| MAJOR WILLIAM BRITTON HUNDLEY, II |
William Britton Hundley was born in 1793 in Halifax County, Virginia. He migrated to Georgia around 1810 and settled in the Sanders District of Warren County, now McDuffie County. On 22 November 1827 he married Lilly Ann Shivers. William Britton Hundley, II was born in 1828, the first of three boys.
William Hundley, the elder, managed the Sweetwater Inn and gristmill on 438 acres of land. He eventually purchased the Inn and it became known as “Hundley’s Station.” It was located on Sweetwater Creek and the Augusta-Milledgeville stagecoach route. The Sweetwater Inn is entered on the National Register of Historic Places and still stands today.
William Britton Hundley, II married Mary Tallulah Jennings on 26 July 1849 in Warren County. Together they had two children but both died as infants. Mary died 16 June 1854. William next married Mary Elizabeth Jones, daughter of Dr. James Spann Jones and Susan Ann Butt, in 1856 at the Hardaway Plantation in Thomson. William and Mary had five children that lived to become adults.
The 1860 census of Warren County shows William and Mary with their children living in the village of Warrenton. It lists William’s occupation as merchant and shows him having $2,500 in real estate assets and $23,000 in personal assets along with one slave, Bonner Jones, a waiting boy, age 25. Clearly, William was quite successful.
With the outbreak of hostilities, William joined the McDuffie Riflemen, the first volunteer unit formed in Warrenton on 8 May 1861.The company left that day for Macon and was mustered into the Confederate Army as Company D to the Fifth Georgia Infantry Regiment under the command of Colonel John K. Jackson. The four officers included Captain Edward Pottle, 1st Lieut. James Shivers, 2nd Lieut. William Hundley, and 3rd Lieut. Llewellyn Nelms.
The unit went from Macon to Pensacola, Fl and sustained their greatest loss of men in a skirmish on Santa Rosa Island on 9 October 1861. Company D went to Mississippi joining the Army of the Tennessee, participating in all major battles including the Corinth campaign. On May 8, 1862 Hundley was promoted to captain.
After the Atlanta campaign, Company D, Fifth Georgia was ordered to the coast and reported to General Joseph Johnston for those final campaigns. On 14 September 1864 Hundley was promoted to Major and made a staff officer. He surrendered his regiment at Durham Station, North Carolina 26 April 1865. (The Fifth Georgia battle flag is on display at the Augusta Museum of History.)
Major William Hundley survived the war. On the 1870 census, he and his wife Mary are shown living in Thomson with his father-in-law, Dr. Jones. Major Hundley is without profession indicating he probably was not capable of work due to his war injuries. The Major died 30 November 1870 from a fit of apoplexy (cerebral stroke). He was in a pharmacist shop in Columbus, Georgia purchasing medicine. He is buried in the Old Warrenton Cemetery in Warrenton, Georgia.
Respectfully submitted,
Tom Holley
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Edward Pottle was born 17 JUL 1822 in St. Mary’s, Georgia to John Pottle and Sarah Tate. John Pottle was originally from Newfoundland where he had been a shipbuilder. Edward Pottle had attended the University of Georgia in Athens where he had studied law and had married Evelyn Americus Jennings, the sister of Mary Tallulah Jennings who had married William Britton Hundley and the sister of Clara Americus Jennings who had married Thomas Shivers Hundley, brother of William Britton Hundley. Pottle had settled in Warrenton where by 1850 he was practicing law. It is interesting to note that Pottle was living in the town of Warrenton just above the Warrenton Hotel where Joseph Wasden and several other of the original group in the McDuffie Rifles lived. He was an attorney as was Wasden and William Hundley had served several terms as a judge in the inferior court. It is safe to conclude that all of these men not only knew each other but were very close. Both Hundley brothers lived on the other side of the Warrenton Hotel with their families.
Pottle’s first wife Evelyn Americus Jennings died young in 1856 two years after her sister Mary Tallulah Jennings, wife of William Hundley, died. In 1857, Pottle married Mary Virginia Hudson in 1857.
After the northern invasion, Pottle was instrumental in organizing the first troops from Warren County, the McDuffie Rifles, and became it’s initial commanding officer on 11 May 1861. He led the company from Warren County to Macon where it was augmented into the 5th Georgia Infantry as Company D and from there to Pensacola where they received training before being exposed to their first actual combat at Fort Pickens (Santa Rosa Island), FL on 9 Oct 1861. It was here that they had their first casualties including Lt. Nelms and James S. Jones, brother in law of Major Hundley.
