DeKalb History Center Now Offering Decatur Civil War Walking Tour

This sounds pretty darn cool…

Beginning Oct. 7, 2014 the DeKalb History Center, located in the historic DeKalb County courthouse in Decatur, will offer Civil War walking tours in downtown Decatur. The cost is $10 for adults, $6 for children ages 6-18, and free for children 5 and under. The tours are scheduled at various times and they begin and end in the lobby of the Historic DeKalb Courthouse. Please call 404-373-1088 extension 20 for information or visit www.dekalbhistory.org.

The tour familiarizes participants with the early history of the county, the effects of the war on the civilian population in DeKalb, the Atlanta campaign, and the Battle of Decatur. The hour-long tour complements the History Center’s new exhibit, Tears and Curses: A Human Perspective on the Civil War. “Our research for the exhibit yielded so much fascinating material that we wanted to share some of this additional information with the public,” said Jenny Goldemund, Programs and Preservation Coordinator for the History Center. Accordingly, the tour uses photographs, letters, diaries, newspapers, meeting minutes and other documents to show how people thought and felt about the war and the events around them. “The tour has a personal feel because of the local sources used” said Goldemund, “I think people will enjoy the tour and learn a lot.”

The tour highlights civilians who lived in the Decatur area during the Civil War. Benjamin Swanton was a successful businessman from Maine who had come to Georgia during the Dahlonega gold rush. A landowner of property stretching from Marshal Street to Adair Street and south to the railroad, Swanton operated a grist mill, tannery, machine shop, and brickyard. He and his wife evacuated Decatur during the war, but his son became a Confederate soldier and his house, which now stands on West Trinity in Decatur, had a cellar that was used as a shelter when the town was at the center of a battle.

One of the people who emerged from the safety of Swanton’s cellar after the the Battle of Decatur in 1864 was a young lady named Elizabeth Morton, who was a school teacher. She happened upon the body of a young Union soldier who had just been killed, was able to identify him, and corresponded with his parents in Ohio. She sent them a lock of their son’s hair and wrote a poem attempting to comfort them. After the war, the young man’s parents came to Decatur to claim their son’s remains. “A girl like Elizabeth Morton defies categories because, although from a staunchly Confederate family, she had tremendous compassion for a Union family she didn’t know,” said Goldemund.

Mary Gay was a young unmarried woman who lived with her mother, sister and brother when the war started. Gay wrote an account of the war based on her diary telling of events and how people survived. For example, Gay and several women from Decatur walked to Atlanta almost daily after the surrender of the city to dig Minie balls out of the ground and exchange them for food. The Mary Gay House is now located on West Trinity next to the Swanton House.

Another story that illustrates the complexities of the time is that of Roderick Badger, the son of an enslaved woman and a white plantation owner. Mr. Badger was a dentist who, early in the war, worked as an assistant to Milton Candler, who was a captain in the State Guard and whose law office was on the Decatur Square. Mr. Badger evacuated to Chicago during the latter part of the war, but because he had a highly successful practice on Peachtree Street in Atlanta and he owned valuable land, he returned to Atlanta after the war.

Photo courtesy of the DeKalb History Center