26. SUTHERLAND,
1940 DeKalb Ave., NE., is the former home of General John B. Gordon,
Georgia's celebrated Confederate leader and statesman of the
Reconstruction. The present structure was erected in 1899 the site of
an earlier residence built shortly after the War between the States and
later destroyed by fire. Set far back from the street in a grove of
oaks and superb magnolias, the white clapboard house now (1942) stands
vacant, badly dilapidated but still showing in its handsome classical
facade some vestige of its former grandeur. Eight massive Ionic columns
support the second-story roof and frame the simple palladian doorway
with its overhanging balcony. The fine appearance of the interior in
its heyday is indicated by the ample proportions of the octagonal
dining room, galleried two-story reception hall, and tall French
windows. Repeated efforts have been made by civic and patriotic
organizations to secure the house and restore it as a memorial to the
famous Confederate general, but present plans are uncertain.
John B. Gordon (1832-1904) was born in Upson County in central
Georgia and attended the State University, from which he was graduated
with highest honors in the class of 1853. At the outbreak of the War
between the States he was engaged in the promotion of coal mine
activities in the mountains of northwestern Georgia. The resourceful
young man quickly organized a company of mountain men who, known as the
Raccoon Roughs, later caused excited comment in Atlanta when they
marched about in their homespun jackets and coonskin caps. This company
joined the Sixth Alabama Infantry and took vigorous part in the
Virginia campaign. Gordon, moving from one military promotion to
another, commanded a wing of General Robert E. Lee's Army at Appomattox
and at the end of the war bore the rank of lieutenant-general. Besides
Appomattox he took part in the fighting at Malvern Hill,
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, and Petersburg. Throughout
the war he was closely followed by his courageous wife, who nursed him
when he was wounded.
After peace was proclaimed he came to Atlanta, opened a law office,
and soon joined the energetic group that became known as the vanguard
of the South. With Joseph E. Brown, Henry W. Grady, and other practical
progressives he strongly advocated wholehearted return to the Union and
development of industrial resources. His handsome and eloquent presence
soon became familiar on the political scene; in 1868, in the thick of
reconstruction strife, he ran as a Democratic gubernatorial nominee
against the carpetbagger candidate, Rufus Bullock, but was defeated
because of the disfranchisement of many of his own adherents.
Constantly fighting for the end of the Northern military rule in
Georgia, he became State head of the original Ku Klux Klan, the secret
order that did much to restore white supremacy in the South. He was
elected to the United States Senate in 1873 and again in 1879 but
resigned the following year to raise funds for the Georgia Pacific
Railway. Because of his adherence to the new spirit of conciliation and
because of his extensive interest in Northern commercial developments,
he sometimes came into conflict with the conservatives, of which Robert
Toombs and Alexander H. Stephens were the chief spokesmen, and later
with the agrarian group under the leadership of the fiery Thomas E.
Watson. Nevertheless, his popularity increased; he became Governor of
Georgia in 1886, was reelected in 1888, and again went to the United
States Senate in 1890. Declining a second term, he returned to Atlanta
to devote himself to his business interests until his death in 1904.
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