“Following the fight at Lovejoy, four of my company were cut off from our forces and given lively chace (sic) for some two or three miles. One of the four was killed, another captured.”
Thus begins an account of Confederate soldiers tearing across the country after in an encounter around Lovejoy Station, GA, in 1864. Written fifty-five years later by Robert Duncan Hawkins, the rousing account awakens the imagination so you can almost hear thumping hoof beats. Hawkins, who joined the cavalry at age 17, doesn’t indicate which fight at Lovejoy though clues indicate the 16 November action there.
“Paul Bryan and I barely escaped, he on his horse, which was more fleet than mine; I jumped from my horse and dodged into a thicket just in time to escape,” wrote Hawkins. “… After the chace I set out to get back to my company and found the camp late in the night, after another narrow escape from capture. By order of my Captain E. P. Bedell I proceeded on foot to Macon, along with the waggon (sic) train. At Macon, the company again present, we drew rations and while eating, a few shells from Sherman’s army made it necessary for immediate action. Our captain ordered those of us who were dismounted, to recross the river on the pontoon bridge, which we did with the waggon train.”
Camped near the river (presumably the Ocmulgee) with poor provisions for the cold, the men were anxious, and some “proved to be very much of a mob.” Continued Hawkins: “If any orders or report came from our command I knew nothing of it. Of course we were restless. We knew that a few men were left in our former camp at Athens, where we might fare better in winter weather.” Without “orders or permission from anyone” four headed towards Athens via Milledgeville. The one on horse left the three on foot who found out their lieutenant was at his home. “We went at once to him and gave a full account of ourselves,” wrote Hawkins. “He sent us home to clean up, for we needed it badly, and to report at Gainesville where he could keep in touch with us.” In days, Hawkins was among a squad organized by Dr. T. C. Gower and sent to North Georgia to suppress bushwhackers.
How did a nice youth like Hawkins get into a hotbed of politics and war like that? Born at Haynesville, Lowndes County, AL, on 8 May 1846 to Wilbert Ashley Hawkins and wife Amanda Melvina Mayne, Hawkins had largely grown up with his maternal grandparents in Hall County, GA. Records show Hawkins enlisted on 2 April 1864 at Mossy Creek Campground in White County, a Methodist revival meeting place near Skitt Mountain where a park/camping area is today. He probably enlisted with the 30th battalion Georgia Volunteer Cavalry, formed in May 1864. That battalion consolidated with four other companies on 14 November 1864, and the resulting formation was the 11th Georgia Cavalry Regiment; Hawkins was in Company B, also known as the Chattahoochee Rangers and Chattahoochee Mounted Infantry. Eleventh Georgia Cavalry members were issued Cook & Brother carbines during the unit’s organization in Athens, and the regiment was assigned to the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Though the major part of the regiment went on to fight (and many to die) in Georgia and South Carolina, some details were dispatched to the mountains of Northeast Georgia and East Tennessee to diminish the actions and impact of bushwhackers, federal raiders, and Union sympathizers. Writing in 1920, Hawkins mentioned Lieutenant Gilmer, Capt. Trammell, and Findley’s Regiment though he does not otherwise identify these men. Many—maybe most—of those in the 11th Cavalry were teen-agers, and it is worth noting soldiers detailed to this mountain duty often were involved in brutal partisan encounters. These young men were impacted for life.
When the war ended, 18-year-old Robert Hawkins surrendered and was paroled with others at Kingston, GA. Like soldiers nationwide, Hawkins gladly took the road toward home; for him that was the farm where he grew up with his maternal grandparents in Hall County. His paternal grandparents had been William Eaton Hawkins and Permelia Carr Duncan who moved from Greenville, SC, to southwest Missouri; there they raised a family of eight sons and three daughters. Hawkins’ father, Wilbert Ashley, was the third of those children and found his way to Georgia to sell goods for an uncle, John E. Brown. Wilbert met Amanda Mayne, daughter of Matthew and Elizabeth Buckner Mayne who had moved to Hall County from Morgan County in 1839. Wilbert and Amanda married in 1843 and soon after Robert Duncan was born the couple moved to Alabama. There Amanda died after the birth of their second child. For unexplained reasons, Wilbert Hawkins returned to Missouri, leaving his two young children with his in-laws. Wilbert married two more times and fathered sons and daughters with each additional wife so that in total he had a dozen children.
