THE MORTON FAMILY.

Incidents thrilling and affecting.

In several previous sketches references have been made to the Misses Morton. Not only they, but the whole family, bore an interesting and heroic part in the scenes of the war. Mr. Edward L. Morton hoisted the first Confederate flag that ever floated on the breeze in DeKalb county. This he did as soon as he heard that Georgia had passed the ordinance of secession. A few miles from Decatur there was a large mill known as Williams’s Mill, situated on Peachtree Creek. At the terminus of the bridge that spanned the creek, near the little hamlet, there grew a tall, graceful Lombardy poplar tree. The flag had been made by Mrs. Morton, Mrs. James Hunter, and other ladies who lived in the neighborhood, and was hoisted by Mr. Morton from the top of the lofty poplar. When the Federals came in they cut down the tree, but another has grown from its roots.

Mr. Morton enlisted with the first company that went from DeKalb, but returned and organized one of his own—Company F, 36th Georgia. From this command he was sent home on account of lung trouble, and placed on special duty. When Hood fell back to Atlanta, Captain Morton joined White’s Scouts, a picked band of men. He was also at one time Morgan’s guide.After Mr. J. W. Kirkpatrick refugeed, his home on Atlanta street was occupied by Captain Morton’s family. Here some stirring incidents occurred. Says one of his daughters: “Pa tried to avoid coming within the Yankee lines, but did several times get caught at home, owing to his extreme weakness. Finally, after the 23d Army Corps was sent back to Tennessee, a raiding party of Federals went out toward Stone Mountain, were fired on a few miles from Decatur, and several killed. They were furious when they got to our house (on their return). Here they found one of ‘White’s Men’ (Pa) ill in bed. They held a court-martial and sentenced him to be hanged as soon as they finished eating dinner. Meanwhile they left a guard in his bed-room. Ma asked the guard to sit in the parlor and leave them alone the short time he had to live. The guard was a kind-hearted man, the house surrounded, the whole detachment eating and feeding their horses on all sides, and Pa was very feeble; so the guard sat in the parlor.” Captain Morton then disguised himself, armed himself, and, passing out a side door, went unchallenged through the crowd of soldiers, by Woodall’s tan-yard and out into the woods. Continues his daughter: “But when the guard thought he had better see the prisoner, it was discovered that he was gone. They talked of burning the house and made many other threats. For a long time we did not know whether he had escaped or died in the woods. * * * No man that served in the Confederate army more truly laid down his life for the cause than did my father. He never recovered from the lung trouble brought on and aggravated by the exposure and hardships he endured between ’61 and ’65.”

Warren Morton went into the army at the tender age of fifteen, as a private in his father’s company. He was in the siege of Vicksburg—was paroled, and re-entered the army in Cumming’s Brigade—and was shot at Kennesaw, near Marietta, while acting as Sergeant-Major on Hood’s retreat. The ball struck the bone of the outer angle of the left eye, cutting away the temple plate, and came out just over the ear, cutting off the upper half of the ear. The torn nerves and arteries have always caused him pain. The bullet, while it did not touch his eye-ball, paralyzed the optic nerve on that side. The hardships endured when a growing boy, the long marches in Kentucky, the starvation rations in Vicksburg, and the horrible wound, ruined his constitution. Yet he has been an energetic man, and is living now on a farm near Newnan.

The young ladies—girls they all were at the time of which I write—were Lizzie, Anna, Kelly, Fannie and Eddie.

On the day that Wheeler’s Cavalry routed the Federal wagon train at Decatur, Lieutenant Farrar of the 63d Ohio Regiment was killed on a meadow near Mrs. Swanton’s residence, just opposite Mrs. Morton’s. There was also another Federal, a mere lad, who was mortally wounded. In some way I discovered the dying boy, and, after carrying him some water, I left him to the care of the nearer neighbors. Mrs. James Hunter, Mrs. Morton and her daughters cared for him as best they could, and sat by him until he died. Miss Lizzie Morton cut from his head a lock of hair and wrote some verses, which Mrs. Swanton kindly sent to his people in Dayton, Ohio. In some way this became known to the Federal officers, and future developments showed that this tender act was much appreciated by them.

On the morning of the 22nd of July, 1864, Mrs. Morton sat on the front steps watching for an officer to whom she might appeal for protection. “Very early General McPherson and his staff rode by. Mrs. Morton ran out and called. General McPherson alighted from his horse, heard her story, bare-headed, with his hat in hand, wrote an order and dispatched it, and then mounting, rode away to his death.” That order was to station a guard at the house, and it was never disregarded as long as the Federal line was near. This the family have always attributed to their caring for the dead, and to the kind order of General McPherson.

On the night of the 21st, Mrs. Morton had been badly frightened by some Federal soldiers coming to her house with the accusation that her young daughter “had given information that had led to the capture of their wagon train.” Threats of burning the residence were made by the Federals on several occasions. The family feel persuaded that Bill Pittman, a faithful negro, a sawyer who had lived many years at Williams’s Mill, prevented these threats from being put into execution.

Soon after the close of the war Captain Morton and his family went to Mississippi. Here he died, and one after another four of the girls, Anna, Kelly, Fanny, and Eddie. Most touchingly Lizzie (Mrs. P. W. Corr) writes: “When my sister and I were little girls in Decatur, we were very fond of private literary entertainments. Anna’s favorite declamation (which always brought down the house) was:

‘They grew in beauty side by side
Around one parent knee;
Their graves are scattered far and wide
O’er mountain, plain, and sea.’

“Anna sleeps alone near an old church in Scott county, Mississippi; Kelly, alone at Pickens; Pa, Fanny and Eddie side by side at Shiloh, in Holmes county.” Anna married Mr. Kearney; Kelly, Mr. W. S. Cole. Mrs. Morton is still living in the home of her daughter Lizzie, who married Rev. P. W. Corr, of Hampton, Florida. Mrs. Corr is very happily married, being fond and proud of her husband, and her children filling her heart with comfort and pleasure. To crown her earthly blessings, her mother has been spared to her in all life’s changing scenes.

Here in her happy Florida home we leave our erstwhile lassie of the war times—now an earnest wife and mother, busy ever with home duties, and also a true helpmeet to her husband in his ministerial and editorial labors.

This sketch, with its incidents, both heroic and pathetic, cannot be more appropriately concluded than by the touching words of Mrs. Corr in a recent letter: “What you say of the ‘empty places’ is full of suggestiveness. I think I never could have borne my losses and still have moved about among the ‘empty places.’ But going always among strangers after every loss, being removed at once from the scene of death and not passing that way again, my sisters live in memory as part of the past, always merry, happy girls, never to grow heart-weary, never to fade. We, wandering among strangers in strange and unfamiliar scenes, have kept the memory of our old Decatur home and friends intact. There are no empty places there for us.

“It seems sweet to me to think that in that home to which we are all traveling, we shall find that those dear ones who have preceded us have carried with them that same bright and precious picture, which, however, is not there a picture of memory, but a reality of which the earthly circle was only a shadow or prophecy; and the only empty places there are those which shall be filled when we get home. Something there is in the friendships, even, of other days, that has never died—something that will live again—a root planted here that there blossoms and fruits eternally. How much more true is this—it must be so—of those who were heart of our hearts, our own loved ones. I doubt not that for one sad longing thought of ‘brother, mother, nephew,’ all that you have loved and lost, they have had many sweet and loving thoughts of you, and joyful anticipations of your coming home ‘Some Sweet Day.’”