Looking Back

With the coming of the 150th anniversary of America's Civil War, people who haven't given that conflict the time of day since high school now are doing imaginary time travel to get a glimpse of life in those olden days.

In that vein, think of yourself in Georgia's Hall and Gwinnett counties on Saturday, 24 August 1861.

On that day, Archibald Harrison Holland, who had turned 17 three weeks before, attended an enlistment rally for the Confederate Army that became a turning point for him and a juncture of anguish for his mother. How did it feel to be him ... and her? He was caught up with the excitement of it all, but she refused to let her oldest son go gently into the environs of what was shaping up to be a nasty war.

“He became so enthused on this occasion that he immediately joined Company I, 24th Ga. Regiment, Wofford’s Brigade, Longstreet’s Corps, Lee’s army,” wrote Gwinnett County historian James C. Flanigan years later. “His mother, hearing of her son’s joining the army, mounted a horse and started after him, but was not able to catch up with the young soldier. He, together with the other volunteers, spent the first night at the Lawrenceville campground, and then moved on to Virginia.” They stopped first at Lynchburg and then were sent to North Carolina for coast guard duties.

Little is known now of Holland’s mother other than that she was fiery enough to make a last ditch effort to pull her oldest son from the clutches of a fate she feared maybe worse than death. Fortunately, Arch Holland lived to tell his war tales and marry three times and have numerous children—and to become a Baptist preacher, a farmer, and a man with a desire to help others help themselves.

But on that hot day, Arch was bound for some kind of glory! The what ifs of an indefinite battlefield loomed far more real in the mind of his mother than in his as he carefully considered the discourse he'd been hearing of late. Just the day before, the Georgia Telegraph had published an editorial reflecting the high tide of confidence in which his fellow Southerners were reveling. Right then Holland was feeling the emotion generated by recruiters and politicians to possess many a young man and he was thinking “If I don’t go now, I might miss the whole war!”

Wrote the Telegraph editor: “Three months of field warfare with the Northern hosts have been followed with results as favorable as any Southern patriot could ask.—Three months of actual campaigning have covered the South with glory, and filled the North with shame and confusion. An enemy which started out ninety days since, confident of overrunning and subjugating the whole country … is now doubtful and despondent—ready to admit that they cannot cope with us on equal terms and extremely doubtful whether they can successfully met us at all. Three months of campaigning end with the Southern blood up at fever heat, and volunteers rushing to our victorious standards with unsurpassed numbers and ardor.”

Ebullient rhetoric had prevailed at the spirited rally Arch attended, and, like others, he was swept up on a forceful wave of exuberant patriotism. He became, then, one of hundreds who couldn’t wait to join the regiment being recruited from White, Banks, Towns, Rabun, Gwinnett, Elbert, Habersham, and Hall counties.

Arch Holland’s left-behind family, on the other hand, worried greatly as Holland launched forth. He left full of the concern of parents Isaiah Samuel and Malissa Bennett Holland (married 31 March 1838 in Forsyth County) and the love of seven siblings ranging from older sister Elizabeth to baby Edward. Born 2 August 1844, Arch was the second child born to the couple and the first in a string of seven boys. One more daughter joined the circle during the war. In the meantime, father Sam—born in Pendleton, SC, in 1824—continued offering his services as a wheelwright erecting wheat/corn mills around Hall County’s Hog Mountain community and mother Malissa, of course, kept caring for the family at home.

As son number one signed on a fateful dotted line, Malissa Holland, who was about five years older than her husband, brimmed with dread, clinging to hope and uttering prayers. Soon a second son followed his older brother to war. Did mom let him go willingly? No story survives of that parting.

Happily, both sons returned and married and raised children for the grandparents to love. Sam Holland died in 1873 and Malissa in February 1896. She was buried at New Bethany Baptist Church on Holiday Road in Hall County’s Oakwood community where son A. H. Holland--about fifteen years down the road from when he went off to war—became pastor.

--Submitted by Arlette Camp Copeland

Sources:

“24th Georgia Volunteer Infantry,” Wikipedia.

Archibald Harrison Holland biographical file, Mercer University Tarver Library Special Collections, Macon, GA.

“Forward to Washington,” The Georgia Telegraph, 23 August 1861.
History of Gwinnett County Georgia 1818-1960, J. C. Flanigan, 1959, page 489.

New Bethany Baptist Church, Hall County, Microfilm Reel 659.