Meanwhile, Robert Hawkins turned 19 on 8 May and, once home began working the farm with his grandfather, then about 74 years old. He was soon warming the seats of a Baptist church again, too. Both sides of the family were apparently Baptist which meant when Hawkins answered the bugle call he went with that training to sustain him. A connecting strand of Baptist affiliation ran through Hawkins’ ancestors at least to his paternal great-grandparents, William Eaton and Catherine Bolling Hawkins, who were buried at Reedy River Baptist Church cemetery in Travelers Rest near Greenville, SC. On the day he was racing for his life on a slow horse in Clayton County, GA, Hawkins probably invoked every bit of prayer life he knew in a desperate attempt to flee, hide, and live to fight another day. A biographer called Hawkins “a veteran of two wars”—that one where he served in Wheeler’s Cavalry and the holy war of a Christian. Likely, it was no surprise in August 1866 when Hawkins joined a local church.
Besides getting married in 1870 to Martha Ann McMillan and furthering his education by attending a year at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, in the years after the war Hawkins shared his knowledge by teaching English grammar “in institutes where (less educated) brethren were gathered.” He farmed, too, because initially he and Martha lived with Grandfather Mayne. U.S. Census records show Martha kept house while the men, as well as a 12-year-old Leander Hawkins, worked the fields. In January 1879 the farming ended as Hawkins was ordained by Amy’s Creek Church in Habersham County with a presbytery of Dr. A. F. Underwood, and Reverends J. P. Osborne, H. H. Harris, Green Trotter, and Samuel Byers.
The 1880 Census shows Robert and Martha Hawkins as boarders with Henry and Cintha Brownlow in Mossy Creek community. The Brownlows, who were farmers, were a little younger than the Hawkinses and had two daughters. When 1900 rolled around, the Hawkinses had a home in Toccoa in Habersham County; living with them were Uncle John J. Mayne and a niece, Clara Brown, 12. At the next national census, Robert and Martha Hawkins, then 64 and 65 years old respectively, were boarding with Hannah C. Bennett and her four children in Quillians, Hall County. Before 1920, Martha died and Robert moved in with his sister, Elizabeth Millicent Rives, and her daughter and two grandchildren; two boarders lived with them. Tracing these records it is easy to see the family lived inter-generationally much of Robert's life, probably from financial necessity and for companionship. Robert and Martha lived as boarders and took in boarders during a time when extra income was a boost and apartment rentals were non-existent in rural areas.
As a Christian and as a minister Hawkins was mentored by his brother-in-law, well-known orator and preacher John E. Rives. Hawkins called Rives a “spiritual father” to the family. One of Hawkins’ half-brothers, William Benjamin Hawkins, became a Baptist preacher in South Carolina. Baptist life did seem to engulf the family, and the nature of the maturing indicates it was preferable to that early life in the military saddle. Robert Hawkins served in Chattahoochee, Clarksville, Sarepta, and Tugalo Baptist associations in Georgia, and some of the Georgia churches he served were Academy, Amy’s Creek, Blue Creek, Candler’s Creek, Center Grove, Clarksville, Concord, Damascus, Gillsville, Harmony, Level Grove, Line, Maysville, Mount Airy, Nails Creek, New Holland, Oconee, Toccoa, and Webb’s Creek. His South Carolina churches were at Little River, First Creek, and Williamston. In 1888 Hawkins preached the sermon organizing Clarkesville Baptist Church, and when he was called as pastor in 1893 Hawkins was given $50 per year in salary. During the Centennial session of Sarepta Baptist Association—held at Maysville Church in 1899—Hawkins presented a fifth of the history of the organization, focusing on “The Present Aspect of Missions.”
