration bill with teeth in it.  They need to stop the pandering, and stop misleading the public about the one document that guarantees that every person in this country will be treated fairly and equally, and that is our U.S. Constitution.

Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.

He is the author of The Unionist,  A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. Both are available at  Amazon.com, and Barnes&Noble.com. You may email him at sharrell@comsouth.net.

The voter turnout in recent primary elections in Georgia was miserable, at less than 20% of the registered voters.  Some really qualified candidates got shut out of runoff elections because many of their supporters stayed home, or voted in the opposite party primary.  Max Wood, running for attorney general, and Terry Coleman, running for labor commissioner, are two of the candidates that got shut out of runoff elections.

Our primary system is a relic of the old white Democratic primary of over 100 years ago.  In 1917, the State of Georgia introduced the county unit system, which awarded statewide elections to a candidate that got a majority of county unit votes, as opposed to the popular vote.  It diluted the voting strength of city voters, and counties such as Fulton County.  The county unit system allowed candidates such as Gene Talmadge to be elected governor without winning the statewide popular vote.  This system was declared unconstitutional  by the U.S. Supreme Court 1963 in the case of Gray vs. Sanders.

That ruling held that the county unit system violated the 14^th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, because the system violated the principle of “one man, one vote.”.

We have a closed primary system in Georgia.  In order to vote in the primary, you must first declare a party affiliation.  You then declare a party affiliation, and then you are locked off on your ballot from voting for candidates affiliated with the other party.  That keeps many voters at home.  Who wants to venture out in 100 degree weather to vote on a ballot when you are offered a choice of a small slate of candidates?  This primary system is set up wrong, and it is broken.  Year after year, politicos and the printed news media blame Georgia voters for the low turnout in primary elections.  What you hear over and over again is voter apathy.  They are looking at a symptom of a problem, as opposed to understanding what the problem is, and fixing it.  The voters are not turning out to vote in primary elections because the current system locks them off from making a choice from the entire array of candidates available.   Instead of blaming voters for the low turnout, maybe the news media should blame the sorry system Georgia has in place for primary elections.

What can be done to make the system better?  Well first, the primaries should be moved to September, when the weather is cooler.  Secondly, Georgia should abolish its closed primary system, and allow voters to vote for any candidate in any party, no matter what.  We now have electronic voting machines in this state, and the machines can tally votes for each candidate regardless of party affiliation.  Our voting equipment is in the 21^st Century, and our primary system should be updated to match the equipment the voters are currently using.  These two changes alone will boost voter turnout.  If runoff elections are required, they should be held in October, just ahead of the general elections in November.

In addition, all local races for county offices, executive, legislative, and judicial, should be non-partisan.  There is no Democratic way to pave a street, and there is no Republican way to collect the trash.  Local races should never be decided on party affiliation, but on the personal ability of each candidate for local office. If local candidates were required to run on their qualifications and ability rather than their party affiliation, the election system would weed out the poor candidates up front.  Our General Assembly should pass the legislation needed to make these changes in our primary system.  The system is beyond broken, and it is in dire need of repair.  Will the General Assembly make these changes?  Probably not, because the political parties enjoy running the show, while their candidates only answer to a small number of registered voters.  Maybe it is also time to get some new blood with new ideas into the General Assembly, and fix many of the things that are wrong with our voting system.

Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.

He is the author of The Unionist,  A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. Both are available at  Amazon.com, and Barnes&Noble.com. You may email him at sharrell@comsouth.net.