As the McDuffie Rifles were established early in the war, they were committed for only a twelve month period. At the end of this term, Pottle resigned his commission and left the McDuffie Rifles on 8 May 1862. Later, on 4 August 1863, he would enlist as a private in Company F, 7th Battalion of the Georgia State Guards Calvary. At this time he ran for and was elected to the Georgia Legislature and was discharged from military service on 5 Jan 1864.
Following the war Pottle continued in politics and the practice of law and was elected a Superior Court Judge in 1880. During the war, Pottle may not have been a hero but certainly became one later. He was loyal to the south and the people of
his state. After the war Georgia was marshaled by federal troops and her war worn citizens were submitted to every indignity and persecution that could be devised and heaped upon them by the blood thirsty mob in command. After the war, General Mead was made military Governor of Georgia. He offered Pottle a retainer fee of $5,000 to prosecute Ku Klux Klan members. Pottle refused and afterwards told General Mead that he would defend his countrymen without charge. About this time there was a Yankee regiment stationed in Warrenton and its officers were invested the authority to manage the affairs of the county. They appointed a military sheriff and arrested the civil sheriff of the county. Pottle and Dr. Robert Wallace Hubert, ordinary of the county and the father of Lt. George Robert Wallace Hubert a member of the McDuffie Rifles who was killed at Chickamauga, invaded the Yankee camp and after a stormy scene in which their lives were threatened they secured the release of the sheriff.
He served as the Master of the Masonic Lodge in Warrenton.
Written and provided by:
Mr. Ben Willingham, Jacksonville, Florida
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On the 7th of November 1850, Thomas C. Williams a 23 years old young man from North Carolina married Temperance Howell in Warren County, Georgia. They resided in the hamlet of Warrenton where he worked as a carpenter. By 1861, the couple had four small children.
With the outbreak of hostilities, the McDuffie Riflemen became the first volunteer unit formed in Warren County on 8 May 1861. Thomas Williams was among those to join as a private. The company left Warrenton that day for Macon where they were mustered into the service of the Confederacy. They were assigned as Company D, to the 5th Georgia Infantry Regiment under Colonel John K. Jackson.
The unit traveled from Macon to Pensacola, Florida and sustained their first losses in a skirmish on Santa Rosa Island on 9 October 1861. Six soldiers of the McDuffie Riflemen were killed and many others wounded. From Pensacola, Company D went to Mississippi joining the Army of Tennessee, participating in the Corinth Campaign during April, May, and June 1862.
From Shiloh, Company D moved north to Murfreesboro and was involved in the battle from 31 December 1862 to 3 January 1863. The 5th Georgia Regiment lost 37% of its men engaged at Murfreesboro. After Murfreesboro, Company D was involved in the Tullahoma Campaign during June and July 1863 and continued on to Chattanooga where they were involved in the initial battle on 21 August and continued with the siege from September to November 1863. This was the opening battle of the Chickamauga Campaign which occurred 18-20 September 1863 and ended with the Battle of Chattanooga 23-25 November 1863. At Chickamauga, the regiment lost 55% of the 317 men engaged.
The Atlanta Campaign followed the Union victory at Chattanooga and the 5th Georgia Infantry was involved in the numerous battles leading to Atlanta. Following the fall of Atlanta, Company D was ordered to the coast in July 1864. From 31 December 1864 Thomas Williams was on detached service as a courier for General Jackson until he was ordered to rejoin the company on 3 April 1865.
Company D participated under General Joseph Johnston in the final campaign in the Carolinas. Major William Hundley surrendered the 5th Georgia Regiment to General Sherman on 26 April 1865 at Durham Station, Orange County, North Carolina. The regiment was paroled at Greensboro, North Carolina 1 May 1865.
Finally, at home again, Thomas was once more earning a living as a carpenter. Soon he also worked as a constable in Warren County. He took the oath of office 11 May 1869. It seems that his primary duty was to overseer juries when they were sequestered overnight.
Thomas and Tempe had their final child, Mamie Williams born 21 September 1874. Soon afterwards, Tempe passed away. Thomas Williams married to Narcissa Harbuck in 1883.
Thomas C. Williams is the great-great grandfather of both compatriots Bill Berry and Jimmy McDaniel. Bill and Jim have searched for Thomas’s final resting place for years. Finally, in April 2007 they located it in the Sallie Hill Cemetery in Warrenton. Like so many others the gravestone reads the final epitaph and crowning moment for thousands of Southern young patriots:
Thomas Williams
Co. D, 5th GA, CSA
Lest we forget; lest we forget.
- Respectfully submitted
- Tom Holley
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