Robert and his two wives--Martha McMillan and Letha Ethel McKinney--gave themselves tirelessly to the churches Hawkins pastored for five-plus decades and to his role as superintendent of the Georgia Baptist Orphans Home in Hapeville. He and his first wife were known to sing in the evenings as they enjoyed their latter years. After Martha died, Hawkins (on 21 December 1921 in Spartanburg, SC) married one who, much like himself, was devoted to helping people whose lives were in “constant struggle for existence.” Letha Hawkins was a “constant inspiration” to others as she worked actively in state missions, in developing women’s contributions to Baptist life and missions, and in a home for motherless children in South Carolina. The widow of W. W. Finley, Letha Finley Hawkins is buried by her first husband in Landrum, SC.
After an equally self-sacrificing life, Hawkins—like many veterans of the 1860s war—entered old age financially drained. In 1919 and 1920 he made applications for a pension and sought confirmation of his service to gain that recompense. Given that it was fifty-five years past, Hawkins was hard-pressed to find men to vouch for him. “Doubtless some are living who were in that service but I do not know who or where they are,” he wrote. “So I can’t find any one who ‘of his own personal knowledge’ can give the testimony you require.” He had a letter from two siblings of the man who recruited him for bushwhacking duty and letters from a soldier paroled with him and two he served with. Hawkins summarized: “I have stated facts … I want the pension, I need it. If I can’t get it on the truth, I won’t lie to get it. I put the matter in the hands of those who know me and will cheerfully abide the decission (sic).” The pension was granted.
When he died on 22 February 1934 at age 87, Hawkins’ obituary extolled him as “one of the most loyal veterans of the cross,” a distinguished Confederate veteran, a writer of “helpful tracts” distributed without charge, and one who contributed to the “educational advancement of the community and section.” Said the writer: “In the city of Gainesville, where most of his beautiful life was spent, he has left a good name which is better than great riches. The Index extends the sympathies of the brotherhood to his loved ones.” B. J. W. Graham in Baptist Biography described Hawkins as “a man with a golden heart” who took every opportunity offered for furthering his education and sharing what he knew with others. “R. D. Hawkins is a man of high moral worth and noble spirit,” said Dr. Graham. “His greatness of spirit has been exemplified n the unselfish zeal he has shown for the larger cause. To gratify a selfish ambition, seek an advantage, or nurse a whim, has never appealed to him.”
When he died, Hawkins was memorialized by the Chattahoochee Baptist Association which set aside 30 minutes for “special thought” to his lifelong services during the 10-11 October 1934 meeting.
Hawkins was buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery in Cornelia, GA, with the Veterans Service Office spending $100 on burial expense because Hawkins “left no widow and no estate of any kind or value sufficient to pay the expenses of last illness and funeral.” Going home from the war was only the beginning of living with the impact the war had on his state. Little could he have known when he got his parole that seventy years later he would be buried with funds coming to him because of a year of military service he gave as a teen-age boy.
Compiled by Arlette Camp Copeland, Special Collections, Mercer University Tarver Library
Sources:
“Battle of Lovejoy’s Station,” Wikipedia
“Hawkins,” The Christian Index, 30 August 1928, 31
.
“R. D. Hawkins,” The Christian Index, 22 March 1934, 11.
Confederate Soldier’s (Pension) Application for Robert D. Hawkins
Application for Payment of Expenses of Last Illness and Funeral for Robert Duncan Hawkins
Certificate of Death, Georgia State Board of Health, Robert Duncan Hawkins
“Robert Duncan Hawkins,” Baptist Biography, volume II, edited by B. J. W. Graham, 138-141.
Seventy Years in Clarkesville Baptist Church, Mary L. Church, 1.
History of the Sarepta Baptist Association 1799-1999, 87.
1934 Chattahoochee Baptist Association Minutes, 20.
Robert Duncan Hawkins biographical file, Mercer University Tarver Library Special Collections, Macon, GA.
