Notes |
- Biographies
Excerpt from History of the Georgia Baptist Denomination in Georgia, Samuel Boykin (Paris, Arkansas: The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc., 2001) Vol. 2, 500-501.
George and Elizabeth Stewart, Primitive Baptists, and noted for strict integrity, emigrated from North Carolina to Georgia, where the subject of this sketch was born, in Fayettte county, three miles south of Jonesboro, August 2d, 1833.
Rev. J. D. Stewart was educated in country schools, except one years attendance on Marshall College, Griffin, Georgia. But from early youth he has been a close student, devoting all his leisure time to the perusal of instructive books by the best authors, and thus amassing a large amount of most useful information. In youth he was noted for sobriety and temperate habits, never in his life becoming intoxicated or using tobacco in any form. Since attaining manhood, the dominant qualities manifested by him have been a perfect strictness of integrity and an indomitable will and purpose in a just cause. The guiding maxim which has controlled all his actions is, that integrity, energy and honesty in the affairs of life will inevitably lead to success; and with him such has been the case. He has been twice elected Mayor of Griffin; he has been twice a Representative from Spalding county in the legislature, and for one session being chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and for eight years he was Judge of the Court of Ordinary for Spalding county. A lawyer by profession, as well as a minister of the Gospel, Mr. Stewart is a zealous, ardent and successful advocate for the rights and interests of his clients. He has always been a strong supporter of the cause of education, and is an active member of the Board of Trustees for the Griffin Female College, and for the Sam Bailey Male Institute. He served on the committee appointed by the Georgia Baptist Convention to select a new site for Mercer University, when that institution was removed from Penfield, and many recollect with pleasure his thrilling speech on the subject before the Convention at Newnan. For four years in succession he served as Moderator of the Flint River Association, much to the satisfaction of his brethren.
He was converted and baptized in August, 1852, and united with the Hebron church, three miles south of Jonesboro. He was ordained at Griffin, of which town he had been long a resident, in October, 1871, and has had the care of one or two churches in Spalding county ever since. So zealous, faithful and successful have been his labors, that membership of one increased from thirteen to ninety-eight in five years, and more than sixty were added to the other in less than three years. As a preacher, he speaks extemporaneously, and with the greatest ease and fluency. His style is very earnest, and at times vehement and eloquent. The habits of the bar tincture but do not detract from his pulpit delivery, while they give it refreshing force and vigor. In temperament he is ardent and sanguine, with feelings as soft, tender and delicate as a woman's, and his emotions quickly excite the sympathies of his audience, and enable him to reach and affect their hearts as well as their understandings.
In person he is six feet tall, with blue eyes and a ruddy complexion, and is disposed to corpulency. In manners, he is easy and deliberate, cordial and friendly. Truly a self-made man, he has acquired an enviable reputation by laborious study, close attention to business, and by dispensing a Christian influence over all with whom he comes in contact. He was married to Miss Susan A. Dickinson, on the 19th of December, 1855, and five children are the fruits of the union.
Excerpt from the congressional biography at http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000914
STEWART, John David, a Representative from Georgia; born near Fayetteville, Fayette County, Ga., August 2, 1833; attended the common schools and Marshall College, Griffin, Ga.; taught school two years in Griffin, Spalding County, Ga.; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1856 and commenced practice in Griffin, Ga.; probate judge of Spalding County 1858-1860; lieutenant and captain in the Thirteenth Georgia Regiment during the Civil War; member of the State house of representatives 1865-1867; studied theology; was ordained as a minister of the Baptist Church in 1871; mayor of Griffin in 1875 and 1876; judge of the superior court from November 7, 1879, to January 1, 1886, when he resigned to become a candidate for Congress; elected as a Democrat to the Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses (March 4, 1887-March 3, 1891); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1890; engaged in the practice of his profession until his death in Griffin, Ga., January 28, 1894; interment in Oak Hill Cemetery.
- Civil War Service
Company I, 13th Regiment
Spalding County
"Stark Volunteers"
Stewart, John D. -- 2nd Lieutenant - July 8, 1861. Resigned, disability, November 2, 1861. Elected Captain of Company D, 10th Regiment Georgia State Troops February 14, 1862. Mustered out May 1862. Elected 1st Lieutenant of Company K, 6th Regiment Georgia State Guards Infantry August 4, 1863; Captain September 19, 1863. Roll for January 31, 1864, last on file, shows him present. No later record.
