June 23, 1865

1865 Over two months after Lee’s surrender, Cherokee Stand Watie became the last Confederate general to surrender his forces. Born in Georgia, Watie was the brother of Elias Boudinot, cousin of John Ridge, and nephew of Major Ridge. In 1835, all had sided with the Cherokee faction supporting removal to the West and signed the Treaty of New Echota -- for which all but Watie would be assassinated in 1839. At the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, Watie was a planter and slave-owner in the Indian Territory. He sided with the Confederacy and was commissioned as a colonel in July 1861. Watie raised a regiment known as the Cherokee Mounted Volunteers and fought in Arkansas and the Battle of Pea Ridge (Elk Horn Tavern). Because many Cherokees were loyal to the Union, Watie spent much of the rest of the war waging guerrilla warfare in the Indian Territory and adjacent states. In May 1864, he was promoted to brigadier general -- becoming the highest ranking Indian to fight in the Civil War. After the war, Watie unsuccessfully tried to rebuild his fortune. He died on Sept. 9, 1871 in Delaware County, Oklahoma. [Click here to view Stand Watie commemorative stamp.]

June 23, 1887

1887 George Scott Candler was born in Decatur, Georgia. He is best noted for his tenure as the sole commissioner of DeKalb County between 1939 and 1955. During this period, the county’s population tripled and DeKalb County went from a rural area of dairy farms to an urban county. Candler would be responsible for the provision of county-wide "municipal" services (e.g., water, sewer, police, fire protection, parks, libraries), hundreds of miles of new roads, and construction of DeKalb-Peachtree Airport.

June 23, 1933

1933 Two Fulton County deputies served Governor Eugene Talmadge with papers in a $25,000 damage suit brought by deposed state highway chairman J. W. Barnett. Talmadge publicly tore up the papers and had the deputies arrested and kept in custody for four hours.

June 23, 1996

1996 Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones got on base for the 34th consecutive game -- tying a Braves’ franchise record held by Rowland Office (1976) and David Justice (1994).

June 23, 2000

2000 The Herndon House in Atlanta, former residence of African-American entrepreneur Alonzo Herndon, was designated a National Historic Landmark.

June 23, 2003

2003 Former Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson died from a heart attack in Washington, D.C. See March 23, 1938 entry of This Day in Georgia History for biographical information.

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MAY
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Today in History

1954 Six days after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP announced it intended to follow the advice of the national … read more