I am afraid the Reconstruction of Georgia by the Yankee invaders required more time than the barely two years reported by you in the Flagpole Guide. In fact, Georgia was reconstructed three times before the Yankees tired of the game and left the job unfinished. The accompanying chronology portrays the sequence of events.

I do not consider Reconstruction over until 1952 when the ICC removed the punitive discriminatory freight rates from Georgia commerce. Following the War of Yankee Aggression the railroads, with the conivence of the Benevolent Federal Government, divided the continent into five freight rate territories.

The Offical Territory, the Yankee states east of the Mississppi, enjoyed the lowest freight rates for manufactured goods.

The Southern Territory, the Old Confederacy and Kentucky, suffered under the highest freight rates for manufactured goods.

Kentucky was being punished for declaring neutrality at the commencement of the Late Unpleasantness

The railroads contended that manufactured goods originating in the South were very expensive to transport but that raw materials destined for Yankee factories were not as difficult to transport. Yankee manufactures could ship goods from New York to Athens, Georgia cheaper than a manufacturer in Atlanta could ship the same goods to Athens.

The U.S. Supreme Court held that the rate structure was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act but the government and the ICC ruled that price fixing was allowable as long as it was voluntary.

Georgia, led by Ellis Arnall, entered the fray along. We did not have the support of a single southern state much less a non southern state. The other southern states were so used to being raped by the United States that they not only did not protest but kissed the hands of their northern masters as they were being lashed. The other southern states actively opposed equalization of freight rates.

Congressman Bulwinkle of, that freedom loving state, North Carolina actually introduced legislation to exempt railroads from antitrust laws. Georgia carried the day and the rates were equalized in 1952. Check the record to determine when industry began coming south.

Georgia remains and always will remain Unreconstructed.

Richard E. Irby, Jr.

First Reconstruction

June 17, 1865, James Johnson appointed Provisional Governor by President Johnson

June 29, 1865, Governor Joe Brown resigns.

November, 1865, Legislature and other officials elected.

December 9, 1865, Legislature ratifies 13th amendment.

December 14, 1865, Charles J. Jenkins, governor.

April 30, 1866, Joint Committee sends 14th amendment to Congress.

June 8, 1866, Congress passes 14th amendment.

November, 1866, Georgia rejects 14th amendment.

Second Reconstruction

March 2, 1867, Georgia placed under the 3rd Military district by the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867.

March 30, 1867, General John Pope arrives in Georgia to take command of the 3rd military district.

May, 1867, General Pope closes the University of Georgia.

August 5, 1867, President Johnson fires Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

December 9, 1867, Constitutional Convention meets in Atlanta. 169 total delegates. 37 Negro delegates.

January1, 1868, General Meade succeeds General Pope.

January 13, 1868, Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Ruger, Military Governor.

JANUARY 30, 1868, General George Meade removes Governor Jenkins from office. Jenkins takes $400,000 in State money, deposits it in a New York bank, hides the State Seal and flees to Nova Scotia.

March 11, 1868, Constitutional Convention adjourns.

March 13, 1868, President Johnson impeached. Acquitted by one vote on May 26.

April 20-24/21-23, 1868, Voting on new constitution.

May 11, 1868, First convicts leased in Georgia. General Thomas Ruger USA, Provisional Governor of Georgia, leases 100 able-bodied and healthy Negro convicts to William A. Fort.

July 3, 1868, Second group of 100 convicts leased to William A. Fort and Joseph J. Printup.

July 4, 1868, New legislature meets.

July 4, 1868, Rufus B. Bullock, Provisional Governor.

July 13, 1868, General Thomas Kruger appointed military governor of Georgia. Last governor to live in Milledgeville.

July 21, 1868, Georgia ratifies the 14th amendment at the point of United States bayonets.

July 22, 1868, Rufus B. Bullock, governor.

July 25, 1868, Congress approves Georgia's readmission to the United States but adjourns before Georgia's Senators could be seated.

September, 1868, Legislature expels 28 Negro members. Four are so light skinned that it is not possible to determine if they meet the 1/8 requirement and they are left along.

1868, Georgia's Representatives seated in congress.

March 10-18, 1869, legislature rejects 14th amendment

March, 1869, Georgia's Representatives barred from their seats in congress. Georgia's Senators were never seated.

June 28, 1869, Rufus B. Bullock leases Grant, Alexander and Co. all convicts in the Georgia penitentiary for two years.

November 24, 1869, Bullock and others meet to plot for the reoccupitation of Georgia by foreign forces.

Third Reconstruction

December, 1869, United States Army reoccupies Georgia. General Alfred H. Terry military governor.

January, 1870, Terry's Purge. Negroes returned to legislature and 29 whites removed.

February, 1870, Fifteenth amendment ratified at point of Terry's bayonets.

July 15, 1870, Georgia readmitted to the United States.

October, 1870, Bullock secretly resigns and flees Georgia.*

February, 1871, Georgia represented in both houses of congress.

October 30, 1871, Benjamin Conley, President of Senate and acting governor.

November 1, 1871, Democrat controlled legislature takes office.

December 14, 1871, Governor authorized to farm convicts out for not less than one year or more than two years. The lease to Grant, Alexander and Co. which had expired on June 28, 1871, is extended until April 1, 1871.

December, 1871, Special election called to replace Bullock.

January 12, 1872, James M. Smith, inaugurated as governor.

Governor Jenkins returns to Georgia with the Seal of State.

1872, United States forces evacuate Georgia. Georgia was the last State readmitted to the United States.

From the removal of Jenkins on January 30, 1868, to the inauguration of Smith on January 12. 1872, was four years lacking eighteen days of hostile foreign bayonet rule.

From the beginning of the first Reconstruction on June 17, 1865, to January 12, 1872, was six years and two hundred and nine days of hostile foreign bayonet rule.

Georgia did not frame a home rule constitution until 1877 when the danger of hostile occupation by United States forces was past.

1952 Punitive discriminory freight rates repealed

* Bullock was brought back to Georgia in chains and tried, but that is another story.

The point here is that when Bullock left Georgia he stopped at the border, stamped the dust of Georgia from his feet and vowed to never return.**

Some time in the sixties, a Ladies Garden Club discovered that Bullock was the only Chief Executive of Georgia buried in unhallowed soil and determined to bring Old Rufus back to Georgia.

They clogged up the New York courts, which was already over loaded with domestic cases, and raised such a din that Governor Rockerfeller threatened to dig Old Rufus up and drag him back to Georgia personally.

The Ladies finally produced an individual willing to admit descent from Old Rufus and the court authorized the removal of Old Rufus to Georgia immediately and post haste.

The court did not insist on the production of any signed notarized documents or examine the petitioner's credentials.

Old Rufus now rests in the Sacred Soil of Georgia and is Spinning in his Grave.

** And whosoever will not receive