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ga/spalding/military/civilwar/rosters/coi13.txt
GEORGIA 13TH INFANTRY REGIMENT
HISTORICAL NOTES:
Mustered into service, July 8, 1861 at Griffin, GA, served with Floyd's Brigade in West Virginia, reassigned to Lawton's Brigade at Savannah, arriving January 1, 1862, reorganized May 1862. The Lawton-Gordon-Evans Georgia Brigade (so-named for its three principal commanders) was one of the premier brigades of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, serving with distinction from the Seven Days battles around Richmond (May-June 1862) until its surrender at Appomattox Court House (April 9, 1865). The brigade was initially comprised of six regiments (13th, 26th, 31st, 38th, 60th, and 61st Georgia), which were raised at the call of Governor Joe Brown for the defense of the Georgia coast following the bombardment of Fort Sumter. The 13th Georgia had initially mustered into Confederate service on July 8, 1861 and served briefly with Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd's brigade in West Virginia, seeing minor action at the Battles of Sewell Mountain and Laurel Hill before being returned to Georgia due to sickness and lack of clothing suitable for the harsh winter climate in the West Virginia mountains. While on coastal duty, they engaged in a number of skirmishes, including the capture of a gunboat that afterwards bore their name and a brush-up with the 8th Michigan on Whitemarsh Island, Georgia on April 16, 1862. The six regiments were placed under the command of Brig. Gen. Alexander Lawton, commander of the Georgia Military District, who had proposed formation of an "elite brigade" of Georgia troops to answer Richmond's call for troops to repel the threat posed by McClellan's advance from Williamsburg on the Confederate capital (i.e. the Peninsula Campaign). In May 1862, the six regiments, which mustered between 6,000-7000 men, were moved by train to Lynchburg and the Shenandoah Valley to re-enforce Stonewall Jackson as part of a deception planned by General Lee to mask his planned offensive against McClellan's forces around Richmond.
BATTLES:
Malvern Hill (July 1, 1862); Bristoe Station (August 27, 1862); Groveton (or Brawner's Farm) (August 28, 1862); Second Manassas (or Bull Run) (August 29-30, 1862); Antietam (or Sharpsburg) (September 17,1862); Fredericksburg (December 13, 1862); Chancellorsville (April 29-5, 1863); Wincester (2nd Battle of) (June 13-15, 1863); York & Wrightsville (June 28-29, 1863); Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863); Mine Run Campaign (Skirmishes of Nov. 26-Dec 2, 1863); Wilderness (May 5-6, 1864); Spotsylvania Court House (May 10-12, 1864); Monocacy (July 9, 1864); Winchester (3rd Battle of)(or Opequon Creek) (Sept. 19, 1864); Fisher's Hill (September 22, 1864); Cedar Creek (October 19, 1864); Hatcher's Run (Feb. 5-7,. 1865); Hares Hill (Fort Steadman) (March 25, 1865); and Appomattox Court House (April 9, 1865)
ROSTERS:
Company A - Confederate Guards (Pike County)
Company B - Meriwether Volunteers (Meriwether and Troup Counties)
Company C - Ringgold Rangers (Ringgold, Georgia and Catoosa County)
Company D - Upson Volunteers (Upson County)
Company E - Randolph Volunteers (Randolph and Terrell Counties)
Company F - Fayette Rangers (Fayette County)
Company G - Early Guards (Early County)
Company H - Panola Rifles (Terrell County)
Company I - Stark Volunteers (Spalding County)
Company K - Evans Guards (Troup County)
http://www.researchonline.net/gacw/unit49.htm
- Obituary
John D. Stewart died Sunday evening at eight o'clock. After a prolonged illness of eight months from the terrible scourge Bright's disease, Judge Stewart's life passed peacefully and unconsciously away...He was insured for $13,000...Most, if not all, of the insurance goes to his wife...He was born in Fayette County, three miles south of Jonesboro, on August 2d, 1833. His ancestors came from North Carolina and settled in Georgia...He worked on his father's farm and attended what is known as the old field school until he was nineteen. At that age he entered Marshall College, a then noted institution in this city, and had the advantage of one year's college education. He taught school for one year and then read law and was admitted to practice in August, 1856...He was in the Confederate army for a short time and was 1st lieutenant in a company in the 13th Georgia Regiment...Judge Stewart was married December 1855, to Miss Susan A. Dickenson, who has been his long faithful and loving companion. Three sons and two daughters blessed their union, all living in Griffin...
The Griffin Weekly News and Sun, February 2, 1894, reproduced at Fred R. Hartz and Emilie K. Hartz, Marriage and Death Notices From the Griffin (Georgia) Weekly News and The Griffin Weekly News and Sun, 1882-1896 (Vidalia, Georgia: The Gwendolyn Press), 270.
|